Just ran across a new free online tool for storyboarding: Amazon Studios Storybuilder.

Looks a bit like the corkboard view in Scrivener; and there is a print-friendly view to dump your cards to text (yay!). I may give this a try this year (before transferring everything to ViM for the November writing).

And stumbled across a reminder that some folks suggested using Trello for novel planning. Trello is an online storyboarding tool used primarily for managing todo lists and projects: you can create lists and then drag tasks/items from one list to another. You can also reorder lists; and list items can include links, images and documents.

What tools do you use for your novel planning?

Mah brainzzzz. You know I'm the quintessential pantser.

I like using Scrivener--and setting up scenes with the POV char, the setting, and the goal, or main action of the scene, so that in November I can just write the scenes, not worrying about who should have the next scene. I figure that out as I'm outlining--I writethird person limited with at least two POV characters. This year I'm starting with 3, and will probably add one or two more later in the novel. I was surprised at who insisted on being a POV character--not the one I thought was going to be. That's part of the fun of outlining for me. Changing my mind about who is telling parts of the story without having to cut a bunch of words.

I use the headings (in Scrivener) ofcharacters, places, and research to dump anything useful I discover while outlining, or just reading. One of the great things about outlining isit gives me a chance to make a note of anything that strikes my interest in October, so I have a source for ideas in November. I've encountered some great articles about millenials that are going to be useful for one of my characters.

I also use a calendar to help figure things out, like what happens when, including in the backstory. The clearer I am about what the characters were doing before the book starts, the less I write backstory that I'm just going to cut in the second draft.

I've been using Trello for to-do lists for a while now, but I've never thought about using it for novel planning! Sounds like fun. (Of course, I was also thinking about going analog this year, so it may have to wait for the next project...)

I've used Scrivener the past 2 years for writing. When I was running online RPs, I was using Asana to track stories and keep ideas in order. Before that, I was using the (short lived) Google Wave to coordinate story planning with the other game masters. So now, just Asana and Scrivener. I might use Evernote for planning away from my computer.

I'll be using Scrivener for the first time this year.

Does anyone know if there is some way to synchronize the Scrivener files on my desktop PC and my laptop PC??

Ajey wrote:I'll be using Scrivener for the first time this year.

Does anyone know if there is some way to synchronize the Scrivener files on my desktop PC and my laptop PC??

Hm... Google is your friend. Maybe this article will help?

--Tim

As I understand it, the Cloud (so fun capitalizing that word!) doesn't really do anything other that a USB stick would do, namely transfer files.

Maybe I can simply copy the files over from one instance of Scrivener, running on my laptop, to the other instance of it, running on my desktop. I suppose this is a question that comes up often enough that the Scrivener website has already answered it. Thanks for taking a stab at it, though!

Maybe other people who have experience using Scrivener know how to do this.