Here it is, in all its innocuous glory: my storyboard.

I think some of you know I don’t have the steadiest hand in writing, but this photo should give you a general idea of what I did. Here’s a handy key:

• Green: Outer conflict/plot
• Yellow: hybrid of plot/subplot and inner/outer conflict
• Pink: Hero and heroine interaction and major emotional conflict.

So I know you’re looking at this and you’re going, “Uhm, Seressia? There’s not a lot of emotional stuff going on up there.” And you’re right. I have two excuses reasons for that though:

1. It’s a novella, coming in at roughly 100 pages
2. It’s urban fantasy

But really it’s because two of the major plot points actually are my hero’s and heroine’s emotional conflicts at their respective breaking points. Since those actually drive the story forward, I made them green. Besides, it’s me. You really think I can write without going for the emotional jugular? Silly rabbit.

Now usually in storyboarding, one sticky note would equate to one chapter. I didn’t do that here simply because my brain didn’t want to work that way. I was brainstorming and storyboarding simultaneously because in a do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do moment, I haven’t finished writing the synopsis. (Something about getting proposals out in the mail, yo.) But I sorta knew where the story would go, and I promised y’all I would get this up here today. Besides, this is my storyboard, and I can set the rules for it.

I started with three green stickers: the opening plot point, the big confrontation, and the resolution. Then the three big emotional turning points: H/H meet, make love, resolve their conflict. Then I had to figure out what would connect the greens and the pinks. Here’s where the importance of sticky notes come in: what I’d imagined as the end of the story actually isn’t. It’s an emotional hook that drives the hero to his final emotional confrontation. Maybe I would have realized it as I wrote the story and/or the synopsis, but having the visual representation got me there a heckuva lot faster. Not only can I mentally see where the story needs to go, I can physically see it as well.

Storyboarding in my day job is slightly different, because that is essentially the flow of the class. It is the manuscript. This sticky-not version is akin to a Course Strategy: this is how I plan to lay out the class, and what are the topics I want to cover in each lesson. Sure I could break this note-laden storyboard down even further, but I’d rather get on with the writing.

So from my blurb, I have my required information.

• Who: Anaru, my hero; and Camryn, my heroine
• What: Consecrate the capstone to prevent the world literally going to hell.
• When: Present Day (or before the Blue Moon)
• Where: The Guidestones in Elberton, GA (actual place, and will need to do a road trip soon)
• How: That is a very good question. To answer this question, I need to move on to step two.

Step two: The synopsis.

Do not groan. The synopsis doesn’t have to be your enemy. In fact, I find it easier to write the synopsis when I have no idea where the story’s going, because…I need to know where the story’s going. I need to know what the final product will be. In my day job, I use a monster document called an Instructional Analysis. In this document goes my audience information, an outline, objectives, and information to achieve those objectives.

For TGPO, I’ll start with a synopsis and then go to a story outline. But if I were using the Analysis document, I’d also include character descriptions. These can be as brief or detailed as you need them to be. Think of them as Bios. There are probably plenty of examples out on the internet. Basically, these are the general questions I’d want to populate the bio with:

• Name
• Vital stats (height, build, weight, distinguishing marks, and add a photo)
• Date of birth/Sign (if it helps the character profile and creates conflict)
• Likes/Dislikes
• Greatest Fear

The purpose is to get a good feel for who your characters are, because knowing your characters will help you decide who does what in your major plot turns in the story.

Your synopsis needs to tell you (your editor, your agent) who your characters are, what they want, why they want it, what they do to get it, and what happens to them when they get it (or if they lose it). This is known as GMC, or Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. The synopsis is in present tense, and third person. It is essentially a book report. There is no dialogue in a synopsis either.  I usually aim for three to five pages in my first synopsis, making sure the GMC is clearly noted.

I am off to get dinner and then I’m working on the synopsis. No staying up until 6 AM like I did yesterday.

The first phase: Analysis.

In my day job, this usually involves a business group coming to my department with a training need. We agree to fulfill that need, if our analysis shows that our output will meet that need. We draft a document that lists what we’ll do, who the stakeholders are, and what the deliverables are.

You could say this is akin to the publishing contract. And since TGPO will cover a novella that is currently under contract, we’ll go with that. Don’t worry folks, I also have a full length novel I have to write, so we’ll move on to that after this novella is done. Baby steps, people.

So step one: Start with a blurb.

My publisher wanted a blurb for the story to go into the sales catalog. This worked great, because I have to know what the story is about before I start writing, and this blurb will kick-start the synopsis.

I’m lucky in that this novella is part of an interconnected anthology, so there is a story bible. That makes things easier, as there are certain things that will have to happen in my story, and I also had a list of characters that I got to chose from. Also, because it is a novella, the plot can’t take as long to unfold.

The blurb can quickly encapsulate the necessary information: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How. You’re going to need this info before you can dive into the story.

Recall that I am a panster. Doesn’t mean that I don’t follow some sort of structure anyway. Like I said, you have to know what you’re writing about. So here’s the panster blurb (inspired by the story bible) for my new story, The Sharpest Edge:

The Carnivale is called to the portal town of Elberton, Georgia. The Guidestones, a twenty-foot tall granite structure known as “America’s Stonehenge,” need to be consecrated again to prevent its use by Kolliadon and his hordes. The Carnivale has to find the woman who will be able to unlock the time capsule buried beneath the Explanatory Tablet and therefore reseal the portal. The Maori warrior Anaru is tasked with finding this mysterious woman. Unfortunately, Kalliadon’s minions are looking for her too.

Camryn has been drawn to the hilltop for years without knowing why. Her nightmares have been increasingly terror-filled, and she thinks she’s losing her mind when she starts seeing hallucinations in daylight, in the diner she owns. But when she is attacked at the guidestones, she decides it’s time to run. Luckily for her, she runs right into Anaru’s strong tattoo-covered arms.

Now, you and I and my publisher know that this plot is subject to change, because not only am I a panster trying to be a plotter, I’m also a Gemini. Call me the Queen of the Short Attention Span (hhm, Queen SAS, I like that.) And actually this will need to be tweaked a bit. So with that caveat in mind, feel free to write a “back cover blurb” of your story.

Day One of TGPO began as most of these endeavors do: with shopping. I went to Dollar Tree (that store is teh crack) and to Wal-Mart (industrial-sized crack) and stocked up on the necessary supplies for a Great Plot Day: sticky notes, pens, tape, index cards, notebook paper, chocolate. I have large flipchart size paper that I’ve taped up to the wall closest to my desk. Eventually these will be covered with notes of various colors as the plot out unfolds.

I plan to do a modified version of storyboarding. I actually use storyboards in my day job, and the goal is to use something similar to get down the bones of the story. By the way, I am an Instructional Designer in my day job. I use principles of Instructional Systems Design, which is basically a systematic approach to determine the who, what, when, where, why, and how of training. For the most part, I use the ADDIE method, which is Analysis, Design, Development, Implement, and Evaluate.

My goal is to take the systematic approach that I use every day and fit it to my creative writing process. If this works, I’ll more than likely try to put it into some sort of orderly fashion for public consumption, say presenting it at 2009’s Romance Slam Jam. ‘Course, if I failed miserably, this dies a slow death and no one shall no. Except those of you playing at home.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the first phase: Analysis.

Edited to add: Taking this systematic approach is so not my usual modus operandi–I have been a panster for far too long. However, given that I’m trying to move my career to the next level, I can no longer afford to be as much of a panster as I have been. I just have too many projects under contract, should be under contract, and want to get under contract to continue to wait for divine inspiration. Hence this experiment. Thanks for taking the journey with me, and if you have any questions about my process, feel free to use the comments and I’ll try to address them on the blog here for everyone’s edification.