You are full of wonderful ideas. When you first think of them, they're the best idea you've ever had. They're so good, you start planning what you're going to buy with all the money you're going to earn when your book becomes a best seller and turns into an award winning movie. Personally, I'm planning on a three bedroom cottage at the lake with a sun room surrounded by a flower garden.
Unfortunately, these ideas can suddenly become very overwhelming. Ideas will pop out at you everyday and in the most random of scenarios. My most recent favorite was while I was driving home from work and passed by a fire hydrant. It was the first time I had noticed the hydrant in the 9 years I've worked at my job, and suddenly my mind was filled with ideas of ghosts moving objects and a woman obsessed with shoes. Please don't ask.. that's just the way my brain works.
Sadly, I'm not able to churn out one book after another based on my weird ideas, so I have set up a method to help me. I purchased a pack of multi-colored index cards and a index card holder. Each color is related to something in the book. In my case:
Green: Characters
Orange: Plot Twist
Yellow: Setting
White: Plot
Red: Dress Style
You get the picture. It's also filed by sci-fi, fantasy, historical, etc.. Whenever I get stuck and need something, I'll go to my cards and pull something out. This ensures that I keep my weird and random ideas for a future use and won't forget them.
That was a lot of words for one little idea, wasn't it? At heart, I am forever a teller of stories..
I love the color coordination! I use the same thing to organize, but for my different stories. I've never had the ability to come up with ideas like that - little snippets. When I get hit with an idea, it's a full blown thing that I have to catch the idea before it gets away.
ReplyDeleteI honestly believe my brain is wired just to throw random snippets at me and then make me work for the rest of the story! :D
DeleteWhen you put it that way, I think I'm fairly similar. I get the moment that the MC's meet (since I usually write romance), but then I have to figure out why it's important. That's why writing's considered work, right?
DeleteI love this idea. I'm an organizational freak so I had to restrain the urge to run to Staples.
ReplyDeleteI try to keep my notes in a notebook, but I think the idea of putting my plot points etc on cards and grabbing them is a good one. Wonder if you could write a full novel with random cards.
I sense a challenge!
lol! I started off with a notebook, but my notebook turned into three, and was an organizational nightmare to me.. So now I use a little notebook to write down snippets and then transfer it over to my cards.
DeleteThat does sound like fun! Unfortunately, I have everything from historical to sci-fi to unicorns so... that would make for an interesting and very disturbing book.