Once upon a time there was an author who had a great story but she forgot the who, what, where and why of it all. Had she been using a storyboard, it would all have come back to her and her readers would have lived happily ever after.

Maybe it isn’t quite that easy, but using a storyboard is a skill that may help you, as a very busy person, to keep on track with your writing. It will help you think the story out, make effective notes such as the color of the eyes of your protagonist, what he/she wears, thinks, etc. You know, the small stuff that counts so much when you’ve not been able to sit down and whip out your story in one day. Who does that? Usually, life gets in the way and by the time you get back to working on the story you have to stop and read it to see where you dropped off and what you’ve already written.

There are those of us that are Pantsters and then there are those of us that are Plotters. A Pantster is someone that writes-- lives actually-- by the seat of their pants. You know what you want to do with your story and you do it, letting it take on a life of its own. That’s all well and good until you get to Chapter 12 and suddenly you can’t remember what your character was thinking in say Chapter 5 or maybe 7 or, “My gosh, where did I write that?” It has happened to all of us.

Then there is the Plotter. Enter storyboarding. I saw this demonstrated years ago at a writer’s conference and it’s always been something that I thought I would do, but then… you know how it goes. But now I’m thinking seriously about using a storyboard. If you don’t know what one is and how it works, read on.

A storyboard is actually an organizing tool and it can come in many forms. If you have a real office or writing nook and you aren’t using the ironing board for your desk, then you might have room to put a storyboard on the wall. Next would be choosing how you are going to keep track of your characters. Maybe you could use colored Post-It Notes, but remember the sticky doesn’t always last long, especially if your board is in a windy or heavily trafficked location. Choose a color for each character and then start making notes about the characters. Put them in a row under that character’s heading. You can note what they look like, what they eat, what their backstory is. This will help you keep your characters in line.