Novel planning and outlining

[SomeRandomBloke]

Hi, new to Storyist (g'day from Oz) after diving into NaNoWriMo. Using both Mac and iPad versions which is a big, huge selling point for me. Anyway... although this novel is pretty much mapped out, I'm a little confused about the best way to plan a story in Storyist. I see character profiles and the like, and I've started to import those from Pages and Evernote, but how would you use cards view which appear to have space for notes, as opposed to plot points and the like.

 

As you can see I'm very new to both novel writing and Storyist, so my apologies for being so vague. Briefly, how does one go about planning a story in Storyist (just to get me started)?

[Steve]

Hi SRB,

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

Hi, new to Storyist (g'day from Oz) after diving into NaNoWriMo. Using both Mac and iPad versions which is a big, huge selling point for me. Anyway... although this novel is pretty much mapped out, I'm a little confused about the best way to plan a story in Storyist. I see character profiles and the like, and I've started to import those from Pages and Evernote, but how would you use cards view which appear to have space for notes, as opposed to plot points and the like.

 

As you can see I'm very new to both novel writing and Storyist, so my apologies for being so vague. Briefly, how does one go about planning a story in Storyist (just to get me started)?

 

On plot points vs. cards in the manuscript: The biggest difference is that index cards in the manuscript are synced with the chapters and sections in the manuscript, so if you delete or move a card, the corresponding text is deleted or moved too. This can be very useful if you're making notes while you're writing or revising. When planning, though, you probably want a little more room to experiment.

 

I like to use the plot points or section sheets in the planning stages precisely because they're not synced so I can move them in and out of the story as needed. My workflow at the start of a project is roughly:

 

1) Switch to storyboard mode and navigate to the Plot or Section Sheets collection.

 

2) Add index cards for section ideas and big story events. I sometimes color code the cards to get an idea of where the major turning points are.

 

3) Arrange the cards in story order, adding and deleting as necessary to get the major scenes down. When I'm comfortable with the big picture, I ...

 

4) Switch to Text mode and focus on the plot or section sheets for the most important scenes.

 

Then, when writing the manuscript, I have detailed notes to refer to, and these notes don't have to be tied to a specific section (they might span several sections, for instance).

 

-Steve

[SomeRandomBloke]

OK, that makes sense. Thanks.