Plotting software - Whats working for you? mini-episode

[00:00:02] Hey there, Carolyn. Here I am wondering what your thoughts are on writing, plotting software, or software to help writers structure their work. [00:00:18] I know Scribner is like the original thing, the thing everybody tells you, this is what I use. This is what I've had it for years. I've never figured it out. [00:00:31] Be the only one for whom Scrivener just doesn't work because I just can't figure it out. It doesn't work for me. So I have been looking at some other options to help me structure my novel, partly to structure my novel that I've already written that I know I want to make some updates to. [00:00:56] So a tool that I can import my existing novel into and move things around would be awesome. [00:01:07] But I'll also take something that's super awesome where I can write a new project or start a new project and help to organize it and keep track of different characters, different places or settings, different story arcs moving through. It's hard to. I've tried, you know, I've tried the index cards, I've tried sticky notes up on the wall, and that's fine for shorter pieces, but for novel, it's just. It's just too difficult to keep track of and make sense of so far for me. So I'm really looking for some recommendations, if you have any. [00:01:52] I did a little googling and I see some write ups about a tool called Plotter and a tool called Novelpad. [00:02:06] So I'm looking at those. [00:02:08] A lot of them will have free two week or, I don't know, trial periods that you where you can check them out. And I'm wondering if anybody, any of my listeners, has any suggestions other than scrivener for easy to use software for writing that you found helpful. The thing that I like about novel pad so far is that it's not just a tool to help you organize the structure of your story, but it allows you to write in the tool as well. And so that's pretty great because some of the other tools, like I don't think plotter lets you do that. I think plotter will let you like map out of the plot of your work, but it doesn't actually, you have to write your book or write your story in another tool like word anyway. [00:03:16] So I'm super curious about any input anyone has about that. [00:03:23] Next up, I wanted to talk a little bit about my post boucher con wrap up. I mentioned that I had been finding some interesting merchandise items that I wish that they had sold in the book room at Bachelor Khan. [00:03:48] I think it would be. I don't have a murder mystery bookstore in my town or even in the closest city to here. I do have bookstores and there are even some, some good bookstores and some bookstores that have, in addition to books, some limited merchandise. And I think that that's awesome. But I really looking for some cool items around and I've been finding some fun things that I hadn't actually been looking for when I went searching. And I'll be parsing those out over, you know, the next several weeks in posts on the secrets and lies Facebook page and so on. So if you're curious about what's out there or if you find some things that look really cool that you think other people would also think are really cool, send those along. [00:04:48] Next up, I think my next list of links I think are going to come from individual makers that I have found on Etsy. So stay tuned for that because there's some really, really awesome stuff for fans of writing and in particular for fans of mystery fiction. So cool stuff on the way there. [00:05:15] Also, I am wondering about your experiences with national novel writing month. [00:05:29] You may be familiar with NaNoWrimo and the press to complete a full novel in the course of a month by working at it every day and the sort of the collective peer pressure of other people also buckling down to work on their project every day and try and crank that out. What your experience has been, whether you found that to be helpful or whether you found that to be just another, you know, blow to the writer's ego or what. So let me know what you think about that. [00:06:11] All right, stay tuned for some upcoming writer interviews and some other great things. I'll be sure to let you know what's on the horizon again on our secrets and lies Facebook page. [00:06:28] You can always check there to see what's coming. All right, have a great weekend, all, and good writing.