WRITERLY USES FOR THE LOWLY INDEX CARD
WriteDay Writing Tip Wednesday
WRITEDAY WRITING TIP WEDNESDAY
“Writerly Uses for the Lowly Index Card”
Wednesday, 6 November 2024
My mother introduced me to the index card. The standard, 3x5 inch one with a red line above nine thin blue lines on which to write. I was in elementary school and immediately identified with this mini version of the college ruled piece of notebook paper that I loved to write on. I especially appreciated the feel and texture of the stiff card stock paper of the index card. It seemed more durable and lasting than a sheet of regular paper.
Mom gave me my first pack of 100 index cards along with the challenge to read and document 100 books. She bought me a metal box perfectly suited to holding the cards. The box included perfectly sized dividers with the letters of the alphabet printed on tabs. She helped me file my book cards alphabetically by title. This arrangement gave me my first experience with the library card catalog system which I adored because of the tactile and human elements surrounding them. And the concise information.
My idea of hell is being without something to write with and on, and the index card provided me a compact, convenient piece of paper to carry in case a thought couldn’t wait until I got to my desk. The index card went on to serve as a crutch to hold in my hand when nervously giving presentations in speech class at school. It has come in very handy when I want to organize the chapters in a book I’m working on because I can rearrange them if necessary as the story develops.
I’ve used them as mini journals and helped students in my English courses be less intimidated by journaling by having the finite size of an index card to fill. I’ve created flash cards of vocabulary words for myself and my daughters when I was a homeschooling mom on a budget. When the girls were learning Italian, they wrote the words for household items in Italian on cards and taped them to the objects.
Index cards are just so manageable.
A Swedish naturalist and doctor named Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is noted as being the first to use and popularize the index card idea. Yes, that long ago. He did it to organize mountains of scientific information in preparation for writing a book. Systema Naturae. There are several articles on the web about the birth of the index card. This one at Popular Mechanics is interesting and explains how a little piece of card stock was a precursor to the internet.
I find it amazing that writers are still using this method more than 250 years later, and it continues to be one of the best tips for ordering and understanding a story that can become very unwieldy if not handled carefully. No one can sit down and write a 350-page book in one go. Having notes on index cards before (and often added to during the process) each session of word juggling that is writing a book has apparently been making sense for a long time.
What else can the “lowly” index card be used for? Grocery lists, love notes, affirmations, and reminders to name a few. Paper airplanes. Recipes. Have you seen the self-stick index cards?
What do you use index cards for?
I hope your WriteDay is fantastic!
~Joy
CEO and founder My WriteDay Subscription Box
This article may contain affiliate links which may result in the author receiving a commission when readers purchase items through the links.
You are receiving this message because you previously signed up for notifications or participated in a program/course with Joy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Advertisements
JOY E. HELD is an author, educator, editor, entrepreneur, and literary citizen responsible for this site and its contents. She is the author of
Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2020)
Writer Wellness Workbook: A Guided Workbook and Journal to Accompany Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2023)
The Mermaid Riot (Fire and Ice YA, 2024) Young Adult Historical Fantasy
She writes spicy historical fiction under a pen name.
She is the winner of multiple writing and book awards:
West Virginia Writers, Inc. Annual Writing Contest, Honorable Mention, Novel, 1998.
New York Book Festival, Honorable Mention, Writer Wellness, 2020.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Finalist, Writer Wellness, 2021.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, Member of the Year, 2020.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, First Book Award, 2020.
She is an adjunct faculty member in the Southern New Hampshire University Online MFA Creative Writing.
She is a proud graduate of Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction.
She is a member of The Authors Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Joy is the founder and CEO of My WRITEDAY Subscription Box for writers and readers.
I use them for plotting my books— use a bulletin board, pus( pins and line them up. As I complete a section, I take that card down. Great way to organize book contents.
I used index cards whenever I had to do an index for my nonfiction books. Much handier I thought than using the computer.