It’s 3 AM and my mind is elsewhere. After just watching Star Wars IV, I have found myself thinking about what a great side story would be. As I ponder the events behind the scenes of Luke Skywalker’s eventual secret apprentice, I also wonder how many people don’t know where to start writing. Am I a master wordsmith? Do I forge a scene with only the greatest of words? Hardly. In fact, I am just like most who have taken up writing: A hobbyist. Does that mean you can’t be organized? No! In fact organization is key to being able to continue on with your writing. Trust me, I’ve tried many kinds of writing and thus far organized is the best. Why? Well I’m glad you asked!
If you travel back through the posts on this blog you will find some articles, some posts and some works of short fiction or as I penned it, episodic fiction. I hated the idea of knowing where my story was going to end up, so the episodic content was fantastic for keeping me entertained as a writer. This kind of writing is very enjoyable but the issue is without knowing where you’re going, you simply cannot tie it all together.
For Example: In some of the best books, there is a lot of foreshadowing. This makes for even more realistic worlds and also it makes you think back to earlier times in that same world. This makes the story more engaging and through clever uses, very potent. For example if you’ve read the Harry Potter series (If you haven’t, shame on you) then the entire sequence of events involving Hermoine and her Time Turner pendant is the greatest and most fun example. The events were set up with certain things in mind, and then later on relived through the other view point. JK Rowling is a fantastic author and the Harry Potter series is a fantastic example for any budding writer, no matter what genre you write for.
Now, how did JK Rowling plan that out? There is a good question. I’ve been searching online for answers and I swear that will be the only question I ask her when I meet her… eventually. But I have seen one of her cryptic note sheets for Order of the Phoenix and what I have gathered was her penmanship was terrible for that page, and she is also very organized. She did set herself time goals as this was a later book, but by this time she was already experienced. I’m putting this out there because it may help one of you out there get organized. What I really want to see is how she organized straight from “Who is Harry Potter” to Philosopher’s Stone publication.
That aside, I really believe her writing to be a great tool for any budding writer. But we’re not here to talk about how she managed to organize herself. You still have to get organized! Even when I did my episodic fiction, I had an idea of what was going to happen at least in the next episode. I have managed to write hundreds of pages, I’ve even written seven chapters of a story I’ll never finish, but the hardest part has been completing a single novel. It’s no simple task. Even finishing the planning phase weeds out many wannabe writers.
To start, I decided I needed to figure out how I could organize and what made sense to me. I searched for timeline creators online and eventually broke down and made my own excel timeline with character sheet. It’s not pretty, but I’ll be damned if it hasn’t done well in organizing my thoughts. As with all the information here, these are just tools. This may work for you, this may not. But what I hope these do is give you an excellent idea or inspire you to your own crazy “Rowling-style” sheet. Also, I would seriously recommend even using another spreadsheet on there to make family trees. It may seem ridiculous at first but the more you know about your world, even if it seems irrelevant at the time, the more control and the richer your story becomes.
Plot and Character Template (This is a very rough template, its in Excel!)
The hard part! This is important. SCOPE, SCOPE, SCOPE! Do not get lost in the side stories and there will be plenty. Try and limit yourself to going too far off topic. I have the most trouble in this area. I have been writing a story and get caught up in someone’s back story that suddenly I am writing a story within a story. “Inception-ing” my own story doesn’t keep me productive. Yes, if I eventually ever make it back to my main story it will be very story rich, but if something seems more interesting it is hard to go back to the main idea. For families go back only one level or two farther than you have to, or else you could draw up the very lineage of all of your families. Not that all that information wouldn’t come in handy, but it will steal your attention from the main idea.
Plot focus first. As you sit down decide who your main character is, what their goal is and plot their path. Do the following for every plot point: Push the story forward, ensure relevance, add any new characters into the tracker, feel free to add any cities or items into the tracker as well. Any relevant information should be recorded and put forward.
Okay, well for now that is where I am up to. As I continue to write I will post some progress on here and feel free to give me feedback or let me know if you’re using the template. If you make any additions to it let me know and please do me a favour and point people back to this website! I could use all the traffic I can get! I’ll write again soon!