Isabella Taylor
I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love flashcards. Not only do they get me good grades, but they also give me an excuse to use my glitter pens. I usually write a set of flashcards for every unit in each lecture class I’m taking, especially if I’m not already familiar with the content.
For our budding novel, I think four-by-six-inch flashcards are the move. Here’s my idea–write all of the prospective names, or maybe just character ideas on individual cards. Then write some vibes about the character on the lined side, and lay all of your cards out on the floor. Yes, I know, it’s not very comfy, but the floor has the most room and flexibility.
It would be preferable to lay out the cards on top of the plot map described in How To Start A Novel, Hopefully: Part 1–Getting Over Your Inner Perfectionist, but if you made an online version of your plot map, you can just lay the cards directly onto the floor. With your cards laid out, you can start to organize the characters by when you want to introduce them in the novel. Most of them are probably going to fall in the exposition and rising action, and that’s perfectly fine.
To add some depth to our novel, we should try to introduce some of the characters in the rising action and climax of the story, or maybe even the falling action. Think about it, would you rather meet the bad guy in the beginning, as sort of a secret villain, or would you rather keep the bad guy’s identity a secret until the end? It’s completely up to you, and what your story demands.
The flashcards will allow a ton of flexibility with the plot, especially since nothing will be tied down by a sheet of paper or hard to move in a Word Document.
Another great use of flashcards will be for the major settings. It might make sense now that the protagonist should grow up in a happy forest, but later that might be completely backwards to the traits you want to give them; so write all the settings onto flashcards, and slide them around–usually underneath the character flashcards–until you’re happy with it.
I love thinking up different settings, and I really love describing them. Sometimes, it’s hard to get going with some good adjectives, so I would recommend putting some descriptor words on the back of each of the setting flashcards. Now, when you go back into actually writing the thing, you’ll have some words to fall back on in your descriptions.