This blog post - and the last five, as it were - were pre-plotted with Scapple. It’s another piece of software I’m going to use in the future to get my books written and to write my blog posts, too, because it made writing the last five ones - and this one - a lot easier. I’m lazy, thus I’m all for ‘easy.’
I discovered Scapple by coincidence while reading K.J. Charles’ blog. She mentioned the program as having been helpful when she wasn’t sure why she couldn’t write the last part of a trilogy. Outlining the actions of the heroes and the villain showed her that there was a big chunk of content missing for the heroes and she was able to take care of that.
I checked the page (the same I liked to above) and downloaded the trial version. In essence, this trial version is the full program, only it’s going to lock up after 30 days unless you get a licence for it. I didn’t wait 30 days, as it were. After playing around with the program for a couple of hours, I decided it was worth the 19 € for me.
Scapple is a digital whiteboard of infinite size. You can easily add notes of whatever length you want, you can group them, draw connections between them, position them freely (or align them specifically, which I love to be able to do), delete or copy them. You can also make them different sizes, change the colours around, given them a border, whatever helps you sort things out.
For me, this has proven useful when I’m starting to work on a story (or blog post). I just throw down my ideas as notes and then I look at them, wonder how I can combine them, bring them into a logical order. Once I know what’s supposed to happen, I can switch to Campfire Pro, make my notes on characters etc. and do a real outline.
At first, I thought that could help me with some overall ideas - the way it does with the blog posts, too. It might also help me with some other projects I have, plot them and make sure I have everything covered. It’s a great place for brainstorming or gathering information you need for a non-fiction project, too.
While still playing around, I looked at “Changing Plans”, a story developed from an old stub on my hard drive (it’s been sitting there for many, many years - it’s still in German, I started it shortly after reading “Soon I will be Invincible” for the first time). It had been easy to plot out the story as far as I had already written it - with some curbing here and there -, but I was stumped about how to end the story. I’ve got a problem with endings in general, which is where outlining helps me a lot. I opened up Scapple, made a file for story ideas, and put down some general ideas I had. Then I moved them around, added something here and there which I extrapolated, and managed to put it all together. I switched to Campfire Pro and put down the last eight chapters of the story, finishing the outline.
For blog posts, Scapple provides me with a place to throw my ideas around.
I usually know which topics I want to have in a post, but I’ve had to add paragraphs in between in the past, which sometimes makes the stuff below them read a little weirdly. With Scapple, I can spend a little time beforehand, write down what I want to tackle, push and pull it around, and figure out how I want to lay it out. Like this, I can build up the post a lot better than I did before.
I can also see if there’s something else I should be adding or cut something out that doesn’t really fit with the rest. I certainly can write the blog posts much more easily afterwards - I did six posts in two days and it went very well.
For stories, Scapple comes in during the very early planning stages.
I have an idea - that happens constantly, if I’m honest - and I want to capture it. I write down a title that might or might not stay and I write down my initial idea. When I have the time for it, I deepen that idea. The interesting things about ideas in general is that they breed fast - once you have one, others are just around the corner. I write down additional ideas that work with the first one or come to my mind when I think about it.
Once I have an ample number of those ideas, I look them over and consider how they might fit together in a narrative. I can stack them, so they come one after the other, and I get a rough outline for where my story is going or for what my characters will be like.
Once my ideas are that far along, I can then switch over to Campfire Pro and begin the actual plotting, looking up the general ideas and turning them into short descriptions of scenes. Like that, I can plot stories pretty quickly. “The Crew” is the first story I’ve fully plotted that way and it took me about one day to do the pre-plotting in Scapple and one day to do the actual outlining in Campfire Pro.
Scapple also makes for a good sounding board. I can just generally write down what I want to think about or what I want to get information or thoughts written up about and then I can come back when I have something new and add it. That will be helpful for other projects I might be tackling in time as well.
Scapple can be open while I have other things going on - it’s a small program which doesn’t need much computing power, so it’s not going to trouble my computer. Like this, I can write or edit and at the same time, during my breaks, throw down a few ideas I have for new stories or blog posts. Collected in the file, they will be there for me when I can get around to using them.
Once I have no use for the notes any longer, I can simply erase everything and reuse the file - it’s not as if I still need the notes by the time the file in Campfire Pro or the blog post are done. It’s very much like a whiteboard in that aspect, too - one swipe with the sponge and everything is gone again, ready for new use.
Scapple’s big advantage in my eyes is the infinite size - the board grows and grows as you make more notes and push them in new areas. It’s also easy to give different kinds of notes a different look, so you can easily distinguish between them at a glance. There’s three types of connections you can created (simple line, one-directional arrow, two-directional arrow), you can stack notes that belong together, such as lists or story parts. There’s a lot of ways to align notes as well and make them look more uniform. If you like a well-ordered collection of notes like I do, that’s a very good thing to have, too.
The 30-day trial is also a good thing - I love it when I can fully test a program before buying it, not just a part of it. For 30 days, you can test all the functions, then you can decide whether it’s worth the price for you. For me, it definitely is worth the price.
I won’t deny, however, that there are similar programs around which are for free, so you can get the same use out of them - I just found it easier and more intuitive to work with Scapple, which is one of the things which make it worth the money for me.
I’ve added another step of planning to my work routine now, pre-planning stories and blog posts with Scapple before I use the programs I’ve already been working with. It’s part of my development as an author, I guess, and I will do it as long as it’s useful for me. Always keep in mind that changes are part of life - it’s okay to change parts of your routines to fit with something new.
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