Cherry Adair's Post-It method.
Step One. Open up a word document and brain dump ALL you know about your story. If it is a mystery and you know you'll have 3 clues as most do. Type clue clue clue payoff. That simple.
Step Two. Raid your friendly neighborhood office supply store for Post-its in ever color you can imagine, and a large poster board. The different colors correspond to different elements. Greens are location, Orange is danger/humor/inspy element, Purple & lavendar are your villian, magenta is love scenes, yellows are secondary characters, dark pink and light pink are your heroine, blue and light blue your hero, and white is the point of every scene. Dark Purple/blue/pink is POV the scene will be in. Lights are backstory.
Step Three. Make a grid on the poster board where each box represents a chapter.
Step Four. Think about the overall flow of your story. start with one element at a time (Cherry reccomends the green, orange, magenta, purples, yellow, blues, pinks, white progression). Cut out and attach bit you know about your story to the post-its and start filling out your grid.
Step Five. Stand back. Is your story frontloaded with backstory? Will 3 clues be enough?
Step Six. Because you know the point of every scene (the white post-its) it is easy to write a synopsis at this point - says Cherry who hates them too. Describe your characters and the point you are getting at.
Step Seven. Write the book. (I've removed the expletives and cute accent )
1 comment:
Hey, I like the sound of this method...but do ya reckon it's cuz I luv playing with office supplies??? hehehe
I might try this, and no, I don't need to go shopping. I have every shade of sticky-post-it-note you can think of already. LOL
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