Note: Regularly, I get this great E-zine in my e-mail inbox by Randy Ingermanson. The newsletter is always chock-full of great advice for authors. This article I found to be  particularly helpful and informative for organizing the scenes in a novel and decided to pass it on. I already use Randy’s approach, though I do so in the context of a free computer program called yWriter5. Check this out if you’ve ever wondered how suspense novelists like me can keep all those pesky scenes organized.

by Randy Ingermanson

One of the hardest parts of organizing a novel is keeping all the scenes straight. Novels typically have 50 to 100 scenes or more. That’s a lot to keep track of! Here are some typical problems you’ll face in managing all those scenes:

* Deciding what happens in each scene
* Deciding what order to present your scenes
* Deciding how long each scene should be
* Deciding on the point-of-view (POV) character
* Deciding whether to cut a scene
* Deciding how to edit a scene

It’s hard to keep all the scenes in your head at one time. In fact, it’s probably impossible, since humans are made to keep only a few things in the mind at the same time.

I solve this problem by creating a “scene list” — a list of all my scenes with key information about each one. You can do this however you like.

The low-tech easy way to do it is by using 3×5 cards. Just write the important information about each scene on one card and then spread them out on the kitchen table or the living room floor.

I prefer to throw more technology at the problem by using spreadsheet software. For our purposes, a simple way to think of a spreadsheet is a list of items, where each item can have several parts.

When I make a scene list, each line in my spreadsheet keeps track of the important information about one scene. Here are some typical things I track: more…

Okay, this is simply too funny. If you can watch this without laughing, you must be not of this world.

Today, Sept. 7, through Friday, Sept. 11, several members of the Facebook Fiction Bloggers group are posting reviews about Fatal Illusions. If you’re in Facebook, be sure to check it out! Thanks, everybody, for your support.

Here’s the first review: http://faithfictionfriends.blogspot.com/