Outlines have I abandoned
I am not an outliner, to be fair – I TRY to outline, but instead my outlines hit a wall and explode. I’ve always been this way, in fact in college I used to write the paper first so that I would have an outline to turn in! (Completely backwards I know.) I’ve always considered my inability to outline a character flaw. Well that’s an exaggeration but I’ve always wondered why I couldn’t do this very simple thing because most people seem to think outlining is a very simple thing.
So imagine my surprise when I was listening to iTune’s Meet the Author podcast with Melissa de la Cruz and Ally Carter and Ally Carter started talking about storyboarding. My degree was in communication, I remembered the Advertising majors talking about storyboarding but since I have absolutely no artistic tendencies, I didn’t really see how that applied to storytelling. However, listening to Ally Carter – I was intrigued, storyboarding for writing, it all started to make perfect sense!
My stories always start with an image, sometimes it comes to me when I’m dreaming, sometimes it’s when I’m wide awake - all of a sudden I’m seeing something completely different than what’s there. Other images start popping up, so the thing that makes my mind horrible for outlining makes it perfect for storyboarding. When I’m trying to write an outline, I’ll hit a blank spot in the story, something I haven’t flushed out yet or I’ll hit spots that are crystal clear in my head but I don’t know where they fit in yet and there’s no room for that in an outline. Storyboarding is perfect for that!
I promptly went out and bought a magnetized dry erase board and a myriad of multicolor post it notes. (That would be that Type A personality coming through.) I had my whole story mapped out in about 20 minutes, I was able to identify quickly where things were really flushed out, where I need work, and where I have this little fragment that needs to find its place. Instead of feeling confused and frustrated the way I do when I outline, I felt energized and ready to write.
Thank goodness for iTune Meet the Author podcast AND Ally Carter!
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