Harvey, my 6 ft tall invisible ..green.. blue.. orange.. PINK rabbit
January 6, 2015 11:26 AM Subscribe
You write fictional works of some sort. The medium doesn't matter. You need to track details for the background and reference them periodically in order to have good continuity. Have you found a good system that works for you? What might that be? Or do you know of any articles, resources, etc on the subject?
Thanks!
Thanks!
Best answer: I use Scrivener, and you can create character sheets and setting sheets, and whatever other notes you want, and since it has a left-hand navigation pane that shows all your files/folders it is fairly easy to keep at hand and update as needed. I don't like giving up any more screen real estate, but I could work in split-screen mode with my WIP in one pane and glossary/notes in another.
Some writers maintain their "book bible" in a paper notepad, and some do the same thing but in whatever electronic format they keep other notes in - could be a Google doc, Evernote, text file, etc - all of which are nice and searchable.
If you are a very visual/diagrammy person you might like something like Scapple, which I have dabbled with but I'd need a third monitor to keep it up and visible in my eyeline.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:43 AM on January 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Some writers maintain their "book bible" in a paper notepad, and some do the same thing but in whatever electronic format they keep other notes in - could be a Google doc, Evernote, text file, etc - all of which are nice and searchable.
If you are a very visual/diagrammy person you might like something like Scapple, which I have dabbled with but I'd need a third monitor to keep it up and visible in my eyeline.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:43 AM on January 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: When I edited [mostly terrible] erotic romance, I just kept it in a Word doc that I kept in a folder with the main text of the manuscript. That way I didn't have to learn a new program or have one open, and it was easily CTRL-F searchable.
I would have a paragraph for each character/setting, and just add the details in whatever order they came up. It was easy enough to just search for "eyes" (or "amber"/silver"/"green with glowing flecks of sunlit amber") and find it from there.
Also, bless you for thinking of this from the get-go.
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:56 AM on January 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would have a paragraph for each character/setting, and just add the details in whatever order they came up. It was easy enough to just search for "eyes" (or "amber"/silver"/"green with glowing flecks of sunlit amber") and find it from there.
Also, bless you for thinking of this from the get-go.
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:56 AM on January 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you are computer savvy you could install a local copy of mediawiki and use that.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:58 PM on January 6, 2015
posted by cjorgensen at 12:58 PM on January 6, 2015
Best answer: After finishing the second novel of my sci-fi stuff, I went back from the beginning and started a plain old Excel spreadsheet of everyone's names, physical characteristics, jobs, injuries, moments of death, etc.
This, of course, soon led to some frustration, as I didn't leave enough spaces for job changes and all that. I would not be shocked if there's some better tool out there. I've heard of Scrivener, but haven't really looked into it.
On the bright side: this project was a real eye-opener in terms of the balance of gender & ethnicity in the novels. I had always written with diversity in mind, but I didn't hold myself to any strict patterns because I didn't want that diversity to be completely artificial or statistics-driven. I'm also aware that readers will tend to default to "white male" when all they get is a last name and/or minimal description. So while I was making a conscious effort to be more inclusive, it wasn't until I'd done that project that I could see where I had fallen short and where I had done well.
So, in short: I can't give you a whole lot of advice on what tool is best to use, but I definitely encourage you to make this sort of effort at tracking. You will learn things about your story that you don't necessarily see until it's there in front of you as data as opposed to narrative.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:09 PM on January 6, 2015
This, of course, soon led to some frustration, as I didn't leave enough spaces for job changes and all that. I would not be shocked if there's some better tool out there. I've heard of Scrivener, but haven't really looked into it.
On the bright side: this project was a real eye-opener in terms of the balance of gender & ethnicity in the novels. I had always written with diversity in mind, but I didn't hold myself to any strict patterns because I didn't want that diversity to be completely artificial or statistics-driven. I'm also aware that readers will tend to default to "white male" when all they get is a last name and/or minimal description. So while I was making a conscious effort to be more inclusive, it wasn't until I'd done that project that I could see where I had fallen short and where I had done well.
So, in short: I can't give you a whole lot of advice on what tool is best to use, but I definitely encourage you to make this sort of effort at tracking. You will learn things about your story that you don't necessarily see until it's there in front of you as data as opposed to narrative.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 1:09 PM on January 6, 2015
Response by poster: Thanks for all the replies so far!
My current computer is probably in its death throes and, for various reasons, I have a history of far preferring web-based solutions (it has really saved my bacon when some computer died suddenly -- something I have experienced more than once). I do have an Evernote account that I rarely access and I guess I have access to google docs, though I used those briefly a million years ago at someone else's behest (feel free to wax eloquent about them. :-) ).
What I did this morning for the specific story that inspired this Ask is I started a draft page (that will never be published) on the webcomic in question with a few notes. That may be fine for this particular piece, which is likely to be relatively short and a one-off thing, but it is part of a body of work that is a sandbox for developing good work habits and what not, basically in service of other projects.
The other projects have tons of details that I probably never wrote down, or wouldn't know where I stuck them if I, in fact, have done so. Ugh. So, trying to up my game before that gets really out of hand now that my sandbox project is doing what it was designed to do and bringing this issue to my attention in a constructive manner. (The sandbox project was started in response to some feedback I got previously on MeFi and is doing good things for me. :-) )
posted by Michele in California at 1:29 PM on January 6, 2015
My current computer is probably in its death throes and, for various reasons, I have a history of far preferring web-based solutions (it has really saved my bacon when some computer died suddenly -- something I have experienced more than once). I do have an Evernote account that I rarely access and I guess I have access to google docs, though I used those briefly a million years ago at someone else's behest (feel free to wax eloquent about them. :-) ).
What I did this morning for the specific story that inspired this Ask is I started a draft page (that will never be published) on the webcomic in question with a few notes. That may be fine for this particular piece, which is likely to be relatively short and a one-off thing, but it is part of a body of work that is a sandbox for developing good work habits and what not, basically in service of other projects.
The other projects have tons of details that I probably never wrote down, or wouldn't know where I stuck them if I, in fact, have done so. Ugh. So, trying to up my game before that gets really out of hand now that my sandbox project is doing what it was designed to do and bringing this issue to my attention in a constructive manner. (The sandbox project was started in response to some feedback I got previously on MeFi and is doing good things for me. :-) )
posted by Michele in California at 1:29 PM on January 6, 2015
Best answer: I like to use yWriter. I've never used Scrivener, but have heard the two are similar, and yWriter is free (always a bonus).
The software allows you to track characters, locations, items, etc. through the story. IIRC (it's been awhile since I used it) you can set the program to do this either automatically (it looks for all mentions of pink rabbits), or you can enter each appearance manually (useful for when you refer to Fredigar the Pink Rabbit in particular). You can also create a dialog box for each character, location, item, etc. to type in descriptions, ages, even include a picture.
Heck, if you want to track details in particular you might be able to assign each detail as an "item," in case you want to look up all the references to pink rabbits as opposed to invisible pink rabbits.
posted by lharmon at 2:13 PM on January 6, 2015
The software allows you to track characters, locations, items, etc. through the story. IIRC (it's been awhile since I used it) you can set the program to do this either automatically (it looks for all mentions of pink rabbits), or you can enter each appearance manually (useful for when you refer to Fredigar the Pink Rabbit in particular). You can also create a dialog box for each character, location, item, etc. to type in descriptions, ages, even include a picture.
Heck, if you want to track details in particular you might be able to assign each detail as an "item," in case you want to look up all the references to pink rabbits as opposed to invisible pink rabbits.
posted by lharmon at 2:13 PM on January 6, 2015
Best answer: Scrivener is a local application, but my writing files all live in a Dropbox folder so they're synching constantly and I can work on them from a different install of Scrivener.
I did use yWriter many years ago and liked it fine. I have no idea if the feature development on it has kept up with Scrivener's, but you can poke around Scrivener's video tutorials to see what all it does.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:26 PM on January 6, 2015
I did use yWriter many years ago and liked it fine. I have no idea if the feature development on it has kept up with Scrivener's, but you can poke around Scrivener's video tutorials to see what all it does.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:26 PM on January 6, 2015
Storybook is nice a well.
posted by LoonyLovegood at 3:31 PM on January 6, 2015
posted by LoonyLovegood at 3:31 PM on January 6, 2015
Response by poster: Thank you to everyone who replied. Unfortunately, I have yet to do anything with the information, because the past month was horrible, evil, I HATE MY LIFE type territory. But I look forward to making use of the feedback once my life gets to be less hate-able. :-)
posted by Michele in California at 12:18 PM on February 5, 2015
posted by Michele in California at 12:18 PM on February 5, 2015
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posted by sparklemotion at 11:41 AM on January 6, 2015