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Writing tools for complex storytelling
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Posted by Gary Carson
Feb 24, 2012 at 03:51 AM
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.
Posted by Dr Andus
Feb 24, 2012 at 04:04 AM
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.
Posted by Pavi
Feb 24, 2012 at 09:09 AM
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
Posted by Dr Andus
Feb 24, 2012 at 01:10 PM
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.
Posted by Gary Carson
Feb 24, 2012 at 03:23 PM
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.