12 Comments
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cyberwyrd's avatar

very useful!

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Darlene Foster's avatar

I love mind maps and this just might work for me. Thanks!

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Alison Acheson's avatar

Let us know how it goes!

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Gail Trowbridge's avatar

This is great - I’m going to try it out. Those “character worksheets” always struck me as busy work.

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Heather Ramsay's avatar

Just beginning this work now and I love this suggested way of thinking about the characters. I created a table to show how their timelines overlap, but that format is not really working for me. I'm going to get out the paper. :)

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Alison Acheson's avatar

Let us know how it goes...! (Or share a pic, if you want.) So often plotting emerges as well as character.

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Heather Ramsay's avatar

It looks good and I got some new ideas from the process. I’m not sure I can attach a picture...

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Alison Acheson's avatar

If you have one, email it to me and I'll attach to the post! Substack still hasn't figured out a way to allow you-s to attach to a comment. alison@alisonacheson.com

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Christine's avatar

I love mapping stories on big sheets of paper (and across walls when I can), but I'm feeling somewhat confused by this next step: "... move the main character to a different place, and re-align the secondary characters in order to see yet another set of actions, responses, shadows, and histories..."

Do you mean take your protagonist out of the office (for example) and put her in church or at the pub with a whole new set of secondary characters? Or deepen what you've created in the first phase by shifting the bulk of these characters to another setting or even time setting of the novel, and building from there? Or both? :-)

Thanks!

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Alison Acheson's avatar

I mean: take a second (or third!) sheet of paper, and write the characters' names in different places, so you can envision (and scribble) more interactions between a new configuration of them... So sorry if that's not clear. Glad you asked!

Although I like your thoughts/approach, too! That's interesting to mull through and note thoughts that come as a result.

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Leanne Shawler's avatar

I love this mind mappy way of digging into the characters. I’m starting a new serial and this is just the thing to figure out everybody’s dynamics and not just the “top 3”. Thanks!

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Alison Acheson's avatar

You're so welcome--glad you find it useful! It really serves to dig into plot. Have fun with it --

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