Scrivener it’s probably if not the best, one of the best software for a writer. I’ve been using Scrivener for a few years, and I love it. However, if I could suggest an improvement, that will be character development.
Thanks! Glad to hear Scrivener has been helping you out. Could you go into a little more detail on what you mean? Since the program itself is a general writing program, there isn’t even a concept of “characters” within it, I’d say just as many people use it for non-fiction. So what do you have in mind, specifically? To my mind, character development is something you do in the narrative, what does the software do (or not do) to help you with that?
A beefed up Character Sheet would be a start.
I created my own using example from http://nanowrimo.org/forum_comments/3389282 (that might not be available if NaNo have done their annual forum clean out), http://www.epiguide.com/ep101/writing/charchart.html, and possibly elsewhere. Then merging these together and removing dupliates. It’s a work in progress but it helps me to create more believable characters than the all too brief standard one in the Novel template. (Very much a work in progress it turns out as in looking for those URLs I realise that my Character Sheet project does not contain the most up-to-date version of the sheet; that must be in one of my many NaNo attempts. Before the April Camp NaNoWriMo event I’ll have to find the latest and merge all the improvements back into the master copy.)
Personally, I think you took the right course, reepicheep, in rolling your own. The kinds of attributes that a writer might want to record in a character sheet are, one hopes, unique to that writer, his or her own creativity, and the project in hand. If the OP wants to see what others have done and to use them as a guide or a starting-point, there were at least a dozen such sheets lying around the Internet and free to use when I last looked (including the nanowrimo ones - if they’ve now gone, there’ll be more), plus another dozen at least in various “How to Write a Novel/How to Create a Character” books, plus at least two computer applications built for the purpose.
KB and his team are extraordinarily talented, but I don’t look to them for guidance on this kind of thing. Again speaking personally, I’ve always thought that defining what defines the characters in a particular imaginative work is part of the fun of writing fiction. I wouldn’t want to hand that fun over to anybody else.
There are dedicated applications for character development. They cost huge bucks even when professional writers give out discount codes. I wouldn’t want to see Scrivener diluted by the effort to replicate those other tools.
Here Here! This man needs a Beer!
I’ve been looking at this from a programming stand point. I’ve toyed with building something that would interface both with Scrivener and Aeon Timeline. I could really use it, seeing I have a world and a Series that stands Thousands of years. I really need to keep track of all of the people, the places they go and the things they carry around with them.
Scrivener Great writing app, but it is not a Character Database and shouldn’t be one.
Aeon Timeline great Timeline app, but it only tracks Characters that relate to an event, which is perfect. It would be great to have an application that would bridge both of them and keep track of who is carrying the Black Rod of Death on the Tenth of ARGH, in the year 902; the day the ORCS plan to attack Kona. The integration would save me from copying Data sheets and pounding Entity into Aeon Timeline one at a time, Sam the Brave, Bill the Stupid… “I could be writing the opening battle with the ORC and Goblins and the villagers of Kona!”
Then I got smart and decided not to reinvent the wheel or spend hundred of Dollars on something someone thinks is going to be Perfect for me and uses a formula to give me the right traits for Bill the Stupid, to have earned that name. Or a program that is a wheel that has a flat area and sound like Thump… thump… thump. Orc wheels are like that and you can hear them miles off.
Some Bright people got together and made something called a Wiki. Took me less than an hour to set up, (It can be done it less than ten minutes, but I did it the old fashion way, By Hand). I now have an Page for each of those People, Places and Things and it is almost as good as the program. I can even link those pages to Aeon Timeline and Scrivener, so I am only updating the sheet once, no matter how many stories Bill the Stupid is in. Now, if I could only convince Matt to make a Little Change, that would automate the importing of Entities into Aeon Timeline, and I can get to driving the Orc hoard back into the hills; Once I figure out who has the Black Rod of Death!
Ut-oh, it is Bill the Stupid, standing it the pond, at the end of the canyon, the Orcs and Goblins have to pass on their way to the village, and there is a lighting storm on wind. DOOM and GLOOM! Guess Bill is only in one story. but he will have a glorious death scene; which people will be talking about for years to come. How Bill Saved the Village.
Bob
Argh! What happened to the spoiler alert?
(but nice tip about the wiki)
Update:
I am trying to find away to create a Custom Dictionary for the Apple’s Dictionary Program.
I want the ability to lookup for words, phases and information, on my private Wiki like Apple does with Wikipedia.
This would give you the be the ability to look up Bill the Stupid’s history, with a right click Look up.
I’ll tell you if I am successful.
Bob