This sounds like a great, condensed way of using notecards for scenes! I’m at this stage now (technically supposed to start tomorrow), and will be starting my scene cards to get me from one Super Bowl commercial to the next- I know I’ll be looking back at your post throughout the process, so THANK YOU!
By coincidence, I did a similar thing with my WIP yesterday! It helped me figure out that I needed to cut this one particular character, who was (or seemed to be) important for the villain's motive but who wasn't doing diddly-squat in the novel himself. I adjusted and tweaked and rearranged my note cards and realized that, no, this character was NOT absolutely vital. Bye-bye, Mr. Extra Character.
Oh, I'll bet that felt both awful (bye bye character), but wonderful, too! So glad you did your scene cards and sorted this out. It just works so well!
Edited to saySuch a great post! I used to have a set of index cards for each book (it's how I plot, can't imagine not having cards in some form). Now I do use Scrivener - it's really easy to switch from the Document view to the Corkboard view and all your scenes are there as virtual cards, you don't have to create a separate set of cards. I start plotting in the Corkboard view then switch to Document when I'm ready to start writing and go back to Corkboard when I want to look at the structure. I constantly move things around, as I write out of order. You can also use labels to color code plot threads or characters or whatever you want. I can definitely understand wanting to have tangible cards to look at but for those wanting a virtual option it's very doable (for me the cards were always getting knocked out of order when my cats walked on them and that was before I had a kid :-).
What a great post, Jessica. Thanks so much!
Oh you're welcome! And thank you for reading 🥰
Thank you for your advice! I'm definitely going to be using note cards to look at my story structure and pacing
Good luck!
Some excellent points in here. I love the use of Note Cards.
Thank you! Glad you liked it!
Incredibly insightful. Thank you. I will definitely be doing this
So glad it's helpful!
This sounds like a great, condensed way of using notecards for scenes! I’m at this stage now (technically supposed to start tomorrow), and will be starting my scene cards to get me from one Super Bowl commercial to the next- I know I’ll be looking back at your post throughout the process, so THANK YOU!
So glad it was helpful!
Excellent advice. I will try it!
I hope you find it helpful!
Great post!
Thanks Lori!
I am so glad to have met you. I still can't believe you are the only one, out of seven authors at the event, with a Substack haha.
This article clearly lays out the how, what, and why of scene cards. Thanks so much.
I use magnetic cards on a large whiteboard. Could I use a computer application? Probably. But I like the tactile freedom this method offers.
Oh that's a super cool idea! Where do you get the magnetic cards from? If you have a photo I'd love to see it, but no pressure.
By coincidence, I did a similar thing with my WIP yesterday! It helped me figure out that I needed to cut this one particular character, who was (or seemed to be) important for the villain's motive but who wasn't doing diddly-squat in the novel himself. I adjusted and tweaked and rearranged my note cards and realized that, no, this character was NOT absolutely vital. Bye-bye, Mr. Extra Character.
Oh, I'll bet that felt both awful (bye bye character), but wonderful, too! So glad you did your scene cards and sorted this out. It just works so well!
Edited to saySuch a great post! I used to have a set of index cards for each book (it's how I plot, can't imagine not having cards in some form). Now I do use Scrivener - it's really easy to switch from the Document view to the Corkboard view and all your scenes are there as virtual cards, you don't have to create a separate set of cards. I start plotting in the Corkboard view then switch to Document when I'm ready to start writing and go back to Corkboard when I want to look at the structure. I constantly move things around, as I write out of order. You can also use labels to color code plot threads or characters or whatever you want. I can definitely understand wanting to have tangible cards to look at but for those wanting a virtual option it's very doable (for me the cards were always getting knocked out of order when my cats walked on them and that was before I had a kid :-).
I thought of you when I mentioned the Scrivener part! 🥰
I thought maybe you were! I actually started using Scrivener because of the corkboard.