I don't know who might be interested in this, but I just noticed that there is a new version of SuperNoteCard (www.mindola.com). You might recall that this program was originally called MissLonelyNotes. I haven't purchased this software yet, but I am trying to talk myself into it. I think you get a lot of power for your $30. The problem for me is I don't write in note chunks the way this program compells you to. Perhaps if I were a fiction writer, it would make more sense. They have added some additional features to the references function, as well as many other improvements. I give the developer a great deal of credit and hope SNC does well.

Steve Z.

I've bought one, a while back, but haven't yet used it. I'm still intrigued by its tracking of concepts, but I haven't yet seen a way to put that ability to use. I have wondered whether the software used by fiction writers could help me, but the programs are pricey. SNC gives you a good dose of those features at a reasonable cost. Using them, however, is something else.

Stephen R. Diamond

Hello,

I've been lurking here for years (yes, years!) and I've never really had any reason to post. Except today, because SNC is the best tool I've ever used as a (novice) fiction writer.

I use Treepad for the "bible" of my stories and SNC for the story itself. In a few words, in SNC, each card is a scene in an act ("deck") and you can add plots or characters ("factors") with colored stickers on each card.

If you need to re-order scenes quickly, SNC is like heaven! There is a "flatten mode" which ignores the hierarchy of the act structure and show "leaf nodes" only (but each card is still colored, depending on the act where it is). So, it's like a big desk where I can have an overall vision of my work (an unique feature among common outliners BTW, except in the discontinued AcuteNotes...).

Moreover, I can make "associations", for example to explain why a character is acting in a particular scene. So, this is simply the only tool I've found to help creating consistent and coherent stories. There isn't any "fill the holes to create a good story" swindle. The purpose is only to organize data in a common way for writers.

The 1.6 version is now mature and productive, especially because the authors of SNC listen very carefully to the users and always answer emails in a very constructive way.

Here is a (french) review of SNC I wrote for an online magazine dedicated to writers:
http://www.wmaker.net/cosecalcre/index.php?action=article&id_article=135917

Regards,
Sebastien Berthet

Well, the *story* is completed in SNC (this is the exciting part!). What I need then is to write down things for the reader (the novel) with style, more details, etc (this is the hard part). Here I use MS Word, and I only refer *visually* to SNC and Treepad, there is no actual data transferred (even with the clipboard).

SNC is not made to hold long texts. Treepad (and other common outliners) is more fit to organize all those big text chunks. Anyway, I tend to use MS Word to write and then copy/paste to Treepad to organize and links nodes together.

FYI, I've written a small tool for myself (the advantage of being a software developer) to gather all chapter Word files in one big doc file (something like DocBuilder, see http://www.wordaddin.com/ It's also a common launcher/renamer/organizer for all my Word files. My tool could read the SNC XML file to show the card content, so that each chapter (doc file) would be linked to its summary (the card).

As you see, in my case, there is no "One for all" outliner. What's missing in the picture is a way to link SNC nodes to Treepad nodes and vice versa. Some kind of inter-application sync (DDE or OLE) to show up a given linked node from one application to the other.

Regards,
Sebastien

I don't have really used DocBuilder, but I feel it belongs to a real need for (fiction or technical) writers. BTW, my tool, which is very similar, performs an automated copy/paste of all chapters in a new doc file.

Steve, when you have to print the whole document, there is no choice: you have to "build" your doc from your chapters (doing so, each page, - and each chapter - gets its real number, etc.)

MS Word is simply awful when you have a 200 pages document (navigation, print an excerpt for revision...)

Sebastien

Thanks! But I'm afraid it's far from commercial software standards (no documentation, minimal GUI, no real tests, etc.) and I haven't time anymore to develop or even support it (I wrote it in 2001!). Anyway, I doubt it would interest that much people!

Here is the installer (unsupported and freeware):
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sebastien.berthet/cbc/ChapterByChapterSetup.exe

The one sentence documentation: "use the '#' symbol in your MS Word file as the number of the chapter". Period. All other things are obvious (I hope).

Happy writing!

Sebastien