So last week I was talking all about writing and index cards and screenwriters.
As it turns out, screenwriters use colored index cards--one for the A storyline, a different one for the B storyline, and a third for the C storyline. This sounded good, but colors are limited in index cards and they're more expensive than the regular, lined white ones.
I found some on Etsy, but I had to order 100 of one color. Those weren't assorted colors. I could have messaged the seller, but I didn't feel like it.
That's when I started wondering about highlighters. What if I just drew a line with a highlighter across the top of the card? I have a ton of highlighters and probably could buy even more colors if the 5 or 6 I already have weren't enough and if worse came to worse, I have a bazillion different colors of markers. I'm a pen slut.
As I researched screenwriting and index cards, I saw a writer who did use highlighters. Not one line across the top, but circles of different colors that meant different things to him. He didn't explain his color-coding system, but I was like: Yes! Perfect! I ordered white index cards. 1000 of them, as I mentioned last week.
And I had another epiphany while I was working with the cards--why don't I use these little hexagon stickers I have instead of a highlighter? They're neater and cleaner looking, I already have them, and they're small. Uniform.
This worked really well, but I wanted more than five colors. I'd used one color per storyline--book 1, book 2, book 3, and bad guy events. But wouldn't it be helpful to mark if it was a hero scene or a heroine one? And what about marking for action versus romance? Balance is important. To do all this, though, I'd need more colors of stickers.
I have a Silhouette Cameo 3 sticker cutting machine. Okay, it does vinyl and other things, too, but aside from a few vinyl pieces, 99.9% of what I've cut has been stickers.
I found printable dot stickers at Etsy, bought them, and I will begin cutting dots to use on my index cards.
You know what's really hilarious, though? I still don't know if index cards are going to work for me as a writing process, but like I said at the onset of these three posts: I obsessively jump in with both feet if I'm sufficiently interested. I just hope I don't end up with 900 unused index cards in my closet.
