Taking inspiration and much needed (and generously given) assistance from Jade Park, I decided to work on plotting my magnum opus. I studied several books, including Martha Alderson’s Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple, Nancy Kress’s Beginnings, Middles, and Ends. Then I pulled out a stack of large newsprint, and started plotting.
I worried at first it might be awkward using this gigantic piece of paper. On the contrary, the new format was liberating, and the ball-point slid along the newsprint deliciously. I potted one of my character arcs. I made a list of scenes. I scribbled down notes. Now I’m contemplating writing a whole short story on a sheet. It’s simply fantastic, because it doesn’t feel like work, it feels like play. I never realized how constricting a computer screen could feel, or how limiting a keyboard is. With a keyboard, you can only type letters. Pen in hand, you can make all kinds of marks.
isn’t it just AMAZING? when a novel writing friend of mine and I were stuck at certain points in our novels (I, in the middle…and she, ahem, at the END!) we really did spend an afternoon together with BIG ASS pieces of paper and plotted out our novels!
It really did feel like craft class (haha–double entendre: craft as in scissors and pens and art…craft as in the honing of one’s writing). Tons of fun to go into another mode.