The C. Michelle Jefferies version of Project Notebooks.

Okay here is my disclaimer. I am not the origonal crerator of these notebooks. I saw them on Nancy Campbell Allen's blog and went gaga over them. I am one that NEEDS and uses my notes as I write. In these notebooks, I saw a way to keep organized and keep all of my projects seperate.

I am also not the creator of the Story Structure I use for structuring my books, or the Dramatica style of plotting or any interpretation of it. However I will shamelessly tell you that these two styles are what I use to organize and create my stories.

So back to the Project Notebooks.

When the local huge super store had their spiral notebooks on sale at back to school time I grabbed two 25 notebook packages of them. I use these notebooks all the time, and at 15 cents a piece it was a steal.




Now, because I am sort-of craftsy, I took some scrapbook paper and covered the front of the book by cutting a piece and gluing it on the cover. This makes them more appealing. :)











Next I glued into the inside of the cover my Table of Contents. Mine consists of:

1 general outline/story structure
2 character pages
3 brainstorm
4 chapter summaries
5 running edit
6 research

Second I glued in the Story Structure outline I created from Larry Brooks Structure lessons. Since this is mymain plotting tool and the one that i rely on the most I put it in first.















The pages after that (in the general outline/storystructure section)I glued in my prompts I created from learning about Dramatica. While it has some amazing questions and things to prompt and make you think, it isnt the steructure I like so I decided that I could use this more for character arc and character development.

What this does is prompts me to think about my story and work things out before I sit and just start hammering the keyboard. Even if you are a seat of the pants writer, I suggest you at least have some idea of where you're going.















The next thing I did was section off each section according to the Table of Contents using a piece of scotch tape folded over the edge of the page. that way I can get to the section easier.

If you are interested please follow my links and create your own notebooks and study out and create your own plotting style/recipie. The least I can tell you is it has worked for me.