mindful storyboards and filling the gaps in the narrative

Mindful storyboards, filling the gaps in the narrative

Creative writers always say: use all the senses. To evoke a particular place and time, include what you can see, hear and feel, also smell and taste.

This is very much like an exercise in mindfulness, to be in the present, non-judgmental, noticing what's special about the experience. In doing research, writers walk about the location: museum, library, canalside, drinking in the experience. In fiction, the character's emotion is the most vital part, but readers need to 'be there' as well.

Reviewing a piece of writing in a critique group you often find that you've left out some important detail, something so obvious it didn't occur to you to mention it. It's only when your work is read by fellow writers that your attention is drawn to these gaps. 

If you're working on your own, as most of us are, how do you guard against this tendency?

My suggestion is to use storyboard examples. Although a storyboard is used to show the sequence of camera shots in a film, it is also useful to let your story flow. A storyboard focuses on the key moments so it's useful in preparing an 'elevatior pitch' or a synopsis.

You don't have to be an artist. You can just draw stick figures and scribble in a rough background. If you pick out six 'story beats' from your novel.

The first thing you notice is that the boxes in a storyboard are  tiny . Some professional storyboard artists work on on an amazingly miniature scale.

My solution has been to use pastels on an A4 sheet like this:

I predict that you'll notice something in the pictures which belongs in the narrative but isn't there. Whose point of view matters? Are the characters looking at each other? Is there a whole scene that's missing? 

If it's helpful you can storyboard every scene and you may notice details which turn out to be useful. There is a risk is that storyboards are too visual. Our present culture is dominated by visual media: film, TV, internet, video game and the novelist's task is to portray human experience in all its aspects. 

Pictures can hint at smells, tastes, body sensations and emotions but ultimately it's  down to the writer's imagination that finds words to convey these.