Lila came to my remote "learn to storyboard your book" class to work on her novel. Recently, she emailed me, wondering if storyboards also were useful when planning shorter pieces, such as short stories or essays. "I often know how I want to start and end a short story," she wrote me, "but the part in the middle gets a little foggy. I like the idea of using a W structure but I also don't have much time to have 3 turning points. So maybe it's just a V?"
In my short stories, I also (usually) know where I want to begin and end. And Lila's right, that there's a lot less time to develop a full storyboard. But if I look carefully at my most successful short stories and essays, I can see at least the five main points of the storyboard in action.
