abuse of index cards

[egypturnash]

Clever analog way to help categorize index cards. The particular use is for story plotting, and I wish I'd run across this idea before I filled about 140 or so index cards up with Drowning City fragments. You could probably use it for any data that works well as little bits on a bunch of cards; I distinctly recall a scene in an otherwise-forgotten young adult mystery novel where the detective used this technique to narrow a list of suspects down to one avenue of investigation.

Drowning City? Still percolating; I've been work-hectic this month. I've got the beginnings of some page layouts, but I need to get ahold of some good architecture reference. last night I talked with my mom and she suggested this book; I'll probably order a copy as soon as I have cashflow. The story's not exactly set in New Orleans - but it's set in a warped memory of that city, and I want to have ample source material to work from.

Comments

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

Could you just take the stack (with a generous helping of blanks) into Kinkos on a slow tuesday mid-morning and ask them to drill an edge for spiral binding? I'd scotch tape them into a brick to avoid accidents and mark the brick to avoid miscommunication, but other than that, you should be OK.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I can't really put holes in my existing notes, you see, 'cause I wrote out ot the edges. I'd have holes in my words!

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised you didn't know about this - Heck, I remember this sort of thing being in the Whole Earth Catalog back in the '80s - Heck, I even pointed somebody to the idea a while back (http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/35165#548274).

I thought the whole point of putting ideas on notecards was the enforced granularization of the material: Dosen't cramming them border-to-border kind of defeat that?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Like I said, I'd run into it in something I'd read when I was, oh, six or so, but I didn't remember the basic idea, or think of it in the context of 'organizing writing' when I started dumping Drowning City onto a pile of index cards.

I have it reasonably organized, and have few enough right now that I can organize them by hand. *shrug* Next project.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

And... some cards have a word or two; some have a question. Some have a question and an answer. Some have 3-6 bullet points on them, listing the major events that happen in a chapter. Some have script fragments; larger-sized cards even have page thumbnails. Some of this stuff has margins, but enough of it doesn't...