I'm trying something new, in regards to outlining the Imperial Story. I've been writing bits and pieces of scenes in my daily writing practice, sometimes inspired by that day's prompt, sometimes continuing the scene from the day before, sometimes I can't get them out of my head. Timeline-wise, these scenes run from the very beginning to the beginning of the end. To try and organize what I've already written, I'm writing out each scene on index cards.
Each card has the basic details of the scene: who's in it, where it takes place, what's going on, who's telling the story. I'm finding that, by writing out these skeleton versions, I'm writing a lot about the middle of the story - Andros discovering his identity, the creation of Briyant and Anitra's Underground. I've also written a lot more than I thought I had; I have cards for 20 scenes and I'm not finished going over everything I have on paper. And to my surprise, some of it, down to the individual lines, is work I'm really proud of.
My idea is to lay all these cards out, group them together by events, and see what I have. What scenes have to come first in order for the later ones to make sense? What scenes are missing from what I've already written? What I'm looking to find is the overall arch of the story and start planning it from start to finish. And, seeing how little I've been wanting to write the actual beginning of the story, maybe that means I'm starting in the wrong place. Writing books recommend starting in the thick of things, so perhaps that's advice I'll take.
I don't know if this is a project to tackle in my daily writing practice and then type up later, or if I devote a couple days a week to it. I do know that I need a structure of some kind before I get anywhere. With my last drafted novel, I used a gigantic mind map to plot out scenes, but for some reason, that doesn't seem to be working with this one.
Has anyone used index cards to help with plotting before? If so, what was your experience? Right now, I'm just entralled to get to spend hours rereading what I've written, wincing at the cliches, but finding the gems too. I'm calling this an "experiment" - we'll see if it creates anything special.
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I haven't used index cards quite like that, but I have used index cards to write basic ideas for stories that I don't have time to write because I'm (usually) writing something else. I only did that from like 1997-1998 or so...seeing the cards today are fascinating.
ReplyDeleteWhat I did with Changes/The Charade/(story that needs a better title) was actually write scenes long before I was ready to get to them, and would organize them, in order, in a folder. The damn folder for Changes is almost as big as the story itself. This is also where I kept clippings or photos of houses I used for settings, road maps of settings I couldn't easily get back to (upstate NY for Julia's house), and pictures of people who resembled my characters, as well as any research I would have done into the era (since I have that habit of writing eras I wasn't born in, or my parents/grandparents). I write drafts of letters prominent in the story (from one character to another) or speeches, etc.
I have a bad habit of writing scenes in my head and letting them sit there in no tangible form for years, if they don't make it to the folder.
Did you ever think about going back and seeing if any of those ideas are still viable? That, to me, is interesting in and of itself. That's how I have this crazy beast of the Imperial Story.
ReplyDeleteThat folder idea is actually really fascinating - I wish I'd thought to do something like that! I have a folder with all the snippets from And You Tell Me I Am Home, mostly the pieces I'd written at work and a few pictures of David Cook, who I based Zeke's appearance on. And, I'll admit it, because I think he's hot, but that's neither here nor there.
You know me. I've been writing scenes in my head since we were in middle school. Probably younger than that. Getting them on paper is so much harder.