Organizing "The Great American Novel" :)
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| Sat, 07-24-2004 - 2:48pm |
I'm brand new to this board and have found posts very useful. However, so far, I haven't come across any discussions about organizing one's work. What I'm asking may be too much for a single post, but here goes...
First, I have, and am gathering, lots of details and information which may find their way into my novel, but I'm having a hard time organizing it all. For example, I have snippets of overheard conversations, interesting names of people and places, idiomatic phrases, physical descriptions of people, character profiles, and small incidents or vignettes that I'd like to include in the novel which would enrich the story or help explain a character. But I have no idea how to organize it all! Right now, I'm just scribbling things here and there, and stuffing bits of paper into what's becoming a tubby little folder. I'm looking for a way to categorize all this "stuff" and use it to build my story as well keep it logical and organized. I also need a way to flag things that need further research.
Second, some of my characters have come together quite nicely. I know what they look like and how to describe them. These tend to be characters that I'm modeling after people I know. Some of them however, I have trouble picturing what they look like. I know how they act, but I can't visualize them in my head. How do you handle this? I've thought about looking through magazines and catalogs to find pictures of people that look as if they'd fit my character. The same goes for locations: houses, restaurants, offices, even neighborhoods.
I'd appreciate hearing from those of you with more experience than I (which is most of the universe) about how you go about organizing your work.
Thanks!
Pat
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Hi, Pat.
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Welcome, Pat!
Whew!
JudyB
Hi, Pat! Welcome to the board!
I consider myself fairly well-organized. Since I do everything electronically, I'm a big fan of making lots and lots of folders. :-) For my serials, I have a document called "Cast" and I list every character, their traits, what they look like, behaviors, etc. I list them with
Besides the novel itself, I have three related files. One describes the characters in greater depth than the story itself does. This is especially helpful because all but two or three of the characters aren't exactly like they were in real life, so it's good to have it written down how the characters are. If my characters were totally made up, this would be an absolute necessity.
Another takes notes on things I know about the real story, so I might incorporate them into the novel. Ie, what really happened at the mine back in the 1980s. Gossip people in the town have told me about the family. A little note about a boy dieing recently in a traffic accident. He was the son of the real-life versions of two of my characters, and the nephew and grandson of the real-life versions of some other characters. If I didn't have all this real life, truth is stranger than fiction stuff to keep track of, I'm sure I'd use this folder for the things you list.
My third file has a general synopsis of the story, including the beginning, the facts as I know them, and how I expect this story to end (total fiction.) I think getting this down in the synopsis is very important, because I know that's where I have to move this story - everything else must eventually lead to that conclusion.
As for faces on the characters, when I first started I was either visualizing the real people or people I knew in some other context, like friends from high school, college and my earlier career. But then I went with my actor-husband and actor-BIL to an actor's event and to ease the boredom, I started looking around and "casting" people in the room for my major parts. I am pretty sure I cast two brothers who looked more the part than the guys I was imagining for my main characters (also brothers) and the older man they left with would have been OK as their dad, or as one of the other characters. So, I'm not putting faces on my characters until the book is written and sold and made into a movie, LOL!
Hope that helps
Ellen
Edited 7/26/2004 1:10 pm ET ET by leadertostars