A number of years ago I took a class at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, taught by Mary Carroll Moore. The title was “How to Plan, Develop, and Write a Book” and the goal was to do that in six months. Moore provided a wealth of information and introduced me to the concept of storyboarding.
Storyboarding chapters is a tool to create logical flow after you have determined what your book is about, and why you are writing it. It can be used in support of a plot outline, but I tend to use it in place of an outline for my mystery thrillers. That being said, many genres of books would be virtually impossible to write without an outline.
For example, I just finished reading Uprising by Dean Urdahl. It is a novel set in Minnesota in 1862 during the Civil War, and is centered on the Sioux Uprising. Urdahl partners fictional characters and events with historical facts. It is organized, wonderfully written, and must have required detailed outlining.
To create a storyboard, take a sheet of paper and draw twelve boxes–three rows of four, or four rows of three. In the first box, write down the question the book asks. In the last box, write the answer to that question. The other boxes are the plot points–the tools you are using–that lead to the eventual answer at the end. In fiction, particularly in the mystery genre, the author uses the points to build suspense until the final crisis, or climax, near the end of the book.
I spoke to a group of fourth graders on writing and brought along a white board with twelve blank boxes to use at the end of my talk. After I explained how we could use a storyboard to write a book together, ideas flowed from those young minds, and their hands shot up. Within minutes, they had a main character–a rabbit–and created a rather wild tale of a his adventures in Alaska. It was not only fun for them, but also served as a good visual illustration of a way to map out a book.
Have any of you ever used a storyboard when planning your book? What other tools have you used? I’d love to hear about them.
Christine Husom is the author of Murder in Winnebago County, Buried in Wolf Lake, and An Altar by the River.
I have used pieces of paper and moved them around on a table. Each piece had an activity or a character turning point on it.
I make lists on the computer and drag entries around.
I only used a similar device once, and that was for Light Bringer. I had so many different characters and so many different story lines that I couldn’t see how it all fit together. So I wrote each scene on an index card, and kept shuffling them around until I found the most logical sequence. When I write from a single character’s POV, I don’t need to put the puzzle pieces together like that, but I do keep a running timeline so I can keep track of where I’ve been. Turns out it’s a good thing. It’s been so long since I worked on my WIP, if I didn’t have that outline-after-the-fact, I’d have no idea what to do when I get back to the book.
Thanks for sharing those tools. It’s fun to hear how other authors work. For one of my books, I envisioned and wrote different scenes, completely out of context.. Then I had to plunk them in where they fit as I went along. It kept me on my toes!
I have been playing around with the idea of storyboarding only of late. The work I am concentrating on at present has definite chapter headings thus storyboarding can work.
That’s great, Rod. It’s fun to try different tools.