zaib
Registered
Great post. I have also been using excel to track the agents that I query to. On the go I use voice memos and/or a notepad (physical or electronic) to jot down brilliant flashes of inspiration!
One little trick I didn't see mentioned here will make it easy to view your basic outline without a lot of clutter AND put a lot information into the cell
with pointer over the cell right click and select insert comment
Hey Badducky...
how do you handle time lines. I need to have events that happen to different characters entertwine. I went crazy trying to make time lines for each character then weave them together. I tried 3x5 cards with events, diff color for each charater, but I don't have a wall/room big enough to lay it all out.
So there is openoffice.org and there is another spreadsheet program that is escaping my mind presently, that I like. I've heard of libreoffice, which must have a spreadsheet too.
[@Hally]So there is openoffice.org and there is another spreadsheet program that is escaping my mind presently, that I like. I've heard of libreoffice, which must have a spreadsheet too. hmmmm
@Gault: I don't see how the spreadsheet allows for changes, like when they got married, and it only refs the present day this way, so I guess, the life span of each nominal character will get their own excel page...
I use notepad++ because it allows me to have tabs, loads of files loaded at once, and also doesn't mess with the formatting. I can't stand copying and pasting from word or browser only to get added fonts and colours. Think I've given it a good go, and it has still stayed. I can't imagine going back to Notepad or Word.
After editing this a few times I now find the paragraphs with html code.
I never thought of using excel like this. Awesome idea![Moderator's Note: The following posts are the work of badducky, also known as novelist J. M. McDermott.
Hey guys and dolls of the speculative end of the bookstore, I got a bit of advice for ya:
Don't brainstorm into the messageboard. It's a bad idea. It won't help you.
Do it into an excel spreadsheet, a notepad, a word document, an rtf document, a coloring book, or any other form of personal notationalism that you can reference alone, and edit and tweak and all that jibber jabber.
Brainstorming into a message board is not useful. In fact, it can give you an easy affirmation that can steal your thunder when you're writing.
So, don't spill it here. Spill it where you can write it and fill it out with characters.
Thank you, and good night.