I’ve been thinking about a new, maybe novel-length story. And I have a huge list of ideas/scenes that could go into it. My problem is that I have no plan for the sequence in which these ideas would occur, nor can I see a way to figure out what this sequence should be, which clearly needs to be done before putting fingers to keyboard. Does that make sense? If you can understand what I’m getting at, do you have any suggestions?
I think the first problem is that you might not be able to work all of your ideas into one story. They may not tie together in any coherent way.
If you want to open a new Word document and write down the premise of all the ideas, in something of an outline, you can figure out which ones will work to start with. When you have them all sitting in front of you, take a pen and a piece of paper and write down the idea you think should start the novel. So, for instance: CHAPTER 1, BILLY GOES TO SEA. Now, if you know what a spider diagram is, draw a line from chapter one and put any ideas for chapter two into another box to the left. Draw another line to the right, and do the same for chapter three. Follow this progression until you have all your ideas charted on the diagram. Now you have an idea where to start.
I can't think of anything more than that, OX.
Sam, your first paragraph made sense. From there on, not so much; a spider diagram doesn’t help with sequencing.
Thanks anyway.
Scrivener and yWriter ( yWriter5 - Free writing software designed by an author, not a salesman ) have a main writing area and sidebars, card index systems, where you can write and file plot-lines, character profiles and the like; other means by which you can write in blocks and join up later - These programs are either cheap or free so may be a good starter for working with dedicated novel writing programs.
A man in possession of a wooden spoon must be in want of a pot to stir.
It makes one wonder how the likes of Dickens, Austen and Twain ever managed.working with dedicated novel writing programs.
What I do for my story - even though it's non-fiction but I do it for writing excersize anyway - is I have a document in 'My Documents' named 'cut&pastes.' These are snippets that came to me during the course of the small amount of research I've already done. Some is just hypothetical, theoretical, whatever. It can be one sentence or 6 paragraphs (just did one yesterday) and since they don't yet fit on the end of what I've already written as far as the cohesive part of the story, I keep them in 'cut&pastes'.
In the end, if they don't fit in, I can just delete it. If they do, I can just cut & paste & not worry about coming up with the right passage & trying to remember the perfect sentence/paragraph idea I had in the beginning.
First this one story...
Instead you should be wondering what these artists might have accomplished if they had had today's tools at their disposal.Originally Posted by The Backward OX
Except for Clemens. That SOB didn't need tools. He only needed time to let his natural talent shine.
Last edited by old man's dreams; 10-05-2011 at 12:29 AM.
"Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with his experience."
As for novel plotting/sequencing: sticky notes on a cork board can be helpful, as can a spreadsheet. Novels are multidimensional. It's the -very- rare novelist that can hold such a matrix in their head and just bang it out in a stream. If you are one of those, God bless you and best of luck!
As for the rest of us: we need crutches, matrices, notes, Novel Writing Software (yuck!), or some other organizational form.
Pick one that works well for you and go with it!
"Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with his experience."
I find it most helpful when I have a character for the ideas. If I were you I would make up a character based around the ideas and then it should start to sequence more easily. Having ideas of scenes is great, but if you have no character then what are these scenes about?
I think we're in different lifeboats. I never said I didn't have a character. What I said was I wasn't sure if he should pull on his boots first or put on his hat first.
xO, you know what I use, and how I use it. It's always worked for non-fiction and now that I'm working on long-form fiction it's working just as well.
Phooey. Or, more politely, gz, you'll have to forgive an old man his memory lapses. I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.
What if you wrote something akin to a childs story version of it, no more than say a thousand words, on a single document, with each idea a different color and simplified to about a paragraph or three each. You could either cut and paste then, or print out, scissor and arrange it by hand in a long column on the desk or bed. Or make each idea on one page, make several copies and staple the pages together in various ways.
'The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.'
David Foster Wallace
A lot of people use index cards for this, I find. That never much worked for me. Normally, as early in the process as possible, I make a document in the novel's folder that I call "Chapter Ideas". Then, I just jot down all my ideas for scenes and chapters there with as much detail as I can, in no particular order. Sometimes I go back to this file for ideas, but normally its the act of writing them down that helps them stick in my brain. Now, while I'm writing the scenes that I do know come first, I can say to myself, "Y'know, that one idea would work really well after/before this." It's a slow jigsaw-puzzle process, for me.
These are similar, and I like them.
How was that again?
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