There’s also a program called Storylines that’s part of The Writer’s Café suite that can track several storylines. 
And best of all, it’s free for Macs (though I believe you can register after you’ve tried the demo).
It doesn’t go into the detail that a project management program will, but it is free and works well for what it does, imo.
Thanks for the link. I downloaded it and now I’m playing with it. It gives one hopes to see that it was developed by an author and a programmer together. At first glimps, it looks simple and user friendly, and while it allows multiple storylines, its columns aren’t very flexible. And finally nice to see one where the drag and drop really works in the timeline! No need to be spoiled and want everything. One can easily adjust oneself to the software as long as it’s designed with common sense.
Definitly worth a try. I’ll try to set up some of my Excel notes here and see how it works.
Again thank you.
All the best,
Diren
I tried out Writer’s Café once. I didn’t like the UI; and overall it felt more like something to play around with than to get serious work done.
Timeline is in many ways like a puzzle, so I can’t see anything wrong with being able to play with it. For me the serious part is the research part and to some degree the writing part, and for this Scrivener is serious enough. I’m not sure how useful a timeline would be in doing the research itself, it seems its more useful when structuring the novel. Be that as it may, I can’t say I’m very fond of the IU either (being an IU designer, I’ve so far not been able to find a software for which I could say “Yes, this is exactly how I woud have done it for my personal needs!”), but as far timelines goes it’s difficult enough to find something that works. And this software looks better than the others I have seen.
I didn’t refer to the timeliner part, I referred to the app as such. As I rememberg, it came with a lot of bells and whistles.
I see you are from Turkey: I just read a fabulous memoir by Ya
I didn’t refer to the timeliner part, I referred to the app as such. As I remember, it came with a lot of bells and whistles. They are kind of “endearing” – but in the end, no “endearment” helps you in your writing.
I see you are from Turkey: I just read a fabulous memoir by Yasar Kemal that made me long for Anatolia again.
Ooops, I seem to have hit some posting-key while still writing.
I didn’t hear any whistles and bells, so they might have gotten rid of that. Yes, that wouldn’t be very useful. Like I said, i’ve developed a more pragmatic attitudes to these kinds of programs lately, if they do the job, it’s fine with me. Always hoping the “ideal” software will be designed by someone, one beautiful day…
…
“Again” implies that you have been here before, right? 
Yes, I’m from Turkey, but not from the Anatolian peninsula, but from Istanbul in Thrace. I must humbly admit that, even though I have met him a few times in different environments, I haven’t read Yaþar Kemal yet, (there’s something about him that keeps me away Maybe him being obsessed with the Nobel). I prefer Orhan Pamuk, who silently got the award without making half as much fuss about it. Yes Yaþar Kemal is Anatolian, while Orhan Pamuk is Istanbulian. THat shows in their styles as well, one writes epic (Anatolia is full of tales), while the other one goes experimental (Istanbul can easily be described as an experiment of what happens when east collides with west).
Anyway, drifting away from the subject…
All the very best,
Diren
Why not? More of that please.
Maria
Thank you Maria.
I’d easily recommend the books by O. Pamuk for anyone who is interested in innovative literature. I say innovative, because they’re very far from being classical. Apart from one novel which is in the classical Western tradition (and that one hasn’t been translated to any Western language as far as I know ), all his other books are written with different (and many of them directly postmodern) styles. However they’re warmly written and are more than anything, entertaining to read. I’m currently reading My Name is Red, which is a murder mystery taking place in the 16. century, in Istanbul.
From Library Journal:
"In 16th-century Istanbul, master miniaturist and illuminator of books Enishte Effendi is commissioned to illustrate a book celebrating the sultan. Soon he lies dead at the bottom of a well, and how he got there is the crux of this novel. A number of narrators give testimony to what they know about the circumstances surrounding the murder. (…) Pamuk (The White Castle) creatively casts the novel with colorful characters (including such entities as a tree and a gold coin) and provides a palpable sense of atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire that history and literary fans will appreciate. "
This novel and the others as well, are very different from the epic tales of Y. Kemal. Kemal is a more traditional literary figure, dealing with issues such as environment, rural traditions and in depth, the conflict between tradition and modernity. He can easily be described as the master of traditional, post-republic Turkish literature. Pamuk is more entertaining, and is generally evolving around the east - west dilemna, but without the any didactic sound. It stands in many ways close to Gabriel Marquez and the magical realism “school”. He has been critisized very much here, mainly because his attitude is “Art is just art” and mustn’t always be for the people, or about the people or have a hidden moral message underneath. This might sound like a trivial debate for people in the Europe, America, etc. but here the literary movement has always been “people” and ‘moral’ oriented, glorifying the rural life or the secular lifestyle, dealing with the Kurdish issue, the Armeians, the Greeks, or typical “socialist” novels dealing with the poor, the opressed, the insulted etc. An author who writes from the perspective of a gold coin is like mocking with this tradition in many ways and wouldn’t have much chance here. But then O. Pamuk got numerous prizes aurond the world and at last, the Nobel. A real shock for the literature circles here.
Yardimli,
thanks a lot. I think I have read a book from Kemal several years ago, indeed epic, I have to dig it from the packages that are still closed 4 years after my move to Japan… I did not get the impression that he was a first class author, but many around me loved his stories. They lead the way out of every day life, into another world which is real though, not “phantasy”. Pamuk was well observed and welcomed in Germany for many years, but it is your post that finally makes me want to read him. I will ask my brother to send me some translations into German. Looking forward to that reading!
Maybe, this should have been talked about in another section, but anyway. Thanks,
Maria
You’re quiet welcome Maria.
And true, we’re walking on the wrong alley here. If ony there was a way to move this debate to another part of the forum.
Many years ago I found myself in a Dostoevsky forum with heated debates on the author, and for a few months I literaly lived with and on that forum. This is the first time since then, I feel I’m among people that I share the same world with. Thank you, all.
Kemal’s memoir describes the life of his family in eastern Anatolia, by the Lake Van, and how the family was driven westwards by the Russians in WW1.
You read of gangs of children, orphaned through the war, who are hunted down and killed; of the fantastic wide, wide landscape; of storytellers wandering from village to village; of an orphan whom the family rescues and who much, much later kills Kemal’s father in a mosque, right next to Kemal; of his beginnings as a writer, living in a card-board-box in an Istanbul park, eating the fish that he caught in the Bosporus.
In German the book is called “Der Baum des Narren”, literally “The fool’s tree”.
Yes, in a sense he is a naive and un-intellectual writer. His writing is very much focused on the plot.
I wouldn’t pit Pamuk and Kemal against eachother, just like I wouldn’t pit, say, Brahms and Wagner, against eachother (or to make the comparison seem less German: Hemingway vs. Thomas Wolfe).
They are both strong artists in their own right.
Yes, I have been to Anatolia. I cycled from Istanbul to Dogubeyazit, on the Iranian border.
It was very, very memorable.
The people are extremely hospitable. The roads are well paved and empty. In the mornings, the muezzin awakes you (actually the “click” of the loudspeaker awakes you when the muezzin turns it on).
The land is sparsely populated and undulates in huge waves. When you reach the top of a hill you have a wide view over the yellow steppe.
There are volcanoes and ancient cities that have been dug underground.
And so on and so forth.
If you want to reply - I opened a new thread here:
moved to the new thread.
Studio717, sincerly thanks for the StoryLines recommondation. I’m using it and I’ve put the chronology of events in order (at last!). Its a simple software, but it does what it’s meant to do. I’ve for instance just found out the truth behind a controversial issue (where a certain person was born) by putting every known data in the program.
Glad to hear that it’s helping you! I think it’s a sweet little program, especially the multiple storylines that it allows.
(And being free for Mac users at the moment doesn’t hurt, either! 
)