I've story-boarded a couple of my longer short stories, despite the fact that I can't draw to save my life, and it really helped to get a feel for pace and structure. It would probably take too long to do it for a novel, but I find that I remember my novel as a series of Big Scenes, and forget the linking passages - so I guess I've sort of story-boarded it after the event.

Emma

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Meant to say, I suppose you could think of each each box in the story board as a piece of flash fic.

Hi JB

There is some really interesting stuff coming up here. Yeah, I would agree with you, JB, the story is already out there complete in every respect just waiting for someone to pluck it out of the aether (sic).

Apropos of nothing at all, this concurs with my thoughts on how... Oh, hang on a minute I may write that one as a story. Sorry Guys.

Hi Jon

I'm vastly intrigued by this Alaistair Reynolds book. It sounds like he is trying something out that may not come clear till you reach the end. Please let us know what happens!

Cheers

John

Emma, This is brilliant! What a great idea!

you could think of each each box in the story board as a piece of flash fic.

Like JB I am very visual I can see my main character, I can visualise him at the climax of the novel, I can see the whole scene.

The idea may be to scribble (I can't draw either) the scene and then describe what I've drawn.

Glad you liked the duck quote, I thought it was very funny and very clever when I saw it. But it is also one of those super-truths that stay with you, and illuminates so many other experiences.

Best

John

Hi Guys

May I just say a big thank you to everybody who has taken the trouble to contribute to this thread and to share their views and ideas. There is some great stuff here that I am going to make use of, and the amount of encouragement has just been fabulous, even those who have expressed doubts have helped to clarify my thinking, and so have been invaluable.

This kind of discussion and sharing is what makes WW so incredibly valuable to me. It is also heart-warming in these, so troubled times, to see people sharing so freely, openly and honestly and going out of their way to help one another.

You are one and all Super-Stars!

Cheers

John

By the way, the duck quote is a direct steal from Rodin's "Cut away everything that doesn't look like a horse" (can anyone translate this back into French?)

Frances

I can contribute. Un chaveux!

I was going to suggest we make this the motto of the WW and then thought of how we are going to have to explain it to every new member, and you know how jokes always lose something in the translation...

John, finished the Reynolds novel last night. I couldn't see any pattern to the usage which was one of the reasons it was intriguing. On another thread here some time ago someone mentioned a concept that books should have chapters if for no other reason than it gives the reader a convenient place to stop for the day. Perhaps that's all it was!

On 'seeing' your book as you write it, I feel forced to ask if that's not the only way you can write. For me (and that's not a good benchmark given my visual work) the only way I can write is to see what's happening in my head and describe it. Has this approach changed with the proliferation of film & TV?

Did early writers visualise their scenes? If so, were those visualisations coloured by what their visual entertainment was at the time? Clearly some early books involve vast sweeping panoramic views so visualisation must have been a tool. Yes?

Jon

Now there is an idea, Jon, how did early writers conceive and write their books?

Perhaps you should start a new thread.

Best John

Well, I know for the Shelleys, Byron, Carroll and a handful of others, opium was the visualisation aid. It often fascinates me how some of us have this inner 'eye' of the imagination, and others do not. I wonder where it comes from?

JB

I think it's one of those things you either have or haven't - I don't think it can be cultivated or taught.

Has this approach changed with the proliferation of film & TV?

I think it's got narrower, now that writers tend think in terms of what you can see on a screen. A camera has to decide where to be, whereas in the writers's imagination the physical eye has a wider angle of vision, and the mind's eye - with or without help - can be in several places at once, or nowhere.

Emma

That's an interesting question Emma - I wonder how far film and tv influence our depiction of characters in novels. There are certain characters who I often equate with film characters but somehow it feels more inferior and derivative than inventing a character that has a complete life of his own. I wonder how much cross-fertilisation there is between films and novels - they are certainly similar in structure.

Coming to this thread late - sorry, I hadn't noticed it before. Prospero, your proposed method put me in mind of a book called Life: A User's Manuel by George Perec. A great title for a great book (IMO). It's written as a series of fragmentary shorts about a wide range of characters, who are only connected to each other by the fact they live in the same Parisian apartment building. The pieces of their lives are considered as jigsaw pieces that fit together and create the whole. Anyhow, I really loved the book and I think it works fantastically well.

By the way, as far as visual writers of the past go, how about another Frenchman, Monsieur Zola. There was a visual imagination for you.

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Should be 'Manual' of course. What is it about posting that plays havoc with my spelling?

Or Dickens - remember the brontosaurus wading up Ludgate Hill?

Emma