Plot your novel or script FAST - with Index Cards! Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

#screenwriting101 #screenwritingtips #authortube

Want to plot your book or script about a million times faster? Here’s a screenwriting trick that’s a revelation for authors (and a lifesaver for screenwriters on a tight deadline!). We’re going to start brainstorming your book or script with Index Cards.

Get yourself a pack of index cards. You can also use Post-its, and the truly OCD among us use colored Post-Its to identify various subplots by color, which can be really useful, but let’s just keep it simple for now!



A movie has about 40 to 60 scenes, depending on the length and pace: a drama more like 40, an action movie more like 60. Every scene goes on one card.

Of course we have more flexibility in a novel, and if you’re writing a longer book, you may be doubling or tripling the scene count. But for me, the chapter count remains exactly the same: 40 to 60 chapters to a book.


So count yourself out 40-60 index cards. This is so satisfying! You’re literally holding your book in your hand!

Now, all you have to do is fill in the cards.


But that’s a whole lot easier than you think because you already KNOW a lot of the scenes that will go on these cards. Of course you do— or you wouldn’t be thinking of writing a book or script to begin with.


Block out an hour or two and start writing down all the scenes you know about your story, one scene per card (just one or two lines describing each scene—it can be as simple as: "Hero and heroine meet"  or "Detective gets called to a case.")

Once you start putting the scenes you do know on the cards, dozens more scenes will start occurring to you. You’ll start combining scenes to make killer sequences.

But you don’t have to put them in order yet! We’ll get to that shortly, but we’re just brainstorming right now.


The next step I detail in the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshops and workbooks is how to arrange your cards on a Story Structure Grid, which works just like putting a puzzle together. But you need to make your puzzle pieces first.

Read more about using index cards on a Story Structure Grid: https://alexandrasokoloff.substack.co...

Read more about the Index Card Method and Story Structure Grid in the workbooks:



Stealing Hollywood: https://amzn.to/2zWm76k
Writing Love: https://amzn.to/2zfil7N

Get free course materials and full movie breakdowns: https://alexandrasokoloff.substack.com

Learn more about the online class:
https://screenwriting-tricks-for-auth...

These videos are excerpts from the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshop. All material © Alexandra Sokoloff