I’m working on a story that needs to have equal “screen time” for both the hero and the heroine’s POV. Plus, it has to have elements of romance, suspense, and faith. When I’m in the middle of writing the story, I find it really easy to lose sight of all these different threads that need to be woven into the plot.

In Pat Haggerty‘s very useful Scrivener class, he showed us how to change the background color in the Binder view so that you can see which scenes are in the hero’s POV and which are in the heroine’s. I chose purple for the hero, and light green for the heroine.

Recently, I learned that you can also add custom icons. I took a photograph of a flower and added it as an icon to symbolize Romance. Scrivener already had an icon I could use for suspenseful scenes, but I created an icon for scenes that emphasize inspirational elements. I also created an icon specifically for scenes that I knew would need to be rewritten.

Then I went and applied these icons to the scenes in my chapters.

I love visual aids like these. Trying to keep track of all these details in my head only guarantees that I will lose track of at least one of these threads. Laying it all out on the screen lets me concentrate on making the story as good as it can be.