I'm wondering what all the tools are out there for complex storytelling (for Windows PC). By 'complex storytelling' I mean the kind of writing where you need to weave together multiple storylines (e.g. 5 stories). The difficulty is the following. You may need to write a piece of work consisting of several chapters, and the 5 storylines need to be woven into the text of all the chapters.

The problem here is not only the structuring of the overall storyline (although that is one of the issues). I'm aware of Storybook Pro and Anthemion Writer's Cafe for that. The main issue is how to manage and keep track and dip in and out of 5 stories, while you are essentially writing just one text in the end. One way to imagine this is to visualise 5 threads representing 5 levels of depth under the surface, which periodically need to come up to the surface (which is the actual text) and become part of the surface, before dipping below for a while again. The final text is the surface text, and it is made of the 5 storylines, whenever they surface. In my case this is actually social science writing, not fictional stories, so the storylines may relate to empirical stories but also to theoretical (conceptual) stories. It gets more complicated in the sense that some of the storylines may combine and give rise to new storylines (e.g. two empirical stories may give rise to a theoretical meta-story).

At the moment I'm using Scrivener. It's good for a lot of things but the hierarchical outline and the index card view do not really help with the multiple storyline problem. I tried using Storybook on the side, but the problem is it's not directly integrated into Scrivener, which is where the surface text is being created. My curiosity was piqued by the discussions of ConnectedText here, wondering if hypertext (wiki) might be the right format to approach this problem of managing surface and depth. Any other suggestions?

Flying Logic? Plotting fiction or faction isn't what it was designed for, but I've used it for that purpose, and it fits the purpose quite well. It's good at tracing multiple, branching and re-combining threads.

A series of posts in the FL forums from a couple of years ago by the novelist AndreasE describes the use of the software for fictional plotting and is a useful place to start. (I haven't found FL so useful for characterisation, but that's not part of your search.)

H

I think I understand the problem and your question (although if this response is way off the mark, then maybe I don't). It seems to me you could use Scrivener to compose your five strands, but the pieces that are to be "surfaced" get a certain keyword so that you can then use a collection to pull those all together into the narrative. Does that make any sense? (I think the Windows version does collections, but I'm home and away from my PC, so I'm not 100% sure.)

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I think I understand the problem and your question (although if this response is way
off the mark, then maybe I don't). It seems to me you could use Scrivener to compose your
five strands, but the pieces that are to be "surfaced" get a certain keyword so that you
can then use a collection to pull those all together into the narrative. Does that make
any sense? (I think the Windows version does collections, but I'm home and away from my
PC, so I'm not 100% sure.)

Steve Z.

Thanks Steve. Your explanation makes good sense, though the first time I looked at Collections I didn't quite get what they were for. But I will take another look.

After trying every outliner, timeliner, mind-mapping application and "writer's program" ever created, not to mention things like old-fashioned index cards, I've decided that there is no good solution to this problem. SuperNoteCard and Storylines by Writer's Cafe are probably the best programs for this kind of work, IMO, but the truth is that NOTHING works all that well. The bottom line is that this is just hard mental work, no matter what tools you're using. There's no escaping it.

Actually, planning books with multiple, interwoven storylines isn't all that difficult conceptually. You just work out the storylines, break them into chapters, then weave the chapters together, alternating between storylines and tying them together as you go. When it comes to keeping track of the details where the storylines overlap, you just have to keep track of them when you're writing your chapter outlines. That's really what it boils down to. It's brain-busting work and it always will be.

One method that works OK for me when I'm trying to figure out a complex plot is to write "cue outlines." These are very high-level outlines where I just use a couple words to remind me of what the chapter is about and note down the kinds of details you're talking about. I usually write these in Word (or sometimes on a manual typewriter, depending on how hostile to computers I am at the time). It helps give me an overall view of the plot and how the different storylines fit together.

Dictation also works pretty well. It's great for brainstorming ideas and it's a lot faster than writing at the keyboard. If I'm just brainstorming, I never bother transcribing or saving the dictation because the whole point of the exercise is to come up with ideas. You can use dictation to create regular outlines as well and transcribe them with Dragon Naturally Speaking. Then you can go over the outlines and revise them. It works for me, but it might not work for you. Whatever method you use, though, the bottom line is that this is all head work. The hardest part of writing is coming up with good ideas and no program is going to help you there.

Reading back through your post, it seems I didn't quite understand your problem. If you're talking about mixing all these different threads into one continuous narrative, this is completely different from weaving storylines together in a novel or, say, a history book, which is the kind of thing I was thinking about.

This is just my opinion, but I don't think you're going to find ANY program that's going to make this easier to manage unless you can work out some specific structure that can be outlined or described with index cards or whatever. In my experience, outlines don't really work once you start dealing with units smaller than a section or a scene.Once you get below that level of detail, it's easier to just write narrative outlines or rough drafts.

If you could structure the book so that the themes were presented in alternating sections or chapters or whatever, maybe tied together with "bridges" of overall narrative, you could use an outliner to figure it out, but if you're going to mix everything together, I think the most efficient solution (maybe the only solution) is to just sit down and write a detailed narrative outline from start to finish, then go over it again until you get it worked out.

Gary Carson wrote:

Reading back through your post, it seems I didn't quite understand your problem. If
you're talking about mixing all these different threads into one continuous
narrative, this is completely different from weaving storylines together in a novel
or, say, a history book, which is the kind of thing I was thinking about.

Thanks Gary. I'm not sure I understand it myself :) To be honest I'm in the process of working it out. I did try to just write the thing but it turned out that I ended up over-focusing on one or two storylines and forgetting about the others. The result was disappointing. Basically I've written 40,000 words, of which maybe only 6000 will end up in the targeted 30,000 words. So I'm just wondering if there is a clever way to do this. Now that I know that my challenge is to weave together 5 storylines, I need a tool that helps me not to lose focus again and be better at suppressing and NOT writing the unnecessary parts of the stories.

Hi, well I understand that Storybook Pro isn't easy to link up to an outliner. I actually am doing precisely this with UltraRecall andembedded word files, and just use each chapter as a static part of the story. So chapter content can be constantly written/re-written, and if I enter a new chapter, I just add it to the UR outline as a new word file. Wouldn't this work?

Another solution could be to write the bulk of the text in Storybook Pro, or at least a "treatment" version of the book. The various views will help your pacing, and you can export to various formats. Having said that, the export might not be so easily usable, and hopefully Martin will incorporate an RTF export that partitions the data without frames.

Best, /Pavi

Just to clarify how I came to visualise the problem (and the writing process), I created this sketch:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/428516/Photo24022012043637.jpg

The black line in the surface represents the final text, consisting of 3 x 10K word chapters. The surface text is made up of bits of 5 storylines, whenever they surface. The challenge is to be able to focus and just write the surface text, rather than having to write up all of the underlying storylines first, which is too time-consuming.

So there are at least two issues here:
1) being able to manage the process (keeping the storylines straight in my head). This is where Storybook Pro might be helpful.
2) being able to focus on writing the surface text only, without having to fully write all the underlying stories first.

The added complication is that this sort of social science writing is not simply a writing-up of what I have already figured out before the writing. The writing process itself is part of the analysis and the discovery process. So I realise the first version of the surface text will not be perfect and it will be draft. But I would want to be more productive and efficient with the process.

@Hugh - thanks for the Flying Logic suggestion. I took a look at it and found the Theory of Constraints very interesting. Having just taken a cursory look (I haven't downloaded the software), I did find it very expensive though for what it promises to do (considering that VUE or CMAP Tools can do concept-mapping for free).

@Pavi - I think my main problem is not so much managing the structure (your UR solution) but how to manage the tension between surface and depth. It's about how to focus on the surface text, knowing that it is made up of 5 strands, yet not be sucked into the depth and start following a single story at the expense of the others and the overall word count. But you may be right, Storybook Pro might still be the solution. Thanks.

I get the impression that you're worrying about structure--an abstract concept--when you should be focused on specific details.

"Threads, storylines, surface, depth, structure, etc." are all abstractions.

The thing to do is focus on the concrete details of what you want to write about. Once you have the specific, concrete details, the structure you should use will emerge from them. Content determines structure.

For example, let's say you're writing a book about the Panic In Needle Park in New York back in the Seventies. You want to follow the lives of four heroin addicts, a cop, a Mafia heroin dealer, and a doctor at a free clinic as they deal with the Panic, and you also want to describe the history of the heroin trade in New York and how the traffic works on the street.

That's a detailed list of specific, concrete characters and subjects. Each character could become an heading in an outline. The structure of the book is also pretty clear. If this was my book, I'd write it as a series of chapters or scenes alternating between the different characters' storylines and tie the threads together with interviews, sidebars, etc.

Describing what you want to do in specific details almost always tells you what kind of structure to use. Then you can use whatever method you're most comfortable with to outline the book. The tools don't matter. This is all head stuff and a matter of focus.

Dr Andus, I had assumed you were creating a work of fiction, but you say it is on the social sciences. So...now I am very curious, and wonder if you can say something more about the nature of the project.

I think your diagram is probably central to a way to go about this project.

And so I wonder about creating a time line - not on the computer, but on a large white board from which you can step back to see the whole, and to which you can move in and focus on a small part. Sometimes actual physical movement is helpful in processing ideas and seeing information in a different way.

From my own writing experience I wonder whether it is realistic to think in terms of writing the surface text (by which I take it you mean something close to the finished version, neatly incorporating the five story lines) without doing at least some writing of the story lines. I've found that success in working with various story lines is in direct proportion to my familiarity with each story line -- and that familiarity sometimes comes from having at least a detailed written synopsis of each story line.

I wonder if you were to create synopses for each of the remaining story lines in broad brush strokes (to avoid the length of the first two) whether you would then feel a greater sense of ease about writing the surface text.

Daly

Dr Andus wrote:

Just to clarify how I came to visualise the problem (and the writing process), I
created this
sketch:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/428516/Photo24022012043637.jpg

The black
line in the surface represents the final text, consisting of 3 x 10K word chapters. The
surface text is made up of bits of 5 storylines, whenever they surface. The challenge
is to be able to focus and just write the surface text, rather than having to write up all
of the underlying storylines first, which is too time-consuming.

So there are at
least two issues here:
1) being able to manage the process (keeping the storylines
straight in my head). This is where Storybook Pro might be helpful.
2) being able to
focus on writing the surface text only, without having to fully write all the
underlying stories first.

The added complication is that this sort of social
science writing is not simply a writing-up of what I have already figured out before
the writing. The writing process itself is part of the analysis and the discovery
process. So I realise the first version of the surface text will not be perfect and it
will be draft. But I would want to be more productive and efficient with the
process.

@Hugh - thanks for the Flying Logic suggestion. I took a look at it and found
the Theory of Constraints very interesting. Having just taken a cursory look (I
haven't downloaded the software), I did find it very expensive though for what it
promises to do (considering that VUE or CMAP Tools can do concept-mapping for
free).

@Pavi - I think my main problem is not so much managing the structure (your UR
solution) but how to manage the tension between surface and depth. It's about how to
focus on the surface text, knowing that it is made up of 5 strands, yet not be sucked into
the depth and start following a single story at the expense of the others and the
overall word count. But you may be right, Storybook Pro might still be the solution.
Thanks.

Dr Andus,

I'd still look at Scrivener to do this (with the caveat that I'm not sure Scriv for Windows is quite up to what I'm suggesting yet -- though I'm sure the Mac version can do it).

Here's what I would try:

1. Sketch out the structure of each strand, creating a document for each "piece," whether it is a surface piece or not. Forget about hierarchy.
2. In each document, write a short description.
3. Use an alpha numeric code at the start of each document name to help you keep track. For instance, "2B" would be the second piece of the B strand. (I think this is important to make sure you can order them as you need. Although you might achieve the same thing with keywords and labels.T)
4. You can then use the Scrivenings mode to see the entire "story." From here you can fill out those pieces you want to be on the surface. You can also use labels and keywords to further classify items.
5. You can then use collections (i.e. saved searches) to separate out the strands if you want to view them in isolation.

Does that sound like it makes sense?

Steve Z.

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Dr Andus, I had assumed you were creating a work of fiction, but you say it is on the
social sciences. So...now I am very curious, and wonder if you can say something more
about the nature of the project.

I deliberately talked about it in terms of fiction because it actually helps me think about it that way. Otherwise my project is interdisciplinary and is studying a number of inter-related entities (organisations, people, places), which is why there are so many "story lines." The way I'm telling the story (the weaving together of the 5 stories) is supposed to contribute to my overall point, so the structure is supposed to be instructive. Not all the story lines are actual empirical stories. Some of the story lines represent a particular disciplinary perspective (and thus it's multi- and interdisciplinary).

And so I wonder about creating a time line - not on the
computer, but on a large white board from which you can step back to see the whole, and to
which you can move in and focus on a small part. Sometimes actual physical movement is
helpful in processing ideas and seeing information in a different way.

Good idea, I will try it.

From my own
writing experience I wonder whether it is realistic to think in terms of writing the
surface text (by which I take it you mean something close to the finished version,
neatly incorporating the five story lines) without doing at least some writing of the
story lines. I've found that success in working with various story lines is in direct
proportion to my familiarity with each story line -- and that familiarity sometimes
comes from having at least a detailed written synopsis of each story line.

Yes, you have a point there and I realise I have to do that. I'm still hoping though to be able to reduce the pain somehow by using an implement...

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Dr Andus,

I'd still look at Scrivener to do this (with the caveat that I'm not sure
Scriv for Windows is quite up to what I'm suggesting yet -- though I'm sure the Mac
version can do it).

Here's what I would try:

1. Sketch out the structure of each
strand, creating a document for each "piece," whether it is a surface piece or not.
Forget about hierarchy.
2. In each document, write a short description.
3. Use an
alpha numeric code at the start of each document name to help you keep track. For
instance, "2B" would be the second piece of the B strand. (I think this is important to
make sure you can order them as you need. Although you might achieve the same thing with
keywords and labels.T)
4. You can then use the Scrivenings mode to see the entire
"story." From here you can fill out those pieces you want to be on the surface. You can
also use labels and keywords to further classify items.
5. You can then use
collections (i.e. saved searches) to separate out the strands if you want to view them
in isolation.

Does that sound like it makes sense?

Steve Z.

Thanks Steve, I will give it a go and see if it can be done. I wanted to figure out what the Collections are for anyway.

Dr Andus wrote:

Basically I've written 40,000 words, of which
maybe only 6000 will end up in the targeted 30,000 words. So I'm just wondering if there
is a clever way to do this. Now that I know that my challenge is to weave together 5
storylines, I need a tool that helps me not to lose focus again and be better at
suppressing and NOT writing the unnecessary parts of the stories.

I hope that you have found what you needed with Scrivener's Collections, but in case you didn't (and for others with similar projects but not on Scrivener), here's how I would go about it with my Brainstorm http://www.brainstormsw.com/

Brainstorm has the rather unique feature of Namesakes which are automatically discovered identical texts or clones; for this work the automatic discovery itself will not be needed though.

(1) Copy the full text to Brainstorm, preferably under one heading per chapter.
(2) Create 5 "Mark" points under separate headings to represent the 5 storylines
(3) Go through the text and for each paragraph press Ctrl+Shift+N where N is the number (1-5) of the storyline to which that paragraph pertains. This will create a Namesake copy of the paragraph under the relevant storyline.

At the end of the above procedure, each paragraph will exist under the main text and its corresponding storyline. Selecting a paragraph and clicking on the left or right arrow will show the paragraph in its alternative positions. I could then

(4) Develop each storyline further
(5) Create a new heading representing the new 'surface' text and add a Mark point underneath.
(6) Copy the bits to be included in the new text to that Mark (same as above)

I believe that the process should be faster with Brainstorm than just about anything else. That said, I wrote my MBA dissertation (

That was a good post, Alex.

I know I haven't been doing much with Cyborganize lately... real life commitments and health issues have interfered. It looks like I'll have more time to devote to it, coming up.

This is definitely one of those Cyborganize conceptual moments, though. I've been following the discussion without commenting, because I find the issue fascinating.

I think, ultimately, it's a case of the "wrong question," as so often happens.

Here's the question: I have multiple "storylines" or threads or whatever that I want to weave together. So I need a program that helps me manage their separate paths and intersections.

This sounds like a seductive idea. But then you start trying to create it in software/text reality, and the nightmares just never stop.

Why is that?

Well, step back for a moment and consider what text, thought, writing, really is.

Answer: it's dense, interconnected, overlapping, wildly rich, connections going everywhere all the time - an insanely dense web. Trying to draw the conceptual interconnections in your average 10k body of text is an exponential nightmare.

So you're never going to successfully represent all those interconnections using your software, short of access to Turing-level AI. You have to satisfice, to stop somewhere.

Given that you have to stop somewhere anyway, my feeling is that it's almost always better to stick with a hierarchical outline structure, rather than interwebbing. It keeps navigation and categorization simple. Sticking to a modular structure permits much easier manipulation and evolution.

My feeling is that you should leave the web-work to the text itself. Rewrite from different angles for each storyline. Hash out the interconnections in a separate space. Chunk it down into manageable cognitive tasks. Use manually generated diagrams and such. But don't trust your software to automatically do that stuff for you. Your brain will handle it better. Keep the text workflow simple and straightforward.

Now, maybe I'm wrong. I don't write multi-threaded fiction storylines, and I haven't tried Scrivener.

I did give CT a look, and hated the idea of writing text in markup. Org-mode is the most markup typing I'm willing to tolerate.

Interesting that no one had suggested ConnectedText for dealing with my problem of managing multiple story lines (i.e. being able to write/extract a surface text that weaves together multiple story lines, without having to write out all the underlying story lines in full). As I'm slowly learning about CT, I have just discovered the "including parts of topics" feature, which means that I can extract passages from underlying documents and incorporate them in one single "surface" document.

So for example I can analyse my material in a document and then write up my main ideas about the material in the conclusion of that document. Let's say I've done that for 5 story lines. Then I can create a new top level document and simply gather all the Conclusions sections into that new document. Later on even this composite "Conclusions" document can be incorporated in another, higher level document, until eventually the final draft emerges (almost through a "bubbling up" process). Similarly, any other sections of those story lines could be incorporated in the top level (surface) text.

The syntax to carry out these inclusions is ((TopicName==HeaderName)), where the first part is the name of the document where the target section is, and the second part is the name of the header under which the target section is kept. So you just type that somewhere, and bingo, the target section is pulled up and included.

Gary,
You are absolutely right!!! Too many people are trying use technology to replace THOUGHT. PIMs are good for storing information, whether it be descriptions and names of characters or chemical formulas. Use a voice recorder to help one think aloud or to use as a reminder of sudden ideas but I'm not sure they are needed to flesh out the ideas unless one "thinks aurally" rather than "visually." I really can't see transcribing long, voice recorded passages unless they are actual manuscript passages.
-c


Gary Carson wrote:

After trying every outliner, timeliner, mind-mapping application and "writer's
program" ever created, not to mention things like old-fashioned index cards, I've
decided that there is no good solution to this problem. SuperNoteCard and Storylines
by Writer's Cafe are probably the best programs for this kind of work, IMO, but the
truth is that NOTHING works all that well. The bottom line is that this is just hard
mental work, no matter what tools you're using. There's no escaping it.

Actually,
planning books with multiple, interwoven storylines isn't all that difficult
conceptually. You just work out the storylines, break them into chapters, then weave
the chapters together, alternating between storylines and tying them together as
you go. When it comes to keeping track of the details where the storylines overlap, you
just have to keep track of them when you're writing your chapter outlines. That's
really what it boils down to. It's brain-busting work and it always will be.

One
method that works OK for me when I'm trying to figure out a complex plot is to write "cue
outlines." These are very high-level outlines where I just use a couple words to
remind me of what the chapter is about and note down the kinds of details you're talking
about. I usually write these in Word (or sometimes on a manual typewriter, depending
on how hostile to computers I am at the time). It helps give me an overall view of the plot
and how the different storylines fit together.

Dictation also works pretty well.
It's great for brainstorming ideas and it's a lot faster than writing at the keyboard.
If I'm just brainstorming, I never bother transcribing or saving the dictation
because the whole point of the exercise is to come up with ideas. You can use dictation
to create regular outlines as well and transcribe them with Dragon Naturally
Speaking. Then you can go over the outlines and revise them. It works for me, but it
might not work for you. Whatever method you use, though, the bottom line is that this is
all head work. The hardest part of writing is coming up with good ideas and no program is
going to help you there.