Attaching section sheets to a section.

[Fitch]

I've searched and read everything I can find in the User's Guide and frankly, attaching a section sheet to a chapter eludes me. I don't 'get' the collage paradigm at all. I can't even figure out how to get to the 'collage' state. Doesn't matter which direction I go through that swinging door, I end up back in the street.

 

I read "Working With Storyboards."

 

I clicked on the section I wanted to attach the sheet to, clicked on the 4 squares icon, which I think is collage mode (the other two are outline and manuscript), and then try to drag the sheet to it and it fails. The corkboard converts to the section sheet and ignores the section I want to attach it to.

 

When I select the section in the project to which I wish to attach a section sheet, right click and choose to create a section sheet, it appears at the bottom of the list, not near or under the section where I want it. I can't move it there by dragging, it won't go.

 

I did a search of the users manual on collage thinking I'd get detailed instructions on how to get to that wondrous state and it referred me back to the Working With Storyboards section that doesn't tell me what I want to know. I had less of a run around signing up for Social Security.

 

I went to the view menu. No Collage option. I search 'Help' for Collage and get, referred to the User's Guide that doesn't have the information I need."

 

I simply don't understand the mechanics that will let me take advantage of story sheets. Somewhere, somehow, there is a secret handshake, known to those with the 'right stuff', that creates collage mode, which appears to be how to use them, but I can't find it.

 

I wish the User's Guide was written more as a nuts and bolts 'How To' than it is. The User's Guide reminds me more of advertising copy than How-To. It tells me all the wonderful things I could do if only I knew how, then moves on to the next feature I don't know how to use.

 

What's missing is grunt level, item by item instructions, (click on this <shown in picture>, see this <shown in picture> then < and so forth> and they are not there, at least at the level that works for this newbie to Mac and Storyist both. Mentioning that a feature exists is useless if there is not accompanying detailed, click-by-click level, instructions on how to make it happen. For a newbie such as myself <I'm a customer>, how this SW operates not intuitively obvious, nor is the Software Help function or the User's Guide particularly useful.

 

Marguerite, you should write a "Storyist For Dummies" book. There is nothing in the User's Guide or help menu that's helped me as much as your posts here. I'd stand in line, in the rain, on a cold dark night, in a bad neighborhood, to get a copy.

 

Fitch

[Steve]

Hi Fitch,

It sounds like you're almost there.

As you mention, the Working with Storyboards section of the Users Guide is the relevant documentation. I understand that you'd like more detail (thanks for the feedback), but I do want to highlight this:

Storyist provides two types of storyboards:

• Corkboards—Used for groups or heading-level text items (like chapters or acts). A Corkboard is virtual bulletin board you can use to see the structure of your story.
• Collages—Used for individual items (like a section or a scene). A collage helps gather the items related to the section or scene you are currently working on to keep them close at hand. These items can be images, comments, or other story elements.

To view a story element as a Storyboard, use the Project view to navigate to the element you want to see, and then do one of the following:

• Click the View as Storyboard button in the top right corner of the navigation bar.
• Choose View > as Storyboard from the main menu.

 

So clicking on a group or heading-level item (like a chapter) in the Project view shows you the cork board for that item and clicking on an individual item (like a section or scene) in the Project view shows you the collage for that item.

 

From your post, I take it that you've made it this far, and are now trying to drag an item to the collage, correct?

 

To do that, click and hold the mouse on an item in the project view and without releasing the mouse, drag it to the collage. If you click and then release the mouse before dragging, you'll navigate to the item you've clicked, which is probably not what you want.

 

-Steve

[Fitch]

Hi Steve,

 

While the relevant section, shown above, says how to view as a story board it does not say how to view as a collage. Nor does it say a chapter is displayed as the storyboard, a section is displayed as a collage. I had no idea that was the case until I read your post. You know how this works so well you see what you know. I don't.

 

I tried to follow your instructions several times, but I'm apparently doing something wrong because I'm not having success.

 

I set up to view side by side, vertical split to write while seeing the outline. I clicked in the right view, clicked on the chapter of interest and I saw the manuscript. I clicked on the outline icon in the upper right corner of the right view and I saw the outline. I clicked on the corkboard icon and I saw the chapter sections as note cards. Still in the right view, I clicked on a section in that chapter in the project view. I saw a blank area with corkboard texture. It didn't look like the collage in the manual but absent other knowledge, or instruction, I assumed it was the collage.

 

In the project there are two story sheets, one of which I want to attach to the section that's showing as a cork texture (presumably collage) in the right view. I clicked and held down, dragged with out releasing to the corkboard appearing window. I saw a ghost of the story sheet respond to and follow the drag. When I got the ghost representation in the corkboard appearing area I assumed was the collage, and released, nothing happened. Nothing appeared in the corkboard/collage area. The section was still selected in the project view but nothing appeared to be attached to it.

 

What did I do wrong?

 

Fitch

[Steve]

Hi Fitch,

 

Hi Steve,

 

I set up to view side by side, vertical split to write while seeing the outline. I clicked in the right view, clicked on the chapter of interest and I saw the manuscript. I clicked on the outline icon in the upper right corner of the right view and I saw the outline. I clicked on the corkboard icon and I saw the chapter sections as note cards. Still in the right view, I clicked on a section in that chapter in the project view. I saw a blank area with corkboard texture. It didn't look like the collage in the manual but absent other knowledge, or instruction, I assumed it was the collage.

 

If you're seeing the cork texture, you're not viewing a collage, you're viewing a cork board. A corkboard is the type of storyboard used for groups or heading-level text items (like chapters or acts).

 

Collages have a gray background by default. A collage is the type of storyboard used for individual items (like a section or a scene). To view a collage, choose a section in the project view or use the popup in the navigation bar to select one.

 

See the attached screenshots:

 

 

 

-Steve

[Fitch]

Hi Steve,

 

I have selected exactly as you show in the section picture and get corkboard in my WIP file. I get what you show if I use the same file you used - the one that comes with the software.

 

Let me see if I can include a screen shot.

 

Apparently I'm doing something wrong that's related to the style which keeps it from using the collage format, but I've no clue what.

 

The section separator is Section separator style. Chapter is Chapter style.

 

I attached one picture, I hope.

 

Fitch

 

 

[Fitch]

Hi Steve,

 

This is picture to show the section separator style.

 

Fitch

[Steve]

Hi Fitch,

 

It looks like you've defined the Section Separator style to have a heading level other than "Body Text" and have disabled the display of body text elements in the outline.

 

 

So what's happening is that you're selecting a heading-level item (one that has the Section Separator style) in the Project view and seeing the cork board for that item.

 

You don't see anything on the cork board because you have disabled the display of body text sections. Disabling the display of body text elements also means you won't see the collages for them either (there are no body text sections in the Project view to click).

 

Normally, the Section Separator style is a body text style that is applied to the section separator character ("#") at the end of a section. If you'd like to use the collage feature (and there is nothing saying you have to), you can enable the display of body text sections and separate them with the "#" character. This is how the Novel template is set up.

 

-Steve

[Fitch]

Hi Steve,

 

So even after all my struggles to get the thing imported with correct styles, a previous thread, I've still failed to find the right color easter egg.

 

Is there any way to attach story sheets to sections other than the use of collage?

 

Fitch

[Fitch]

Hi Steve,

 

Never mind my previous question. I think I've finally figured out how to import my WIP so it will work with Storyist as designed. If it works, I'll describe the process.

 

Fitch

[Fitch]

Hi Steve,

 

I think I did it. These are the steps I followed:

 

1. Exported the WIP document from Storyist as an rtf file. When i started I should have done that from Scrivener instead of importing Scrivener file. Importing the Scrivener file was a big, huge, mistake. Storyist can do it, but it will lead to a lot of frustration for a new user. Trust me on this, got the T-shirt. <grin>
2. Opened the exported rtf file in MS-WORD. I didn't care about style preservation because the styles needed to be changed to match the novel template.
3. Opened a new document in Storyist with the Novel Template.
4. Selected all the text of the document in MS-WORD. Copied it.
5. In Storyist, I clicked on "My Manuscript, then clicked in the document, scrolled down below the template text and pasted in the text copied from MS-WORD. All 70,000 words of it.
6. Carefully selected all the text just imported, but not the original novel template text, and applied the style Section Text.
7. Scrolled through the imported text from top to bottom and:
   • applied the style Chapter Title to all the chapter titles.
   • While i was doing that, the first section heading under the Chapter Title had the style Section Header applied.
   • Ahead of the next section I inserted an # and formatted that paragraph as a Section Separator.
   • The heading after the separator had the Section Header style applied.

After all that, I selected and deleted the novel template text because it isn't part of my WIP. When I was done I had a document that showed collage like your pictures.

 

Along the way I picked up a couple of things I'd like check:

• First, apparently every chapter title comes with one 'included' section as 'standard equipment'. Subsequent sections need to be preceded by the # with the Section Separator style applied to that paragraph to be recognized. If there is a section header following section separator it can have the Section Header Style applied but it doesn't appear to do anything except allow it to be formatted differently than Section Text. Is this correct?
• Formatting the text in sections as Section Text instead of Body Text allows Storyist to work as designed?

I still have a lot to do to complete the transfer of the rest of the document, character, and research material to this new file. All the new "Untitled Sections" need to have their titles added. I'll copy paste them in from the other file. I also need to copy and paste all my outline and character stuff from the other file, but I'm going to wait until I find out if what I've done will allow Storyist to operate as designed with all it's feature working.

 

I don't have any indispensable ego attached to this process, so if there is a simpler method that would give the same result, please let me know.

 

Thanks

Fitch

[Fitch]

Hi Steve,

 

Near as I can tell, with my limited knowledge of Storyist, that process worked. I think I have a story file that is as 'compliant' as is possible given it wasn't created from scratch in the Storyist Novel Template. I changed the paragraph spacing and font in all the styles except the Section Separator. I changed the section header first line indent from 1/2" to 0". Other than that, the styles are the original Novel Template Styles and everything I try behaves like the User's Guide specifies.

 

The sections show up in storyboard mode as collages with the gray background, the chapter titles as note cards on the corkboard background.

 

Along the way, third bullet of step 7 in the previous post, there were a few times the original insertion of the "#" character followed by formatting it as a section separator, didn't take. At first I didn't understand why, then I discovered it was because there was one or more spaces to the left or right of the "#" character. I discovered that if one types any character anyplace in the section separator paragraph other than the one "#" character, the section-separator properties of the paragraph/character are destroyed and if one had a section title in the project view, it is lost. One must be careful not to accidentally type anything in the Section Separator paragraph. Good to know.

 

That said, I loved the ability to have both the old and new versions of the story open at the same time. It made it very easy to scroll through the outline and copy/paste the outline data for each section into the new style-compliant version.

 

I did discover that trying to add onto the very end of the outline is a trifle frustrating because the typing goes out of sight below the bottom of the screen and must be scrolled up to keep it in view. I don't see a way around that, but I mention it just in case an easy way to keep the cursor in view comes to mind that doesn't mess up other things. Everything is a trade off.

 

Okay, back to writing.

 

Fitch