Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Out of Nowhere

Yesterday, a character announced herself in my head.  Complete with a basic backstory and a location (at least for the first bit of the story).  And this morning, her friend showed up. Complete with a picture of what she looks like. And some story showed up in amongst all the visitors.

What's possibly even better is that I have a new idea about how to organize my notes and things so I can do the planning I need without having to completely follow someone else's system.  I've had the idea for a while that one of those classification folders you can get from office supply stores would be really useful for story planning.  I'm feeling as if it will be easier to flip through than a binder and will let me see things in different sections almost simultaneously.  As I put the system together, I'll make notes and share how it's going.


Right now, I'm imagining that the various sections will be for general story notes, outlines & plans, setting notes, characters,and images.  That leaves one section open for something.  I'll see if I need it as I go along.  Maybe I will have that part for a story journal instead of keeping that as a separate book.

I'm just in the beginning stages of planning this novel (hoping to have it nicely planned for NaNoWriMo), so I don't really have anything done yet.  To figure out how I'm going to proceed, I've started by asking myself what has worked for me in the past when I've done big bursts of novel writing.  This is what I have so far:

  • Story incline
  • 20 Things list (20 things that will happen at some point)
  • Daily pre-writing notes to plan what I'm going to write that day
  • Index cards & sticky notes for short notes that can be moved from page to page as plans change
I am not sure if this is the way to go.  I'm not sure beginning plans for a new novel when I've never completed any I've started is the thing to do.  But I feel really pulled in this direction, so I'm going to stop second guessing myself and go with it!  I'll keep you posted.

1 comment:

Jo said...

Oooo this is exciting!! Its fascinating finding out how you develop your ideas and organise your thoughts
Enjoying sharing this journey with you.
Hugs xxx

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