White boarding a story

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A short story requires a lot of information to be at the writer’s fingertips. A novel on the other hand requires a vast amount of information. Accessing this information can present a formidable problem for an author. In short, it has to be organized in a way that allows the author to retrieve it without wasting time searching for it. While there are a number of ways to organize this information, my preferred method is to whiteboard all the stuff.

There are many whiteboard apps available and I’ve tried most of them. I’ve settled on two that I prefer to use: Scrintal and Milanote. They use somewhat different approaches but have many similarities. I’ll use Milanote for this article but the same approach would apply if I used Scrintal

Milanote has a free version if you want to try it out. So does Scrintal.

In the screenshot below, I show the main board and all the sub-boards associated with the story. The screenshot is an example of the great flexibility that whiteboards provide. Each of the sub-boards can be easily customized to satisfy the user’s preferences.

whiteboard image 1

Each sub-board is dedicated to a specific area of information. This make it easy to retrieve information: just click on an icon and the sub-board will open up to display the contents. The screenshot below is an example of the type of information that can be placed in the sub-board. This screenshot displays the plot sub-board.

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Besides text information, a user can also upload graphics, PDFs and other content to the whiteboard and sub-boards.In summary, when creating a long story like a novel or screenplay or memoir or even an non-fiction book, I recommend using a whiteboard to package all the relevant information in an easy-to-use application that provides quick access to that information.

I created a video on how to make a whiteboard for your own story. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/6QuWNGyBpIE?feature=shared

Storytelling

Whiteboards

Trump Uber Alles

Voting box

I'm an independent voter and I'm worried.

If you've read a lot of history like I have, you can't help but notice the eeire resemblance between our 2024 election and Germany in 1933 when Hitler took power and destroyed German democracy.

Trump even has his own version of Mien Kampf in Project 2025. .

Hitler inherited a weak military and it took him years to build it up before he attacked other countries. Trump would immediately have a powerful military with nuclear weapons under his control.

Given the situation, I fear for our democracy and I wonder what kind of government my grandkids may be forced to live under.

In November, get out and vote as if democracy depends upon it. Because it does. Protect democracy!

The Evolution of Princess Moxie: From Concept to a Series of Three Novels

I had this idea about a character I wanted to write about. The idea was that this character would undergo radical changes over the course of the story. After a lot of thinking and jotting down notes, I finally found the right story for this character. The initial story idea (a short story) evolved into a pair of novels that led to a third novel.

Princess Moxie is an unusual protagonist. She's obnoxious, self-centered and often in a snit because someone didn't do what she wanted them to do. Moxie's favorite pose is hands on hips, scowling and tapping her toes. Readers don't like her.

So why did I create such a character? Because the great thing about Moxie is her character arc. By the end of Moxie's Problem, readers opinion of here has changed from annoyance to sympathy. By the end of Moxie's Decision, readers are hoping she will be successful in her quest to become the queen. That's a helluva change.

Character arcs aren't an on/off switch. The character can't be one way at the beginning and then a different way at the end with nothing in between. The story has to show the character slowly changing, in incremental steps. And some of the steps have to be negative ones, in which Moxie reverts back to her bad old ways. In effect, the character arc forms a story within the story.

Besides Moxie's story, the novels have a number of characters stolen from the Camelot legends. For instance, I have several battles between Camelot's Knights of the Round Table and the Saxon warriors led by the Hengist (an actual historical figure). However, instead of bloody shield walls, the battles take place on a football pitch using primitive rules and referees.

There are a number of other changes in my Camelot. Stonehenge for instance is a theater-in-the-round available for hire. Merlin investigates the magic of the mind using primitive Rorschach inkblot diagrams.

This strange Camelot and a few of Moxie's adventures bothered me for quite a while: How could I get readers to accept a Camelot that was so different from the beloved legends? One day the answer hit me: my Camelot was in a parallel universe! The perfect solution! And the Princess Moxie novels were launched!

Cover images for the Moxie novels

Here are links to the Moxie novels:

Moxie's Problem

Moxie's Decision

Queen Moxie