I love index cards. For years I’ve been carrying them around in my front pocket to manage my to-do list, and recently I discovered a new use for them: writing novels.
You see, when I was at the British Library a couple weeks ago, I came across Jane Austen’s Persuasion manuscript. She wrote the book on scraps of paper. Small scraps of paper. For me, accustomed to writing in text editors (yawning abysses of empty space ahead of me) or notebooks (with plenty of pages in them), this was crazy. A whole novel? Madness.
But Jane had it right. Over the past few days I’ve tried working on my novel on index cards when I’m away from my computer, and you know what? It’s great. Here are some of the delicious benefits to index cards that I’ve discovered:
1. Small. You can only cram so many words onto a 3×5″ card, front and back. (I’m averaging around 250.) That’s good news! Writing 1,000–5,000 words in a day can be a little daunting no matter how many times you’ve done it before, but filling a dinky little index card? Even if I don’t feel like writing at all, I can certainly do that much.
2. Portable. Extremely portable. You can stash several of these — dozens, honestly — on your person without getting bogged down. (And if you want, later on you can holepunch them and put them on a ring to keep them organized.) Sure, I carry my iPhone with me everywhere, but it takes too darn long to type anything. I’d much rather whip out my pen and an index card and jot away.
3. Cheap. Ridiculously cheap, actually, and definitely cheaper than almost anything else other than plain paper. (Yes, you could go freegan and salvage notebooks from dumpsters, but that’s beside the point. :))
4. Context. Away from your computer or notebook? No worries, you can carry the last part of your draft with you on a card so that when you start writing, you know where you left off. (I’ve also started converting the drafts of my novel to ePub and putting them on my iPhone for a more complete reference. It’s working well.)
5. Outlining. Cards can double as tools to help you outline, rearranging things to your heart’s content. Or write down your character biographies, one per card. Or sketch out a map for the action. Or anything, really. There are tons of ways to use these things.
Are index cards the be-all, end-all of writing? No. Heck, I’m still using text editors and Celtx for my current play and screenplay (though I’ve thought about switching to index cards, I have to say), and even with the index cards I end up typing them in anyway, but for me they’re the perfect way to make use of those little empty chinks in the day when I could be writing if only I had my materials with me. Now I can write anytime, anywhere. (Except for the shower. I’ve got to figure something out for that… ;))
Throw in your two cents