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bedlamsbardSo, I've been looking at other writing programs, since Word is a little bit of a mess to work with when I'm writing non-linearly -- oh, yeah, I figured this out when I was putting together the draft of my novel a month ago.
Now, I've been writing Spaceforce (On a Pale Horse, technically) non-linearly for a variety of different reasons. I'm writing in two timelines (past and present) and an academia section. Up until recently, I didn't know what the plot was. And I'm just one of those people who likes to spew all her thoughts out onto the blank page, whether or not they're coherent or related or not. Since I've actually had to type this up and put it together, I've been putting everything in separate word documents with titles like "Spaceforce present (Beau, Colby, recontact)", which more or less sums up the main characters and the scenario. (In this case, it's present timeline, with Beau as the narrator and Colby as a main; this is where they finally make contact with the New York and get Colby back.) Unfortunately, this means that the Spaceforce folder on my computers looks like this:
Messy, huh? And of course the scenes aren't put in chronological order; they're there approximately in alphabetical. It was a real bitch when I was trying to put everything together in draft form to turn in for my senior project; I had three to four Word documents open at any given moment, including a couple of scenes, the draft, and the academia page. I have a rought idea of how everything falls as far as timeline goes, but that's only in my head, not on my computer anywhere.
Now, I could probably use KeyNote for this, but I haven't so far for a couple reasons. KeyNote is one of those pieces of software I couldn't live without. Right now, I use it strictly for story notes, and I love it because it does trees and nodes all in one file.
Since I'm one of those paranoid note-takers -- in the form of lists, lists, lists forever! -- you can see that I really need it. The North Carolina is the setting of my novel, more or less; she's a Washington-class spaceship that carries around five thousand to seven thousand personnel. The file's divided into first wave (past) and second wave (present), and then both are further broken down into military and science, with the military broken down further by branch, and then by medical. The only reason science isn't broken down by department is because I haven't written enough scientists for it to really be practical. We've also got other personnel lists under the first and second wave files: Rokasan POWs, the landing teams (only Alpha is shwon on the first wave, second wave shows Alpha and Bravo and will someday have Charlie), rescued survivors, and chain of command (which is also broken down by military branch as well). What we're looking at here is the full second wave personnel list, with everyone also identified by branch and department (if applicable; examples: "engineering", "medical, USN", "USAF"). Once I figure out the makeups of the squadrons and companies and various other things, those will also be on here under their respective qualifiers.
The Spaceforce KeyNote file (in that same folder) also includes further breakdown. This is the Rokasa tree, which includes all Confederate planets with American military bases on them, which we can see here. Those bases also include a list of personnel and what happened to them. The Rokasa tree also shows off Imperial planets and ships. You can also see the start of the United States file (or, as I fondly like to call it, "Meanwhile, Back On Earth"), which is mostly character lists broken down by association.
Earlier, I mentioned that I have an academia "timeline". This would be where we get a look at it. These are quotes from various nonfiction accounts of the Rokasa Expedition (and some events that happened before; what's up on the screen is Beau Lorne's rescue during his tenure as a maybe-so-maybe-no POW in Iraq), divided up by book and author. You can also see where it's broken into interviews below, where it's not from a specific author.
This is what the file looks like when it's folded up; also, this is the master bibliography. The second file (Author's Notes) is my personal bibliography, books I've read while writing Spaceforce and memorable quotes.
I could use KeyNote for editing, but the program really isn't set up for word processing. It's ideal for notes -- or at least, the way I'm using it now. I also have OneNote installed on my computer (I had a very traumatic switch from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2007 a few months ago; I rather like 2007 now), but I haven't even opened the program yet, so I don't know how that compares.
Since![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synecdochic pimped Scrivener a week or so ago, I've been looking for an equivalent program for Windows. (If I didn't hate Macs, I'd seriously consider getting an iBook. Okay, I don't hate Macs, it's just that I had a Mac -- an old clamshell -- and I didn't get how to use it. And I've been on PCs all my life.) Right now I'm considering PageFour, Liquid Story Binder XE, and SuperNotecard.
But. I'm not set on any of them -- I'll probably try the demos of each sometime soon -- because they're not quite what I want. I want an outline program that's also a word processing program, and I want it to be something that looks good and is comfortable to use. PageFour keeps throwing me because it doesn't look good -- although I'll try it and see what it actually looks like on my computer -- Liquid Story Binder has me hesitating because it's white text on black background (oh god, why?), and I can't tell if SuperNotecard has a word processing function. Which I really really need. Has anyone who reads my LJ ever tried any of those programs? Or have something to suggest? (That's not RoughDraft -- I couldn't see the point of RoughDraft.)
Anyway, it's not that I can't do this stuff on Word, it's that it kills my brain to do it on Word, which is a great word processor (well, it is for me at least, most of the time), but fails at incorporating this sort of thing. Seriously: doing it in Word is a nightmare. Especially when you have this much text:
Now, I've been writing Spaceforce (On a Pale Horse, technically) non-linearly for a variety of different reasons. I'm writing in two timelines (past and present) and an academia section. Up until recently, I didn't know what the plot was. And I'm just one of those people who likes to spew all her thoughts out onto the blank page, whether or not they're coherent or related or not. Since I've actually had to type this up and put it together, I've been putting everything in separate word documents with titles like "Spaceforce present (Beau, Colby, recontact)", which more or less sums up the main characters and the scenario. (In this case, it's present timeline, with Beau as the narrator and Colby as a main; this is where they finally make contact with the New York and get Colby back.) Unfortunately, this means that the Spaceforce folder on my computers looks like this:
Messy, huh? And of course the scenes aren't put in chronological order; they're there approximately in alphabetical. It was a real bitch when I was trying to put everything together in draft form to turn in for my senior project; I had three to four Word documents open at any given moment, including a couple of scenes, the draft, and the academia page. I have a rought idea of how everything falls as far as timeline goes, but that's only in my head, not on my computer anywhere.
Now, I could probably use KeyNote for this, but I haven't so far for a couple reasons. KeyNote is one of those pieces of software I couldn't live without. Right now, I use it strictly for story notes, and I love it because it does trees and nodes all in one file.
Since I'm one of those paranoid note-takers -- in the form of lists, lists, lists forever! -- you can see that I really need it. The North Carolina is the setting of my novel, more or less; she's a Washington-class spaceship that carries around five thousand to seven thousand personnel. The file's divided into first wave (past) and second wave (present), and then both are further broken down into military and science, with the military broken down further by branch, and then by medical. The only reason science isn't broken down by department is because I haven't written enough scientists for it to really be practical. We've also got other personnel lists under the first and second wave files: Rokasan POWs, the landing teams (only Alpha is shwon on the first wave, second wave shows Alpha and Bravo and will someday have Charlie), rescued survivors, and chain of command (which is also broken down by military branch as well). What we're looking at here is the full second wave personnel list, with everyone also identified by branch and department (if applicable; examples: "engineering", "medical, USN", "USAF"). Once I figure out the makeups of the squadrons and companies and various other things, those will also be on here under their respective qualifiers.
The Spaceforce KeyNote file (in that same folder) also includes further breakdown. This is the Rokasa tree, which includes all Confederate planets with American military bases on them, which we can see here. Those bases also include a list of personnel and what happened to them. The Rokasa tree also shows off Imperial planets and ships. You can also see the start of the United States file (or, as I fondly like to call it, "Meanwhile, Back On Earth"), which is mostly character lists broken down by association.
Earlier, I mentioned that I have an academia "timeline". This would be where we get a look at it. These are quotes from various nonfiction accounts of the Rokasa Expedition (and some events that happened before; what's up on the screen is Beau Lorne's rescue during his tenure as a maybe-so-maybe-no POW in Iraq), divided up by book and author. You can also see where it's broken into interviews below, where it's not from a specific author.
This is what the file looks like when it's folded up; also, this is the master bibliography. The second file (Author's Notes) is my personal bibliography, books I've read while writing Spaceforce and memorable quotes.
I could use KeyNote for editing, but the program really isn't set up for word processing. It's ideal for notes -- or at least, the way I'm using it now. I also have OneNote installed on my computer (I had a very traumatic switch from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2007 a few months ago; I rather like 2007 now), but I haven't even opened the program yet, so I don't know how that compares.
Since
synecdochic pimped Scrivener a week or so ago, I've been looking for an equivalent program for Windows. (If I didn't hate Macs, I'd seriously consider getting an iBook. Okay, I don't hate Macs, it's just that I had a Mac -- an old clamshell -- and I didn't get how to use it. And I've been on PCs all my life.) Right now I'm considering PageFour, Liquid Story Binder XE, and SuperNotecard.But. I'm not set on any of them -- I'll probably try the demos of each sometime soon -- because they're not quite what I want. I want an outline program that's also a word processing program, and I want it to be something that looks good and is comfortable to use. PageFour keeps throwing me because it doesn't look good -- although I'll try it and see what it actually looks like on my computer -- Liquid Story Binder has me hesitating because it's white text on black background (oh god, why?), and I can't tell if SuperNotecard has a word processing function. Which I really really need. Has anyone who reads my LJ ever tried any of those programs? Or have something to suggest? (That's not RoughDraft -- I couldn't see the point of RoughDraft.)
Anyway, it's not that I can't do this stuff on Word, it's that it kills my brain to do it on Word, which is a great word processor (well, it is for me at least, most of the time), but fails at incorporating this sort of thing. Seriously: doing it in Word is a nightmare. Especially when you have this much text:
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*jawdrop*
Date: 2008-04-28 03:59 am (UTC)Re: *jawdrop*
Date: 2008-04-28 06:23 am (UTC)No, you can tell that I've gone a little bit crazy when my note-taking reaches new levels. It started out with the Bardverse.
Clearly, I got worse.
Re: *jawdrop*
Date: 2008-04-29 12:45 am (UTC)Re: *jawdrop*
Date: 2008-04-29 01:59 am (UTC)