Something that I have discovered recently, thanks to my dear friend Jeshanah, is a program called Scrivener. (For all the writing nerds out there that are mega curious I have posted a link to the site.)
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| And this is what it looks like (Taken from Google Images) |
Scrivener Link
See I didn't lie.
So I have started using the program to work out a really interesting story idea that has been brewing for a few days and I have to say that I am already in love with it. It breaks everything down and yet still keeps everything in the same program so I don't have to have like ninety million Word documents for everything.
Which brings me to character sketching. I usually don't have to work on character sketches because my pieces have always been in the short story genre and I could work out a character or two as I wrote. That was sort of my intention as I started just getting down the basic, specific information that I knew I would forget if I didn't write it down somewhere. Then I started thinking about this one character, Evain.
There were a few quirks and traits that I wanted and then I started thinking about the culture that would have produced her character and I started fleshing out the Kahao people. Then of course I started wondering where they and more specifically, she, was from and what Evain's homeland would be like and of course since Scrivener has a template sheet for Places as well I created the Anaokala Isles.
I guess what surprised me was that just by spending a little more time on a simple character sketch, and being more organized, can make or break the creative flow for a story. There is definitely an element of luck to it as well because you have to have a story that can be built and modified indefinitely, but this program helps keep the dominoes falling without breaking your stride. I hope that this program works as well for you as it does for me. Good luck!
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