Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Hello there, fellow authors.

As I'm plotting and planning the story of my new series, I've stumbled into the problem of needing a good tool for this. Currently I'm doing everything in text-software (like Word, Excel etc), which can get quite massive to look at.

I was considering creating a plotting/planning tool with drag-able text-boxes containing the main plot / events on a story-line. Additionally with the possibility to "enter" each event and have more detailed event-boxes inside those.
Also things like character-changes and story-templates (like the Hollywood Model) could be included.

Does anything like this exist already? Or which tools do you use for creating the overview of your stories?

In case such doesn't exist, I have a background in software development, and will try to build such a tool, and will share it with every other of you writers who might be interested, naturally for free :).
If you have any ideas, comments or suggestions for such content, feel free to comment it here or mail me at [email protected].

Let me know what you guys think, or what you know :)

Thanks
-Mill Woods

Mill wrote: "Hello there, fellow authors.

As I'm plotting and planning the story of my new series, I've stumbled into the problem of needing a good tool for this. Currently I'm doing everything in text-softwar..."

The best is 3x5 cards with a phrase that tells you what the scene (or plot point if you are still at that higher level) is about.

Put them on a table top so you can see them all at once then rearrange to ensure they flow logically and fall like dominoes.

Then put them in an excel spreadsheet.
ID number , scene blurb, then other columns as useful to you:
time, place, characters, why, (scene already has the what), and any other columns that might be useful to YOU.

You do not need to fill in all the boxes. Just do the ones that you find useful for you.

Next to that I would have auxiliary info such as characters and the known factoids about them.

For me your tool could be useful at times, but since it does not exist yet I find that cards and excel do the job quite well.

I may be wrong but I do recall that there is a program that does what you want graphically to help sort but I found it was more work then benefit as you could not see everything at once clearly.

Hi Wmba, thanks for your input.

The card method is one of my favorites as well, and the idea is basically to have virtual cards instead of Excel sheets (thanks for making me see it that way). You might be correct that it can be difficult to get an overview with such a program.

After some more research, I've found a few storyline-creator tools, but they seem unnecessarily advanced and are not free.

I will try and do a simple version at first, and see if it feels intuitive before adding things.

Great day to you :-)

HI, I published my first two books in a series and work on the third is underway. I have just started using Scrivener, and I wish I'd done it before.
Yes, there is a cost, and it can take some using to become comfortable with the operation, but my story has become complex enough to need something like that now.
I am currently going through my first two books and inputting character, setting, plot details etc. It's really handy being able to access everything without have to switch between programmes. There is a free trial period too.

Hi Amanda,
Thanks for the advice.
I used to love Scrivener, but found it to crash a bit too often, resulting in loss of hours of work - however it's been a while, so perhaps I should give it another try :)
Blessings-

An easy way to get "virtual cards" is to use PowerPoint in "slide sorter" mode. Think of each slide as a card. Three advantages:
- You can add any content to a slide (photos, clips from other documents, videos, clickable URLs, etc.), not just text;
- You can link between slides; and,
- Each slide can have notes that are essentially infinite, though they're limited to text.

You can drag slides around to rearrange them. Any links you've set up should still work. If you need paper, print them in two-slide handout format, cut the sheets in half, and you're good to go.

If you use MS Office, you already have PowerPoint, so you're not out extra money. G Suite includes an analogous product called Slides, though I can't vouch for it having all the same features.

Hi Mill!

Organisation tends to be a bit of a buzzkill when it comes to writing fiction.

I happen to be both a writer and programmer (there's a Venn diagram on XKCD for people like me somewhere), so research is a massive part of what I do.

I created the Under Cloud to help me do research, and I use it to link to the reference articles for the novels I'm working on (the actual science for the "hard" sci-fi), and work-related things, too.

Here's a how-to video, explaining some of the things it does.

This thread has been invaluable, and I'd love to learn more about how people do their thing.

Under Cloud is free to use, and it'd please me no end if someone found it half as useful as I do.

All the best!

Mill wrote: "I was considering creating a plotting/planning tool with drag-able text-boxes containing the main plot / events on a story-line. "

I use Scrivener and can drag and drop scenes/re-arrange order when using the pin board view.

For planning, or even better, for managing your book as project I recommend the platform we built: www.asengana.com.