My upstairs neighbor is going to UCLA film school. Her specialty: scriptwriting. I visited her on New Years–I like to do that. I’m that kind of neighbor. It’s kind of a tradition. I brought a cake.
My neighbor–let’s call her Siouxsie–is one of those girls that makes you feel insecure around her aura of coolness. Souxsie had knee high stockings but I wasn’t quite sure if this was a look or a costume. Her husband–Max–wore a zoot suit and a turban. He’s a documentary filmmaker with one of those curly moustaches. They are both transplants from San Francisco. Get my drift? Then I’ll spell it out for you: C-O-O-L.
Moustache
Siouxsie started telling me about all the stuff she was learning from school. “Each teacher has a special method and makes you learn it,” she said. “Some of it is useful, some of it not.” I thought this was cool. Nobody ever made me learn their method. I just kind of made things up as I went along.
Her most current teacher—a man who sells his film scripts for close to a million bucks and finishes a project once every three years–keeps track of all the scenes on index cards, with a little bracket attached to each. There’s a brief synopsis of the scene on the front. And, on the index cards, a little clip attached that holds additional notes. The little squares were laid out like tarot cards on a round table that sat in the middle of the living room: a shrine to creativity.
Tarot
The genius of the system became immediately apparent: you can move the cards around, swapping scenes; it is easy to visualize the sweep of the plot and understand the ebb and flow; the little clips allow extra information without becoming overwhelming. You can still focus on the key point of the scene, the thrust of the narrative, the arc of the characters.
“Why are some of the cards different colors?” I asked.
“Oh that. I just ran out of cards is all.”
Cool people are environmental and unpretentious and not-too-anal.
I got home and dreamt about these cards. I fished out a pack of flash cards—remnants from a brief flirtation with German–from my closet. There was something so perfect about them, wrapped in their clear plastic. Like the rows of fresh meat at the grocery store. I’m totally going to jack this system, I thought. But I don’t quite know all the ins and outs of it yet. I’m sure there’s more to it. I wonder if she was pulling my leg about the colors. I wish I could just pop in again.
But the New Year, it is no longer young. I think I’m out of cake flour. Cakes are better, fluffier with Swans Cake Flour. Anyway, I only make it a habit to talk to my neighbors on the first day of the New Year. Otherwise, I studiously ignore them.
Red Velvet Cake: my specialty!
when i was writing my trashy interracial romance novel, flash cards were exactly how i plotted it out. moving them around made it like a game! (and it made me think of scenes like movie scenes, for better or worse. ah, the blighted rom com.) you could use colors for different arcs: pink for main plot, blue or green for sub plots; or for crisis points – white for standard plot points but colors for Very Important Turns in the Plot that you need to move the mystery forward. they’re flash cards. you can do anything you want.
Great advice. I’m too cheap for anything but white cards I bought at the Student Union ages ago. Is my thrift keeping me from developing a proper narrative? I’ll bet 79 cents on that!
Index cards are great. Post-It Notes (TM) are a staple of interaction design, and I use them to plan my courses for similar reasons. I never thought of using them to plot a story!
As an alternative to different colored cards, you can use those colored filing dots, or even just color the edge of the cards with a marker.
Every time I finish off a chapter, I take a highlighter to the upper right hand corner. The highlighter makes everything look messy. I’ve been lusting after those filing dots.
You know who wrote all of his novels on index cards? My hero: Nabokov.