John August: “10 Hints for Index Cards”
H/T to Canadian Nick for the heads-up to this post from screenwriter John August:
I’m outlining a project right now, and thought it would be a good time to review best practices for index cards.
- Keep it short. Maximum seven words per card.
- A card represents a story point, be it a scene or a sequence. You don’t need a card for every little thing.
- Keep cards general enough that they can be rearranged. (“Battle in swamp” rather than “Final showdown”)
- Horizontal (a table or counter) often works better than a vertical (a corkboard).
- Post-It notes make good alternative index cards.
For the next five tips, hit John’s link.
Timely post for me. In my last UNC screenwriting session, I brought a bunch of index cards to class to make pretty much the points John makes. I also showed my students how you can even use different color cards to track various subplots.
Apart from the benefit index cards offer for the plotting process, they also can help with brainstorming. Since, as John points out, index cards are cheap, there’s no reason not to dash down a possible beat you have just thought of and put it in the pile with all the others. The point of brainstorming is not to pre-edit ideas and possible story beats, but simply to generate them. If at the end of the process you discover this beat or that doesn’t work, then you pull the card out of the pile, leaving only the viable ones to transition into your plotting.
I know many, many writers who use index cards. Most offices of TV shows I’ve visited over the years will have a big corkboard on the wall which will be covered with index cards.
It’s a very simple item and may seem — at first — somewhat silly. However they can be extremely helpful in the prep-writing part of your creative process.
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