Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Busy Body's Blind Wish

I hope that title confused you... Let me explain now. I'm the Busy Body in question. For the last few hours, the time set aside for my dinner excluded, I've been planning a novel. The title, for now, is Blind Wish. No, it's not a novel about eye-sight, or anything really to do with eye-sight besides observation and general vision.

I'm not here to tell you all about my novel, however. It's not written, not even a little bit, and therefore doesn't qualify to be blogged about. What does qualify, however, is the method I used to plan it!

Some of my Twitter followers remarked on the idea; I used PowerPoint. That's right, the presentation tool! Each slide was a chapter, except two slides that were a single chapter. I had two characters whose viewpoints would be followed, and I could move the chapters about as freely as I wished. Eventually I just planned in order of where they'd be in the story. However, I think you get the idea. I had complete freedom!

At the bottom of the screen in PowerPoint is the notes section. Conveniently, you can also print these notes with the presentation! So I can print out the general jist of the story, and some extra notes on each chapter, and voila, I have my plan all done and easily accessed!

I found the software really easy to use, so if you're a writer who wants to try plan a novel but you don't know how, give it a shot. Use a slide a chapter, or a slide a scene if you prefer, and use the notes at the bottom (well, mine's the latest version - I don't know where they are otherwise) to add in a little more detail. It's easy to read, easy to co-ordinate, and you can change it easily whenever you want!

Tomorrow I'll have to print it out and bring it with me to lunch. A friend of mine loves that I write, and this new planning method may get his interest!! Until next time, dear reader, goodbye! And thanks for reading!

I'd like to take this chance to point out that my blog now has my videos on the top of it if you want to find them easily. Just saying...

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