Hi

[DaveInArcata]

New member Dave here, from northern California, where we are in day two of this year's great Kinetic Sculpture Race, today.

 

I just bought the Mac and Ipad version of Storyist, and am bending my will to daily writing this summer on my first long piece of fiction. I'm coming over from Jer's Novel Writing program, which I love. I'm hoping to "reduce" or "profile" some of the many offerings in Storyist so that I can get a similar lean and mean writing machine.

 

I'm struggling a bit but I do that with all kinds of software. I am excited about the several different ways of planning, though I find myself trying to figure out the differences between the different "sheets" and "points."

 

And the forum looks like a very friendly and capable community.

 

Cheers!

[Steve E]

Hi Dave.

New member Dave here, from northern California, where we are in day two of this year's great Kinetic Sculpture Race...

Down Route 101? Doesn't matter. Do you have an entry? Yay, Kinetic Sculpture! (Big Fan)

 

... I find myself trying to figure out the differences between the different "sheets" and "points."

I'll take a shot. Sheets are the files where you store information of a particular type. For example, the Character Collection (actually a folder) stores Character Sheets. What makes a particular sheet (i.e. file) a Character Sheet (as opposed to a Settings Sheet or a Plot Sheet) is that it is structured with "points" containing fields for character information (e.g., Character Name).

 

Now you might ask yourself, "Self, why all the structure? Why not make everything like Note Sheets, which have no structure?" The answer is that the "points" remind you of things you should probably know about your (e.g.) character. You don't have to fill them in right away, or at all.

 

It's probably also worth noting (because so many people have brought it up) that your Manuscript is a folder containing Chapters, which are also folders, containing Sections, which are files. Storyist knows where one Section ends and another begins by the Section Separator (#) at the end of the Section. You'd be surprised at how many people are tripped up by this. (Hence, this little public service.)

 

Love Racing Kinetic Sculptures.

And Welcome To The Forums.

-Thoth

[marguerite]

Well, the plot sheets ARE called plot points, which could be a tad confusing. That’s because each one refers to a specific plot point in your story. You can put them in index card or outline mode and see the whole plot or some portion of current interest laid out before you.

 

Exceptionally useful, in my mind, are Character Development Points, which are not sheets and do link character sheets with scene or section sheets. They allow you to chart multiple characters’ growth over time.

 

But most useful of all is that you can ignore the sheets at the beginning and work them in as they become useful. I like setting sheets, which remind me to think about what places sound and smell like as well as how they look, and character sheets. Before revisions, I use section sheets to make sure that every scene has a conflict. I use plot points less often: usually to chart mythic journeys or plan a course out of some corner into which I have painted a character, and so on.

 

I’m sure everyone has his/her own list of favorites.

And yes, welcome to the forums!

Marguerite