Writer and artist is a powerful combination. I just want my bottomless bag of ideas.
My notebook for ‘Circles’
Like year ago, when I started to write down all stories that together created world of Circles I had plenty of ideas that were hard to manage using only standard, analog notebook. Back then I was looking for a tool that could help me organize all the side references, little notes about places or characters almost in a way like wikipedia does. When I write down a story about a king, queen and it brings new names for places and people, I want a smooth way to link directly to new documents when I can write a little more about that particular subjects.
Look inside, spolier proof
I was also reading quite a lot about writers approach to stories, about character sheets, outlining etc. I tried multiple ways – well known Google Docs, but creating those links and managing every file was a pain. I tried custom Wiki, but it was the same. Level of complication for what is an easy task was too much for doing any serious work.
Then, through some writers blogs (like K.M.Weiland’s Helping writers become authors) I discovered Scrivener.
Scrivener
Created by Literature and Latte, Scrivener is a tool for writing with more structural approach. This little piece of software has anything I wanted. On a left panel you have all hierarchy of your docs. When I write anything it’s a matter of selecting a word, pressing hotkey combo and linking tool appears where I just pick any document (or create a new one), press OK and it’s DONE. My Circlepedia can just grow and blossom.
If you ever want to gather together all your worldbuilding ideas I see no better way. Don’t also forget that Scrivener is mainly a tool for writing scripts, so besides mythology and sidestories, I used it write main Circles scenario.
Not to mention, Scrivener is build for outlining and structural approach, which is quite useful to write like.. anything. Allowing to divide text into smaller pieces with short synopsis in neverending hierarchy, manipulate them, and in the end – print as a whole.
The only bad thing about Scrivener is fact that it’s just weird at start. It has very zbrush-like feeling into it. It’s not about interface, but about approach. So it takes a moment to adapt and get used to it.
Anyway :) If you’re not just pure artist doing studies everyday and have your own ideas and visions, consider visiting www.literatureandlatte.com to learn more about this little thing that, maybe, will change something.
And have fun,
Kamil
