papershine

…with the crazy guys in movies who inveitably demonstrate their mental imbalances by trying to unravel dense, dizzying codes or elegant mathematical proofs using yarn, tape and pictures from magazines pinned to all the visible wall space in their house, garage or bunker.

Truth of it is, there’s no better way to see information, particularly when you’re looking for the way it flows and fits together. The crazy code above is the early layouts of a course book for Positive & Productive Meetings. That’s approximately 48 pages of information and illustration represented on my living room wall.

One trick I’ve discovered for sharing raw form layouts like this digitally is to use Word or PowerPoint and to type the general outline in some huge, huge typeface, one topic per page or slide. When people view it on their screen at 5 or 10% they will see the overall structure, but no detail. At long last, I’ve found a use for PowerPoint. And in PP, you can move things around a bit more easily.

It can easily go overboard. This was a twenty page layout of a ISP guide book for OTAC tucked in a corner of the dining room. Sometimes papers fall and drift gently to the floor, like leaves in autumn.

Someone somewhere has already written the post-it novel. Mini chapters or scenes are plastered on telephone poles, mailboxes and in other public places. The lucky reader finds them in sequence, but each sticker stands alone. There are more pragmatic post-it applications for novelists as well.

I use post-it notes to lay out almost everything. As a visual thinker, post-it’s represent the easiest way to see and move raw ideas and information. There are countless little apps for my computer that claim they can get me organized. Fact is, organizing isn’t an outcome, but a process. How cool and tidy it looks as I do it is less important than how it helps me think. Post-it’s are sloppy and low-tech, but they allow for spatial and sequential understanding. I can see how the story moves. I can try out alternate scenarios in ten seconds. The post-it’s show all, all at once.

This image below shows a novel in progress laid out in color coded post-its on my bedroom wall. The small pink numbers represent chapters already written. The orange chapters aren’t done yet. In addition to allowing for free-flowing narrative manipulation, the post-its provide motivation and keep track of my progress. Notice that chapter 18 got done before 17. I write my chapters in sequence but noticed that crucial narrative elements were missing. The post-its made it easy to identify this issue and try out possible fixes. Manipulating narrative like this is very difficult in a word processing program, where no more than two pages can be displayed at a time.

The bigger blue and green notes are brief summaries of the chapters. In some cases I draw little pictures that help me to remember the scene later, when the idea is less fresh. The other tiny notes are a hodgepodge of dialogue ideas and smaller, but equally compelling details. I also use the tiny notes to track back on changes that have to be made to earlier chapters. This helps me to keep my writing process moving forward without forgetting to go back and introduce a bit character’s name in chapter three.

Using post-its like this has some drawbacks, like vacuuming, visiting toddlers and potential embarrassment if you’re story contains more explicit elements and happens to be posted in the living room when your boss drops by.

To make data migration easier, stick the notes to blank flip chart pages. They can be rolled up and stored in place or carried into the bedroom before company comes over.