Write On! :: Comments :: Can we break the rules?

For some reason (perhaps being brought up in a society driven by visual cues - movies, television, etc) I often get 'visions' of parts of my story. Usually as dreams but quite often as visualising what would happen to my characters.

At the moment I'm doing a lot more work in visual rather than written media and one of the techniques I've tried (that seems to work very well) is to use a batch of 5x3 cards to describe events that you want to happen (call them scenes if you like). When you have the important events you can lay all the cards out on the floor - shuffle them around until you get some sort of consistant order and then it is plainly obvious what missing bits you need to fill in to get a coherent story.

Works for me :)
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Styles vary for sure. I for one hate outlines. I never work from one and I never will. Even back in school when an outline was required I'd write my story/report/whatever first then go back and do the outline. My thinking is not that linear or that regimented when I write - something that I find hysterical because in almost every other aspect of my life I am exactly that way.

I do however USE a form of outline as a way to track my ideas once I've got a chunk of the story written. It gets created once I reach a point where I'm sick of scrolling back and forth to find something in the story. I then keep writing and as I reach an important concept I'll drop it into the outline. It ends up resembling more of a bullet-point list than an actual outline.

I too have found the 3x5 card concept works once I'm past the first edit stage. It helps me identify concepts that I may have left undeveloped and lets me see at a glance how a story might unfold if I move scenes/beats around.

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