Writer's Templates

Working with writing templates is really becoming a whole new world for me! I created a Bible for my mystery in it's first incarnation (as a NaNoWriMo effort), and fine tuned it for this incarnation. Starting with my characters, I combined what I was already doing with a free downloadable template that I found on the Internet. One thing that I learned from working with someone else's template is that each of us works differently! I kept what I had of my own, expanded on it, and learned to look at my characters in new ways. Part of this included asking them questions, and then allowing them to answer in their own voice. I changed tghe questions from the Internet template, and dropped those which didn't relate to how I think.

Next in order, I am developing a template for describing buildings - professional (offices, restaurants, bars, churches, etc.) and personal (homes, vacation homes, and properties). I had fun with this one! Some of the categories that I used were:

* Physical location. * Neighboring buildings. * Ease of access. * Quality of atmosphere surrounding building. * Quality of atmosphere within the building. * How the building is decorated. * People associated with the building. * How the building fits into a story. * The dates the building appeared a story. * The people that were associated with the building each time it appeared in a story.

I am sure more categories will be entered into this template, as my intention is to turn the first book into a series. Timeline will be all important, or the author (namely me!), will be in a load of trouble!

(c) August 2012 Bonnie Cehovet