This is getting out of control

Okay, so last month (well, actually last week, though it seems longer than that O_O) I created a thread about planning my story... And I latched onto the whole sticking notes onto my wall idea... How foolish of me. I got hooked on drawing pins and string like a drug addict gets hooked on heroin.



I have encountered a few problems with this system.

-For starts, there are numerous instances where I have cards that are separated by a few millimetres on my wall, and decades in the plot...

-Plots that run at the same time are moving away from each other... One at the top, one at the bottom, and there's a chunk of back-story in the middle, that happened in the past...

-Shoving in drawing pins got a bit painful after 3 hours, so I had to get out the hammer.

-There's an entire plot thread that I haven't got into yet, and I don't really know where I'm going to put it.

-Shoving in drawing pins got a bit painful after 3 hours, so I had to get out the hammer.

-Hammering in drawing pins causes them to bend some times.

-I've run out of fucking drawing pins... Again! And the supermarket up the road closed 8 minutes ago! Gahh!! MY LIFE IS A STORY OF PAIN!

Hmm... I might have to invest in a digital version of this.

Though, I have to admit that there is something therapeutic about standing on a chair and carefully forcing a small pin into the plasterboard, only to have it suddenly buckle and drop to the floor. You scream a curse of frustration as you have to carefully select another spot, as the board has chipped and you don't have enough depth to secure the pin anymore. Except, there isn't enough space. So you HAVE to use the same spot. You step off the chair to grab another pin, and stand on the bent one. You list a number of vile curses and throw it in the bin. As your hand reaches for the box of pins, you tip it up, and nothing comes out. You groan in disbelief and glance at the clock. 8:08pm.

You start smashing things with the hammer.

Like I said.

Therapeutic!

CaroGirl said:

What are drawing pins?

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The shiny brass things

These shiny brass things.

Oh, and do they do cork boards that are two square metres? Because that's roughly how much room I've used so far... And my writing is quite small

Yeah, it has helped... I noticed a lot of holes in my plot... And fixed them.

It helps to be able to look at a series of events and see how they link to other events. You can see causes and effects, and also create completely new threads to explain things better, or prune away stuff that's not necessary.

bramble said:

I'm not sure an agent will accept a whole bunch of note cards (with or without the string). How many words are you up to on your wall CJ?

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Nonsense. They might not, but they will accept bribes/blackmail/death threats!

And my hand writing is so bad that I can hardly read it some times (potentially mitigating the whole bloody point of sticking notes on my wall), so how do you expect me to count words?!

dirtsider said:

Try a flow chart in Visio?

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Now I have it on my wall, I might try to make a digital version of it. Anyone know any decent free software?

dempsey said:

I haven't tinkered with OpenOffice's Draw, but it's free and worth a whirl.

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I've got Open Office (or OOo for all the uber nerds out there!). I love it. But creating something like what I've got on my wall in that would literally take me the rest of my life

GerriB said:

If you're looking for a computer program that does the flow chart, timeline, and a whole bunch of other things, look into Liquid Story Binder. I've not used all the features, but the timeline is darn useful. The version of the program doesn't have the most user-friendly interface I've used, but it does the trick.

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I think I might have to buy LSB just because the interface is so sexy... I like black, it matches my OS skin!

Okay, LSB has a ludicrously over complex UI. From my perspective, it's a compromise on ease of use to have so many features. There's a line, and the program has crossed it. If they had a customisation option where you could remove features you did not want to clean up the interface, all would be good.

As an example, it took me about ten minutes to figure out how to change the font size. I gave up in the end. I really like the full screen text editor though, a really nice feature.

I've found a nice full screen editor... Monkeywrite. I think I'll create a thread on text editors to see what programs people use...