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Index Cards and Writing Projects
pooks | Jan 18 2006
I'm a writer. I also teach writing classes. It's very common in screenwriting to "storyboard" with index cards. There are various methods, but recently I picked up Blake Snyder's book, SAVE THE CAT, in which he gives a very specific method of developing an idea and outlining that intrigued me, and I'm in the process of using it with my current project. I've been blogging a little about it, and have two entries (with pics) about ways of organizing the index cards. A HPDA could work, actually, as something you carry with you, but to have the cards displayed on a wall or by some other method is important. Anyway, I thought I'd post links to the entries that discuss (with pics) the index cards. If anyone here is writing books or scripts, you might find it interesting. I don't explain much about Snyder's process -- you'd have to read his book for that. I just talk about how to physically deal with the cards: http://guiltyofbeing.blogspot.com/2006/01/still-saving-cat.html http://guiltyofbeing.blogspot.com/2006/01/cat-saving.html I think it's interesting that even as more and more software programs are coming out to help in the writing of screenplays, many people are going retro with index cards. 4 Comments
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 If you understand certain things...Submitted by pooks on January 21, 2006 - 6:20pm.
If you understand certain things about structure, and have an idea about the length of the project -- You can use the cards to display a basic plot. Have one card for each scene, and if you don't know what's going to happen, leave the cards blank. You quickly see what you have and what you don't have. You can display a row (or several rows, whatever method you choose) of blank cards. You can think, "I know what how I want them to meet," and write a few words on that card early in the line, and, "I know how I want it to end," perhaps, and write that on the last card. You can come up with, "It might be interesting if," and write it, and put it in the area of the story you think it might happen (early in the story -- in the middle -- near the end) and keep putting things up until you begin to see a story shape up. You can rearrange easily. Maybe what you thought was going to happen in the middle, you suddenly realize would make a really cool opening. What happens if you move it to the front? Is there any way to make that work? And keep rearranging, and blowing your story open, or putting it back the way you had it -- just keep shuffling adding, removing scenes that you decide don't work -- and leave blank cards to indicate holes in the story. You don't know what's going there yet, you just know SOMETHING needs to happen in the middle. Index cards are a very fluid way of working with a large story, whether it's a novel or a screenplay. What I (and others) have been working with is a method Blake Snyder writes about in SAVE THE CAT. That's what I've discussed and illustrated in several posts on my site. Hopefully somebody will find it helpful. » POSTED IN:
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