I’m not normally an artsy-craftsy girl, and I can’t really draw. But, I have hit upon a crafty way that helps me visualize the characters and elements of my novel(s).
I have a notebook for each book. (A sturdy black notebook one with gridlines and color-coded sections. These notebooks remind me of the engineering lab books at KSC. ) In each book, I use a combination of images from magazines, the web, or stock photo places, sketches, and notes to cobble together my vision for that book.
For characters, I usually end up with a collage. Seldom do you find your vision of a character right there in Wired or Entertainment Weekly. So I may take the general looks of one image and combine it with the attitude of another. Since MEMENTO NORA has so many visual (and a few scientific) elements, I created pages for different settings and the weird and wonderful stuff therein.
For those who don’t know me like Angie does, part of my job is 3D work, but 3D modeling is also one of my hobbies. When I’m writing a story or part of the book I’m working on I frequently build 3D models of things in the stories. It helps me create the place in my stories. For the novel, I built an extensive 3D model of the house in the story which is a fairly important plot element. After finishing the model I realized that the house is a reflection of the personality of one of the main characters and a fairly traditional farmhouse really didn’t sell the uniqueness of the main character. So I’m redesigning the house based on a picture I found of a house that does.
It is a double edged sword. It does help me plan parts of the story, and create more vivid descriptions, but at times it becomes a means of further procrastination.
Matt, that sounds like the perfect way for you to visualize your stories, but I could see it potentially distracting you from the actual writing part. At least it would me. 😉
I’m so using this idea. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of storyboards. Unfortunately with limit space in my house a huge board would never work. This I can do. Thanks! (Hugs)Indigo
Back at you, Indigo.
This is a terrific idea! I have zero on the crafty talent scale, but I can sketch and doodle a little. I’ve never done any drawings at all of my stories. I tend to just store everything in my head and hope I don’t lose it 🙂
I try to put myself in the character’s shoes and walk the walk, talk the talk… but it starts to get blurry after a while. I can only do it for short periods or scenes. After a while I start coming back to myself, so I have to stop. Since there are usually several characters at once, I try to go into each one and stay there in their time and space. Eventually it burns me out and I have to put it away for a while. A while being years… so I think Angie’s perspective is worth trying. I’m going to see how it works for me. Thanks Scully!
I cut out pictures in magazines too, but I’ve never placed them in a scrapbook. That’s a good idea. I usually tape them to the wall by my computer.