A friendlier way of outlining

/ Marcia Meara

A great post from Craig Boyack on the Story Empire Blog, explaining his system for organizing his storylines. Easier (and probably more organic) than a full-on outline, yet a way to stay on track. I’m definitely giving this one a try! Check it out for yourself. 🙂

Story Empire

This post was a special request, and I’m happy to explain my process. I’m going to ask you pantsers to read it too. I may not change your mind, but you might glean a tip or two anyway. Today, we’re going to talk about outlining, but we’re going to do it my way.

Remember the old scientific outline we learned in junior high? It’s basically worthless here, so don’t panic. We aren’t doing anything like that today.

I like to follow a three act structure, but there are other methods you can adapt. The biggest change is to start storyboarding. No more Roman numerals, indents, and lower case progression.

I’m going to place the image here, then we’re going to talk about it.

I use a virtual cork board called Pinnic. I used to use Corkulous Pro, but it doesn’t seem to be around any longer. They tell me one…

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9 thoughts on “A friendlier way of outlining”

    • Me, too. 😀 I thought it worth sharing, even though I have since found out that Pinnic is only available for mobile devices. 😦 I want something very similar for my PC. Still looking for the best option. Scrivener has a good bulletin board, but I don’t like using it. I spend way too much time playing around with all the things it does, and too little time actually writing. A stand-alone corkboard would be better. 🙂 Any suggestions?

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      • I’m exactly with you! I can’t work with Scrivener. I bought the program 2 years ago and still can’t grasp it. Let us both sniff around the web and between us we may find a great corkboard! Right now I use a whiteboard, but I don’t like it. Sadly, I have no room anywhere on any walls for a jumbo corkboard, a virtual one would be amazing! xx

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        • Yeah, I have no wall space for anything real. I grasped Scrivener all right, and wrote nearly a whole book using it, but I’m a geek at heart and love toys, and I spent WAY too much time playing with all the gadgets in the program instead of writing. Once I went back to Word, I worked much more quickly. So I’d just like a stand-alone virtual corkboard. Doesn’t seem like too much to ask, does it? I’m going to hunt TODAY. Will post if I find us anything good. 🙂

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          • Great Marsh. I’m with you – most comfortable and productive working in Word. 🙂 I hope you’re feeling better, somehow I sense you are. 🙂 I look forward to your scavenger hunt finds, lol. ❤

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            • So far, I’m not having any luck, I’m afraid. 😦 I’ve found several sticky note programs that let you put them on your desktop, but I already have one of those, where I post Real Life reminders. I wouldn’t want to turn my default desktop image into a story board. Still looking. I’m wanting one so badly right now, I’m almost considering trying Scrivener again, and ONLY using the corkboard. It’s a great one, if I could just ignore all the other toys. I only want to write in Word. Still searching . . .

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