Katherine's Posts,  Writing

Storyboards: Visually Plotting Your Novel (+ FREE PRINTABLE TEMPLATE!)

September 2, 2022 / 30 Comments

I’m just going to say it . . . I’m a plotter. It’s something I’ve discovered about myself through my writing journey. For me, plotting my story out ahead of time makes writing the first draft a LOT easier. I’ve done different things to plan my story. I’ve made notes, written outlines, and even drew storyboards. 

So this brings me to today! Visual storyboards do something that outlines can’t; they help you to actually see the plot points for your story.

When it comes to storyboards, there are a few different ways to create them. I’ve seen some done with sticky notes and some with drawings for the scenes (I feel like, however, that the drawing type is used more for filmmakers, but if you like drawing [or don’t like drawing but just want a visual], writers can use them too!). There is no one set way to make a storyboard. You can make them however you want! The main purpose of your storyboard is simply to help guide you as you are planning your novel. In this post, I’m going to show you what I’ve done for my storyboards so far. I’m a visual person, so seeing the main points for my novel rather than reading a bunch of notes help me get a better idea of what’s going on in the story.

This first one is for my novel, The Black Cat, and it’s extremely simplistic. All I did was draw stick figures to capture the main plot points. (Er, well, the main points before the plot started changing. XD So looking at this storyboard shouldn’t give away any spoilers.😜) You can still write an in-depth outline, but this basic storyboard really captures the main stuff for the novel and makes a great starting point.

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[^That’s Delano in the drawing, by the way. Doesn’t he look funny? XD]

This second one is for a short story I wrote about a year ago called “Peas and the Fairy’s Curse: A Retelling of The Princess and the Pea.” It’s definitely more detailed than my first one and shows pretty much every single scene in the story. (But I’ll only show a portion of it here, so I don’t spoil the story for you.) Before I drew the scenes, I used a ruler to draw the rectangles, which are called “frames” or “panels.” It took more time, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

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And those are a couple of storyboard examples. Interested in making your own storyboard? Well, you’re in luck because I’ve created a template for you to download for FREE!!! Click here if you want to download a printable storyboard template. This template already has the frames which will save you a TON of time (trust me! XD), and you can get straight to drawing!😉 (Seriously, now that I’ve made this template, I’m going to use it from now on! XD) Also, this template has six frames, so if you need more, you can just print another page. And that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed this post and discovered some new ideas for plotting tricks!

Have you created a storyboard before? If so, how do you like to do it? Drawing? Notecards? Something different? I’d love to hear about it!! (Maybe you’ll give me some new ideas!!😉) Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!

Happy creating and drawing!

~ Katherine

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