Saturday, January 3, 2009

Map Out Your Attic Floor

I hope you had a good Saturday. I floored the attic today making use of my handy Ryobi saw to chew through piece after piece of 4 x 8 plywood sheets. Side note, I am exhausted, and I used an electric saw! Imagine, if I had hand-sawed all of that. Yes, I probably would lack the strength to blog.

Okay, so I am going somewhere with all this. The key to my flooring effort was to first spend time making a mapping of the attic, which I did. It got me to thinking that the same thing is true with story writing. Whenever I sit down to do a chapter, the most important minutes aren’t the ones where I contemplate what verb to use. No, the critical moment comes before I even begin – the planning, of course!

Whether it is an entire story, a chapter, or a paragraph, I still try to first map out what I want said. Doing this ensures the following:

(1) Build suspense, if needed
(2) Peak at the right moment
(3) Not give away too much information too early
(4) Avoid meaningless ramble and repetition

Hmm … before I begin to ramble, I best finish up. I am sure there are more benefits but those are the ones that come to mind. What about you? Do you plan? If so, what are the benefits that you see?

2 comments:

  1. I do plan; it saves time. Which I'm always short of!

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  2. Sometimes I feel like I spend too much time planning. Everything in moderation, I suppose.

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