How to go about making a storyboard

There are many ways to plan out a novel. Outlines and treatments/synopsis are the most common. Outlines are usually terse while treatments go into more details about characters, settings and plot. I don't know of anyone using a storyboard for planning a novel.

Below are some links I found interesting. There are a lot more where those game from (aka Google).

Hope this helps.

-cb


-- Outlining --

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2007/09/novel-outlining-101.html

http://www.sff.net/people/alicia/artout.htm

-- Treatment --

http://awriterscosmos.blogspot.com/2007/07/story-treatment-for-novels.html

http://jmarkbertrand.typepad.com/writeaboutnow/2007/12/planning-a-nove.html

http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/StarWarsTreatment.txt

They can be, but of course the temptation is to get so involved with teh storyboard the you forget to do teh actual writing.

I used to write and shoot videos, and learned to make storyboards to plan the shooting angles, lighting needs, etc. For those I used a template similar to this:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jv5Wk5DIkfY/RlL8WXzVn2I/AAAAAAAABmY/6KFAwYO2_q8/s1600-h/storyboard.gif

And look what I found while searching for that image, a blog post about using storyboards in writing fiction:

http://trishwylie.blogspot.com/2007/05/storyboarding-while-writing.html

She writes romance novels.

I'm at work so didn't have time to look at the blog thoroughly, but it might be helpful.

Lady Akkia said:

Thank you very much I appreaciate any help you can give. I have another question and if I should ask it here I'll delete(just thought it'd be better then starting a new thread)
I was wondering about blogs and content. How can I protect my own work? Is it as simple as puttling in a copyright symbol and saying so and so content is copyright to Akkia Drakis or Lady Akki. These are my pen names ofcourse but is that ok as well or should I use my real name?

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Technically, once you write something it belongs to you. However, if you're putting it in a public place (like a blog) you probably should put a statement on the blog reaffirming the copyright.

This is what I have on my blog.

All material contained in these entries is copyright to the original author and may not be duplicated in any format without written permission.

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I say 'original author' simply because I sometimes link to other blogs/websites to which I don't own copyright but someone else does. I don't know that this is the best method (legally) but I have not yet run into trouble with it.

I will also point out, though, that posting material on a blog is usually considered "publication." If you're posting short stories you'll have a lot of trouble selling them if they are or have been on your blog already. Excerpts from works-in-progress is similar. I post excerpts, but only from the rough draft and rarely more than one or two chapters from any given project. (The reason publishers don't want to publish something you have on your blog is simple. They'd have trouble selling something that is already available for free.) But, again, this is only for work that you intend to sell. If you're just writing to share with people, there's no problem.

Storyboards might be fun to do to get you thinking about the novel but they're not overly useful for writing.

In film, the story is the images you see on screen. Yes, there will be dialogue but it is driven by how it is shot and what you see. It helps you visualise how a scene might look in practice.
You don't need that process for novels- you're telling the story via words.

If you want to make a storyboard just so you can keep track of what's happening, you ought to pick out 'scenes' in your novel- that is, any section of the novel which involves an action important to the story or an important conversation, though it'll probably end up being the first.

I don't know if this is exactly what you are talking about, but some people do arrange note cards or sticky notes into the different acts and scenes. Pictured herehttp://www.dianechamberlain.com/blog/?p=1143

tricksterpython said:

I don't know if this is exactly what you are talking about, but some people do arrange note cards or sticky notes into the different acts and scenes. Pictured herehttp://www.dianechamberlain.com/blog/?p=1143

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I don't usually plot because I'm a winger. But when I really need to lay out a complex plot then I will use the old cut and paste with paper and sissors

Have you thought about trying a idea map? I was just thinking that a storyboard is actually better suited for a writing team hashing a film or TV show's storyline in the writing room. Everyone sees the same picture at the same time.

An idea map (also called mind mapping) is also a visual representation of the story, but it's a little different. We get taught in school to take notes on everything--write lengthy sentences down. Idea maps use color, pictures, and keywords to do the same thing. So all you might need is a single piece of paper and lots of colored pens. You can either hand draw them or if you like to use the computer, you can download free idea mapping software or do it in PowerPoint or Visio.

I use them for things like To Do lists, where it has a lot of little pieces. I have to copyedit something, and everything is very hard to remember, especially with some of the style oddities. I originally tried a straight list but I had a hard time following it because I had to turn to the piece of paper, scan down to the find the next thing and read it to see if I'd done it. I did an idea map with branches for different phases of the copyediting and keywords to remind me of what I need to do (i.e., Initial Branch: Subbranches: Spellcheck, Scan, Macros, Formatting).

There's a Website http://ideamappingsuccess.com/ that gives more detail and examples. Scroll down to the bottom to find the blog with actual examples posted. The site is promoting an expensive business course, as well as a book. The book is definitely worth a look because it explains in great detail how the idea map is done.

Here's something I did once, and it was pretty cool.

I bought 3 different sized Post-It note pads. To keep it simple, I'll call them large, medium, and small.

I had four 'acts' (that is, three major turning points) in that novel, so I took four large Post-Its and titled each one 'Act 1' and so on.

I stuck a medium Post-It for each chapter in the act on the relevant large Post-It. Titled each one 'Chapter 1' and so on.

Then for each scene in the chapter, I stuck a small Post-It on the relevant medium Post-It. Just put a phrase of what happened in that scene on it.

This made it really easy to move things around. Each pad was a different colour, so the visual effect of them hanging on the wall was pretty cool, too.