I often feel like I'm a Type A person stuck in a Type B's...something. I love a good plan, but I'm not always so great at sticking with it (ahem, blogging...). I recently came across this sort of fabulous new way to plan my fiction writing, though. Obviously, a new method to do something doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, mean I'm going to stick with it, but small portion of me that is Type A revels in this practice.
Behold, the Plot Board:
So, this is totally not my own creation. I mean, the board itself totally is mine, along with the $12 investment, between the tri-fold poster board itself, sticky notes, and retractable sharpy (my love affair with office supplies is eternal), but the concept is not mine. I found this little gem of an idea
here and fell in love with the concept. I like things I can manipulate, and the idea of moving stickies around and rearranging scenes as necessary and being able to visually keep track of plots and subplots appeals to me. I am not usually a kinesthetic or visual learner, but I think tapping into those skills help me see the big picture. I'm a details girl and pulling back to see the full picture is a tough, but this definitely helps. So far so good, so I'll say if you're writing and you have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees, this is worth a try.
Currently I'm moving back and forth between writing scenes, small, intimate things, which I love to write, creating characters and the world they inhabit, and hammering out major plot points. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, and rather than attacking it in a way that would make sense, maybe working on one particular part or piecing together the edges, I have all these little islands of connected pieces that will hopefully flesh themselves out eventually. I'm hoping the plot board will keep me on some sort of path, even if I periodically meander off - to watch Real Housewives.
