http://www.diyplanner.com/node/8672 Comments for "The Organizational Manuscript Planning Foldout" en http://www.diyplanner.com/node/8672 <p>I don't know if I've described it before on this site, but one of the things I do to keep on track with my novels is to create organizational manuscripts of them once I get to a certain point. I do this because I am extremely scatterbrained and need to have some sort of guide along the way. In these organizational manuscripts, I include:</p> <p>- Parts already written;<br /> - Oodles of notes (culture, literary, characters, food, etc.);<br /> - Character sketches for main characters;<br /> - Character summaries for minor/supporting characters;<br /> - Summaries of the settings/places important to the story;<br /> - Maps of places in the story (some actual places, and some imagined - I use Open Office Draw for my fictitious maps;<br /> - A summary of the story and a summary of intent/theme;<br /> - An outline;<br /> - Writing exercises and style notes for problem areas;and<br /> - What I call ponder sheets. These are the most important for me. I ask myself questions about scenes I haven't written and leave space for writing ideas.</p> <p>I've had a couple of writers say that this sounded too constricting for them. It's true that some writers will find it constricting, but I always leave myself plenty of wiggle room. An organizational manuscript I've been using for a while will be filled with smaller sheets of notes stapled into the booklet, exed out anything and everything. So no, I don't find it constricting.</p> <p>In any case, this is a form I created to help me get started on new organizational manuscripts. I wanted something that would allow for everything to be on one page, so I made it a legal-sized fold-out.</p> http://www.diyplanner.com/node/8672#comments Creativity Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:07:51 -0500 maddiehope 8672 at http://www.diyplanner.com