Good Ideas

When you are writing a book, it can be hard to be able to get everything down, or have a good solid idea to put down on paper.    I just wanted to give some ideas on things I have used, or heard of others using.  I find them pretty helpful.  I know I have capped on this before, but it's always healthy to know where to go or what to do to make it easier on yourselves.

If you know what type of writer you are, that definitely helps. 

Are you the kind that gets an idea and just starts writing/typing? 

Are you the type that when the idea hits you, you have write it down and make a game plan. 

Or, are you the type that is somewhere in between.  You like to have an idea of what's to come, but you don't use too much structure.

I myself have two major ones that I use.  I bounce between the two: 

2. http://www.theguardian.com/books/series/how-to-write-a-book-in-30-days  I use the worksheets from here.  I don't use all the worksheets, but a lot of them.  The character sheets are awesome and the settings.  Take a look at it and see if it could help you.

1. Have you ever heard of Save The Cat?  It is awesome.  It tells you what your book/movie script has to have in order for it to be appealing, watchable/readable.  Where things need to go, when you should introduce everyone and so on.  I have a writing friend who loves it, and turned me in it's direction.  The main point I use it for is the cards.  When you read it, there is a section about 2/3rds of the way through that tells you not chapters or scenes, but sections of a book.  What needs to go where.  Then you use index cards, or in his case, he uses sticky notes.  You have 40 of them, 10 in each act.  There are 4 act. Act 1 Act 2A Act 2B Act 3.  By this information you plan your book on little cards, that way if something needs to move, you just move the card, not redo the worksheets.

Once I have my worksheets written down, and put in order, I use my 40 cards and go through and write down the scenes on each card so I don't have to carry the huge stack of worksheets with me.
I just have a small wad of index cards, which I cut in half so they go further and are smaller. 

I knows this month is NaNo Camp.  So for everyone that is doing Nano this July, hope you are having fun.  I am doing it as well.  Not a huge goal.  Just 10,000 words.  Not a lot because I am quite busy this month, but it will help me get some scenes down for this Novembers Nano.

I hope this was helpful.    If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Destiny