Is Storyboarding a good idea for Authors?
So I’m researching websites for work at the moment, and one of the activities we’re doing is creating storyboards of screens that a user would move through on the website. This got me to thinking about writing fiction, and how you can use storyboarding there as well.
I do a lot of my plot design in my head–I create the scene, then let the characters do as their personalities would dictate, running the “tape” so to speak and seeing what happens. It’s like a mini-movie all in my brain. For an important scene, I may run the scenario several times, from different characters’ perspectives–not because I plan to write in a different point of view or make someone else the protagonist, but because in order to figure out what someone is going to do, you have to get inside their head. So I may drop inside my female heroine’s head…
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Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
Re: story boards, charts, lists, outlines, maps … use anything and everything which serves and then write outside, over and under them all.
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L – O – L 😀
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Whether to employ the storyboard or not is something which only new writers may entertain.
As a seasoned writer I don’t, for the simple reason that writing a story is a dynamic process where ideas constantly change, or evolve. By relying on a rigid mapped out storyline, it is far to easy to literally ‘paint yourself into a corner’. 😉
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You have a point there Jack 🙂
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I’m a firm believer in ‘flexibility’ being the key Chris. With each paragraph, after writing its first draft, by the time I am done, the final version bears little resemblance to the original. 😀
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One other valid point – story boarding is just another name for formulaic writing akin to soap opera, which makes any book written employing it as highly predictable. While it may appeal to the brain dead, for the vast majority of discerning readers, it is a big turn off. Avoid at all costs. 😉
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I storyboard all my books, it works well for me. It allows me to create a series of ‘waypoints’ and then I can let the characters go through the story as they want, knowing that it doesn’t matter how they reach these set points. Freedom for them, and some control for me.
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Thanks Will, it may be worth pointing out that a storyboard does not have to be a work of art, stick figure could work just as well, it’s to try different scenarios, not sell at a Christies Auction 🙂
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