Storyboarding the Book

With four days left on the storyboard/outline portion of my book project, I find myself surprised. It required ten days for me to come up with ten whole chapters. So, about a chapter a day, and that's just the outline and basic concept for the chapter. Ten chapters seemed paltry, and quite frankly, how would I even have enough content to finish a thesis, let alone an entire book?

So, today, while working on other projects, I glanced back and forth at my "Book Chapters" note inside my Evernote, wondering if I would get stuck this early into the project. I had absolutely no inspiration, and little faith that I would get a solid storyboard and outline completed within my window.

However, after a brief thirty minute workout, I sat down and decided to transfer my ten measly chapters from Evernote into Scrivener, a well thought out software program designed to help writers organize and write their manuscripts. Once complete, I sat staring at the outline, and before I knew it, many of the chapters found themselves getting sections and sub-sections mapped out.

Now, looking at what I accomplished in a mere matter of minutes, my concern has shifted from will I even have a workable storyboard/outline by the 28th, to will I be able to finish mapping out the sections and sub-sections by then. Should be interesting.

The lesson learned here is that sometimes all it takes is to clear your head, sit back down without reservations, and go with what pops into your head when looking at it. Also, it helps to have tools that allow you to organize information the way that you think, which then at least provides you a mean to drag and drop, or retool as needed.

Written by Richard Brion