When I wrote my first manuscript, I just sat down and wrote. Since then, however, it’s been more difficult. I thought I could write by the seat-of-my-pants, but I can’t. Time after time, things didn’t work out. Details get confused or lost, and then I realize I have no idea where the plot is going.
Over the years I continued to write for the local paper, but my novel stalled. Too many months later, I finally figured it out why I could write articles but not my novel – outlines. I never write an article without first outlining my plan. It helps me organize my thoughts and find information gaps. It’s successfully helped me compose over 250 articles. So, why wasn’t I outlining my novel?
After two unsuccessful attempts at a particular manuscript (and roughly 90,000 discarded words), I decided to outline the novel. I had to modify it a bit from my normal outline (I obviously couldn’t squeeze it onto one page), but I needed something on paper to help my organize and find gaps.
I used a notebook and dedicated one page to each chapter. Each page listed the following information:
– Chapter POV
– Time/Day of the scene
– Goal of the scene
– Character’s motivation
– Conflict
– Scene outline
Author Deb Raney created a story board for her novel, Over the Waters. Here’s what she said about it:
For Over the Waters, set in Haiti, I made a poster on regular poster board. Each morning I’d prop the poster up on my desk, then put it away when I was finished writing for the day (that kept it from becoming “invisible” to me after a while, and was a nice transition into my writing time each day: when the poster went up, it was time to write!)
Raney used a different technique for Above All Things:
For Above All Things I created my idea board using Scrivener software. I then made a screenshot that became my desktop image––a virtual bulletin board:
Most recently, I’ve used a screensaver folder that continually scrolls images from my setting, photos of my characters, my character’s home interiors and automobiles, anything that helps me stay “in the zone” once I start writing.
These are just a few examples of how to visualize your story. What about you – what are your techniques?
[…] Once you have an idea of where everyone came from, you need to know where they’re going. There’s no better way to do that than to lay out the plot. Now I don’t want to scare you, but that can mean … outlining. Don’t freak out! Take a second to find out the benefits of outlining here – Vizualize the Story. […]