Visual or text while planning

[ptram]

Hi,

Do you prefer to work on a diagram or a text list while planning your story?

I’ve always been very visual when thinking. I’ve always scribbled, made diagrams, used mind maps since my early age.

Diagrams can contain a lot of things, and make them very apparent. They may grow a lot, and become cluttered and unclear. But the same applies to outlines: they can become so huge, that you get quickly lost in them.

Two tools I’m currently using, and – actually – experimenting:

• SimpleMind. It makes plain diagrams à-la-Scapple, or very nice colored mind maps, all mixed together. This means that I can have different central themes (She, Him, Them, The Big Event…) and make mind maps grow from them. I can link them with secondary links. Each topic in the map can have a note attached. The map can also be seen as an outline. Exporting to Scrivener as OPML transfers an outline with embedded text.

• Obsidian. It can do list of notes, like in Scrivener. It can link them via keywords or active links, like in Scrivener. It can show an interconnected map of links with the graph. Importing to Scrivener is a matter of importing .md files; links can be converted to a format Scrivener can immediately understand.

I find SimpleMind to offer a very immediate view on the central themes and their ramifications. It’s sort of a complex timeline, with visual movement corresponding to the time of the story. ‘This character evolves this way; and after this, happens this; and from this premise follow these consequences’. You always know where you are attaching an event. You can trace a secondary link to connect initially unrelated topics, and you can immediately see it.

Obsidian is the usual accumulation of shapeless notes, but with the graph letting you browse and explore ad infinitum. Everything is at the same level, without any hierarchy, but this lets you find unexpected connections between levels, or discover a lack of connection that should have been there.

So, each tool has its place. But I fear relying on too many tools, with a dispersion of focus between too many documents. I keep all the elements of a project in a folder in the Finder, but this might not be enough to avoid being submersed with progressively unrelated information.

How do you do? Can you manage hopping between different tools – at least three, in my case, with Scrivener, SimpleMind and Obsidian – and still maintain a focus on the growing story?

Paolo

[GoalieDad]

I love Simple mind pro and the fact you can close off branches and hide to make the mindmap less congested until you need the info. I love add in the pictures as well. I created something I call a link hub. From the hub I can jump to any location on the mind map and in the area like a POV character is a back link to the hub. This allows me in a couple clicks to go from a pov character to the hub and jump to my location information, jump back to the hub and go to my plotting info, or magic hub. I included an image of what I did. It makes navigation a breeze.

I find I can quickly look at information here as write in Scrivener and this allows to view the information differently and creates angles to build on the story.

The other thing I have done is create a scene plotting template, I may not answer every question, but filling this out as work through scene ideas provides a starting point so when I come back I am ready to add more layers. I show a blank template below.

Unresolved Story Questions:

What questions are pending when write the Scene???
POV Goal/OOD (object of desire):

Other Character’s Goals: (Do they know the POV’s Goal and do they help or hinder them?)

Challenges: (Brainstorm ways the character tries to achieve that goal. (Do they win or fail?)

Outcome:

Reaction: (to the Outcome)

Reflection:

Decision:

Value Shift/What Changed during the Scene:

Function: (How does this Scene advance the story)

Imagery:

Emotional Elements:

Flashbacks or Foreshadowing: