Today I sorted out all my planning, and decided hey why not create a post on it.
Not everyone plans when writing a story. Every author differ's. Some do intense research and planning, to the point of basically planning it word to word, some author's will plan just the storyline and the characters, but other's will just write the book of the top of their head. It's about finding the way you as an author work.
Someone once said to me: you don't write the book, the book will write itself. My piece of advice to you is: if you have an idea, include it and work your story around it, it may change the story but it will be for the better.
So how do I plan?
Well I use an assortment of combined methods. As a person I am quite organised, therefore my planning has ended up obsessibly organised.
One of my favourite things is stationary, so I love a reason to use it all, but I currently don't have that much.
This weekend I purchased an expandable file folder, with 14 compartments, 13 of which are labelled, this is where I will be keeping all my planning.
What I labelled the compartments:
This compartment holds all my plan for my story, including a spider diagram of what I want to happen in the story. A timeline of events, which is basically five pieces of paper taped together with post-it notes with notes on (I use post-it notes a lot because it gives me the ability to move or remove things, I highly recommended using them), my draft synopsis which I give to people who want to know what I'm writing about and most importantly my notebook of ideas.
I'm currently working on this section, right now it holds a piece of paper with post-it notes which is the outlined plan of what I want to happen. I will soon be working on writing what I want to achieve per post-it note, I'm hoping to do half a page per post-it note.
Same as Part 1 Plan
Same as Part 1 Plan
I have four main characters in my story which will feature in this section. In this section holds my Character profile plans, which tells me almost everything I need to know about my character (I will make a post about this later). Also in this section holds my character folder type thing, which is three pieces of paper taped together, this holds a picture of the character (I work better with visual images when it comes to describing a place or person) and also basic facts such as favorite colour, band etc... and also family pictures. I have only done 1 of these so far and is very annoying.
All my other semi-main characters will feature in this section. They will have mini-profiles which will outline only the information needed for the characters. This section will also hold a list of characters, so I know who's who.
Occassionally I get slightly bored of writing in chronilogical order or I get a sudden bit of inspiration for a random part of my story, this will hold them.
My story features drug-taking, grieving and also some mental illnesses, none of which I have personally done or had, so I need to research what for example the symptoms of taking a drug is, this will hold notes on that kind of thing.
I currently have no idea of where my story takes place, but this sections hold descriptions of the town I want, houses, streets or other places featured in the story.
The Notes section currently only holds lyric's which have a significant value towards my story, which I hope to one day share, if my work becomes published. I will add other stuff in this section, for example cover design ideas.
Sometimes I use a whiteboard and write down ten-twenty main plot ideas before writing, sometimes I use no plan at all.
So as you can see me and Alex, alone have quite a different planning style, it's all about how you work.
Check out:
Wannabe A Writer by Jane Wenham-Jones, this book is an amazing read for aspiring writers and gave me so much knowledge on how to write and what life as a writer is like.
No comments:
Post a Comment