I realized if I truly desired to master the arts of writing and storytelling, I needed invest more time and energy planning before writing. These are the eight steps I now take before writing to visualize scenes.
When my research for my novel-in-progress required hiking in freezing weather, taking notes the traditional way didn’t work well. Here’s a couple of ideas of how to use technology for even better results.
I experimented with a number of plot development tools and techniques, but none of them worked well for me. So I created my own using a spreadsheet. I call it Scenes in Swimlanes.
Taglines or catch phrases make it easy for readers to remember a character. When they are done right, even years later, we recall the character with clarity.
When I find myself sitting staring at the display, or pressing the backspace key in equal proportion to other keys, I’ve often found my block is due to the lack of clarity in the scene I am attempting to describe – or, sometimes it’s because my gut is telling me my approach to the scene isn’t right.