![]() Index cards are a useful method to help you create a well-balanced story, whose structure maintains tension and interest throughout. Taking this same approach when outlining a novel never hurts, in my opinion, even if when writing it you allow yourself to go down some interesting rabbit holes. ![]() While a novelist typically has a bit more license, in a screenplay that is limited by the acceptable run-time of a film, plot points happen with near Prussian precision. There are likely as many ways to use index cards as there are writers who use them, but rather than give you a “system” that may or may not fit for you, I’m going to describe how and why they are so useful.Ī good story flows well from plot point to plot point, without “dragging” or “sagging” in between. Well known writing software like Scrivener and Final Draft both allow you to create “virtual” index cards, and there is even an app that does nothing but let you write and organize with virtual index cards – “ Index Card – Corkboard Writing.” While I like the tactile quality of the physical cards, as well as being able to lay them out on a big table or pin them on a cork board for reference, there are other options too. They’re also particularly useful in that stage of writing (or rather planning to write) when you have lots of ideas, but you’re not quite sure how they all fit together. Screenwriters have been using them for years, but I use them whenever I am writing a story that is too long or complex for the outline to easily fit on a page. ![]() I began writing seriously with screenplays, and learned about using index cards to outline a story from my writing partner. ![]()
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