Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Programs related to writing

In search of the ideal timeline program

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I have posted in the past about my search for my holy grail of keeping track of time travel in my novels, especially when the movement forward and back happens repeatedly.  My third book in the series is proving to be more complicated in movements than the second.  Mick and Em not only go back in time, but they find themselves making repeated jumps into the consecutive moments. And to make it more complicated, another character is moving back and forth as well as remaining stationary in No-time, yet still time is passing.  That does not sound clear in this simple writing, and it is more complicated when actually writing the story.

So I have selected and tried three different applications to keep track of time travel.  In this post I am going to evaluate these three based on the criteria of my ideal platform.

Criteria:

  1. A horizontal line on which I can
    assign dates (and create dates that don’t yet exist) 
  2. Attach key
    points to them 
  3. Add little bubbles or boxes that
    connect to those points for summary or notes 
  4. Be able to close them
    up as I move along the timeline 
  5. Open them all up and see how it lays
    out.  
  6. Able to click on them and move them if I wish.  
  7. Have the program on my computer
  8. Print out the timeline
  9. Be capable of showing overlap of other novels, written and planned.

The three programs I have been working with are OneNote by Microsoft,  Timeline by The Timeline Authors available from SourceForge, and Padlet (formerly known as WallWisher) at Padlet.com.

Using OneNote for keeping track of time travel events
OneNote as timeline

OneNote
I have been using OneNote the longest and found it to have numerous qualities that have nothing to do with keeping track of a timeline.  It has proved extremely useful to me in other areas, namely keeping track of my research and publication information.  It has proved a fairly good “time” organizer though still not my ideal. Its proximity to all my other support materials is an important point though.  But that is not on my list of ideal qualities for a timeline. 

  • It does not provide a horizontal line or any line for that matter. But I can create a series of vertical boxes with time, setting and key plot points. (However, this is something any word processing program could do.)  
  • I can attach key points
  • I can add additional text boxes
  • These cannot be “closed”
  • Nor can they be “opened” at will
  • I can shuffle them about to reflect changes in the text
  • The program is on my computer and, in fact, came with the loaded programming.
  • I can print out my “timeline” easily without any format changes.  It looks the same on the computer desktop as it does in printed form.
  • It cannot overlap other timelines easily.  I could muscle it in, but it would be awfully awkward.

So out of the 9 ideals, it provides 5.  Score: 5/9

Timeline program for keeping track of past, current and future time
Timeline as timeline

Timeline
The next timeline program I tried out was appropriately named Timeline.  I have only used it for about a week.

  • It does provide a horizontal line on which I can place time markers with my choice of dates, and it is not limited to history already lived. 
  • What is shown in the note is a title or short summary at best. 
  • It does provide secondary bubbles for additional information which can be fairly detailed.  A window pops up with several features, including attaching files and links.
  • The timeline itself can be stretched and squeezed, but the bubbles only appear when the cursor hovers over them. The timeline adjusts as the time is stretched or squeezed into a short time view.
  • The bubbles open as needed.
  • Movement of the events has proved problematic.   They can be easily adjusted along the line, but the notations also move unexpectedly to locations not intended.  Probably time and learned finesse will correct this, but the instructions are so limited that I spent a lot of time just trying everything to return a notation back to the spot I had it originally before it almost (clearly I had done something) spontaneously  moved.  Without clear instructions, trial and error rules the learning curve.
  • This is a freeware program, and I downloaded onto my computer without trouble.
  • The timeline can be printed out, but legibility was dependent upon how tightly they were scrunched or stretched out.  Could be a problem when scenes cover short amounts of time and the novel extends over a longer period of time.
  • Overlap of novel timelines is difficult.  I had to color code individuals to tell them apart and would have to do something similar for different books.  There are two features: categories and periods.  The descriptions of these was quite limited, so I am uncertain if it would be possible to designate categories as individual novels or if periods would be better.  When I tried using them, they appeared below the horizontal timeline and overlapped each other which interfered with the purpose I had determined I wanted to use them for.

Out of 9 ideals, it met  6 1/2.  Score: 6.5/9

Padlet as timetravel timeline
Padlet as timeline

Padlet
I have made use of Padlet most recently and have spent about three days on it entering just the opening of book 1, the entirety of book 2 and the first five chapters of book 3.  Visually, it is the prettiest of the three with some interesting additions.  It feels the most like a wall of sticky notes, which is the manual ideal I wish I could do, but my husband has a sense of decor and sticky notes aren’t fittin’.

  • Though it does not provide a built-in horizontal line, putting the little “stickies” in place just as I would on a wall created one easily.  I put my dates on the label of the sticky, but I could just as easily provide stickies as tiny markers at whatever interval I want.  I have added the option of several horizontals.  So book one as shown in the picture is furthest to the left with only two stickies at this time.  I plan to raise it up higher as the “wall’ appears limitless in all directions.  Book two is next and is dropped lower.  Book three is two more steps down and because it has two plot lines occurring at the same time, it has two horizontal flow lines which will meet up later in the novel.
  • I can add additional information beneath the heading on the note. It has a red label at the top of the sticky and a secondary notes
    section beneath on the same sticky. The stickies can be lengthened
    horizontally or vertically.  I kept them fairly uniform in width and
    created a short hand summary format that covered the main points.
  • Rather than secondary bubbles, it does provide for inserted pictures (see my book covers), inserted internet media of any type (video, photo, doc, etc.) or use my computer camera to take a picture, bonuses not on my wish list.
  • You might say the sticky is the closed version.
  • A click on the note does bring up a full screen display of the note and attachments as well as means to post to Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Google+, email and others.  Additionally, the wall itself can be stretched and shrunk with ease (especially so if you have a touch sensitive screen.)  Arrow keys move the view from note to note in the screen-sized view.
  • The stickies can be moved easily about the “wall.”  If I could make a suggestion here, it would be to be able to move the notes in large groups rather than one at a time.  I have not found a means to do this, but perhaps that will come up.   The instructions do include sending requests for additional features.  So I will be asking for that one or instructions how to do it if it is already a feature.  The traditional drag and highlight has not worked.
  • This is not a downloadable program but is accessed and free at padlet.com with login and password.   However, privacy settings are available making it public or completely private.
  • The file can be printed in pdf, csv or excel.  The printout does not look like the wall, but it has all the info that I have inserted.  Since I only added pictures of my covers, I cannot say what it does with other media links.
  • Overlapping of book is definitely practical and possible. I did it with three books and intend to do it with all seven.

How did this program fit my criteria?  Pretty well.  Of the 9 desired features, it had some version of 8.  Score: 8/9.

At this point, I prefer Padlet which to my knowledge is marketed more as an educational tool for students than for timeline creation, but it is highly adaptable, pretty, fun to use and it is so much like having a wall of sticky notes that I am looking forward to seeing how it continues to make keeping track of time travel plot points easy.

Let me know if you have found the perfect timeline program or if you see a criteria you would like me to apply to any one or more of these programs.

OneNote will continue to be my research and publications notes filing goto program.  It has been great with holding my notes for clothing over the centuries, cobbles stones, Boston Common, epidemics, etc. Keeping track of timeslines, …. nah.

Advice: yWriter Details and Goals section for defining purpose

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Setting up a strong structure with yWriter

I mentioned yWriter way back in the beginnings of writing this blog.  I was explaining a feature in the program that makes it possible to keep track of various facts about characters, such as appearance, relationships, motivations, bio, even alternate names.  It helped me to learn more about a character I thought was not especially important.  I found she had much greater influence and dimension than I originally thought while filling out the character breakdown.

But that is not why I am posting about this program now.  yWriter offers numerous ways for a writer to develop his/her story, but the two features I want to focus on this time is in the Details and Goals sections of each scene. Once you have opened up a scene window, clicking on the Details tab opens up the plotting break down of that particular scene.  Here you note (or plan out) if the event is based on action or reaction, and if it is plot or subplot, and you can assign any tags and determine the time constraints of the scene (character experiences two minutes, four hours or thirty days, what have you).  When combined with the information in the Goals tab, the purpose or lack of it, of the scene become obvious.  And if the scene has no purpose, it is wasted writing.  I love these two features because they make sure that I am keeping the story moving: characters grow, tension mounts, connection exists, i.e., purpose.

The Goals tab is directly connected to the items in the Details tab.  If I selected reaction for the type of scene, then the Goals tab supplies three questions I must answer:  reaction, dilemma, choice.  And if I selected action, then I must respond to goal, conflict, outcome.  I find myself facing the purpose of the scene and the character’s (s’) reasoning.  If I find that my only reason for the scene is to get information out, then I am not making good use of my writing or my reader’s time. All writing should be moving the plot no matter what.  So that necessary information needs to be part of movement not sedentary info dumping.

It is easy to fall into writing about the character learning something or meeting someone because it is essential to events later in the story but not moving forward in the story.  Having to fill out the underlying bones of a scene helps avoid this.  What was my character’s reaction to what happened?  How did this create a problem and what choice did my character find he had to make?  That’s all based on reaction.  What my character’s goal is, what is stopping her from reaching it and what came of her efforts to reach that goal is action based.

yWriter doesn’t write the story, but it sure helps me tell the story better.  When I have to redraft, looking back at what I wanted the scene to accomplish and seeing what actually happened helps me realign the plot or take advantage of that unconscious working of the writing mind.  A scene that seemed to have no purpose gets one as the redraft rolls along and having these features in this program forces me to examine the scene and its relation to the rest of the story.

Some scenes support the main plot while others are subplot events and that is just as important as determining purpose.  Designating a scene as tying my main arc together or developing undercurrent through subplots helps me keep my writing moving in the right direction and makes it so I don’t have to keep it all in my head.  That’s yWriter for you.

How to keep track of facts for a book series?

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One thing I have been crunching possibilities on is how to keep track of details so they remain consistent between books in a series.  Sometimes it is as simple as did I spell it with a hyphen or without?  What was Misty’s date of birth again?  Is the clump of white hair at her left temple or her right?

I have been using yWriter 5 for organization and word count because it has a section on characters and a place for notes: physical description, alternate names, biography, and the like, as well as the actual chapters.  But I write in a word process and transfer scenes as I go, so I do not always have it open and easy to check my facts.

protect my husband’s wall from sticky note infestation

I have considered a notebook, but that is not split-second access ready.  A wall of sticky notes would be a great idea, but I can just hear my husband now indirectly criticizing by pointing out all the little colorful sheets of paper on the wall which detracts from his fine paint job or the ones floating about the floor because I will be working on this for a few years, what with seven books to the series, and some of that sticky on the paper is going to give itself up to variations in mugginess and dry air.  And what about the fact that I am usually working on two or three projects at once in different stages of production:  drafting, redrafting, editing, getting publication ready?  I don’t have that many walls available.

I never use spreadsheets (some sort of neurosis holding my back from that) unless there is no avoiding them, i.e., other people have to make them and my job has to require I look at them.

Right now I have a piece of graph paper with a timeline on one side and various scribbles on the other for current important facts I keep needing to confirm.  I think it is buried under a draft of my anthology and a notebook full of poetry.

So can anybody recommend a solution to this issue?  I am interested in hearing novel ideas tried and true or otherwise.  Please keep the spreadsheet recommendations down to a minimum though.

WordPerfect: my kind of word processing program

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I am fully aware that the most popular word processing program out there is Microsoft Word, but my loyalty goes to Corel WordPerfect.  I like the way the program is laid out and some features just simply don’t exist in the same way in Word.  Reveal codes, for example: I love being able to look at each code spelled out and easy to read and delete as I please or not (a simple toggle switch).  I can change formats without finding myself suddenly back in a particular format when I was certain I had changed from outline to word processing or from columns to no column. 

The two programs did become very similar over the years (though my favorite features never left WP); however, the version I have now in WP is far different from the new Word which I am still figuring out.  I have used both for nearly the same length of time:  close to thirty years.  But when I work in WP (which I do for everything personal and most especially for my fiction writing), I just sit easy.  If I am not familiar with some feature, I can figure it out because I understand WP’s logic. This is not the same with Word, which, though I said I have been using it for years at work, still makes me stumble about. 

Recently, my WP began freezing every time I saved my work.  I would write a thousand words, go to save and find myself in permanent freeze and no access to all I had written.  Heartbreaking, as it happened repeatedly, though I did get smart and save after each page, so I could at least see what I had written and could hand copy it.  After a few days I switched my files over to Word so I could work on my book, but I wasn’t happy about it.  I assumed it was an update to my computer operating software (Vista) that brought about the problem and since my version of WP was at least ten years old, I thought it was time to up grade.  I ordered WordPerfect X5 and couldn’t wait for it to arrive.  Now I am not so sure I had the source of the problem correct as the new version suffered from the same problem. 

So there were a few days that I was quite frustrated.  I tried looking for updates, I researched on the web finding the problem actually began back in 2006, though it did not hit me until this past September.  I found suggested solutions, but none worked. Then, a few days ago, I decided to try again.  I experimented and used “save as” instead of the icon for “save.”  It worked just fine. And two days ago an update came through for WP X5.  Now I am back to saving using the icon without freezing.  Now that is a quick fix.  I love WordPerfect.

Fingers tapping, program frozen, time for an update

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Recently, while writing a scene that I had been thinking about quite a bit (fiddling with the details, what I wanted revealed and what I wanted to just hint at), I came to a stopping point and rolled down to the end of the page so only a portion of my hour’s writing was visible.  I was still thinking through what I had typed and thought it a good time to save before I made any more changes.  I gave a quick roll of the mouse and a click on save.  The program froze with a hand tapping its fingers on my screen just above the save button.  I waited several moments, left my desk and returned to find those tiny fingers still tapping.  Ultimately, I had to force-close the program and accept that my recent work was gone.  I restarted, began the scene again having convinced myself that most of what I had written was still clear in my mind, my work at phrasing things just so still drifting before my writer’s eye.  I wrote a while, moving through the scene quicker than the first time.  It didn’t feel that I had caught all that I had worked so hard to recapture, but it was not bad.  Again, a roll of the mouse and a click.  The hand appeared, fingers tick, ticking along.  Frozen again.  I waited an hour in the hope it would come to whatever conclusion it was set on, but no luck.  This time I had not rolled the page down, so all of what I had written was still on screen.  I pulled out a sheet of my daughter’s line paper and copied.  It took a while, but I had my work written down at least.

I have pondered the problem a bit.  I use WordPerfect and have for more than 30 years. This particular version of the program is more than eight years old and does not work well with Vista unless it is set up to be run as an older version program set for Windows XP.  It has not been a problem as I set it up properly years ago.  However, Windows keeps updating, and I think my poor old version of WP has finally met the point where it cannot function with my Vista.  I tested it repeatedly, causing the program to freeze every time.  I even reset it again as an old version program, but the problem persists.  So for a week now I have not been able to write, which is frustrating as this will probably be the last couple weeks that teaching doesn’t take up all my time.

Some time next week my Vista compatible version of WordPerfect will arrive.  In the meantime, I ponder the next scenes I hope to get down and will be ready when my chance to write comes again.  I know I could hand write, but I have become so comfortable with the ease of editing in mid-stride that the thought cramps my thoughts up too tight for such slow drafting.

Advice: Another grammar resource (requires experience)

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Last week I suggested A Writer’s Reference as an important resource to have as it contains just about every grammar, vocabulary & formatting issue likely to be run into by a writer (from student to professional), but this week I offer up a text that is geared entirely to the well-seasoned grammarian.

There is humor, sarcasm and clear cut demonstration of the rules of punctuation and sentence structure.  But you won’t laugh if you are a beginner because all Lynne Truss’s references require that you at least appreciate that there are rules and know quite a number of them.  If you don’t know most of them, you won’t appreciate the humor in her refining your understanding.  The title is a perfect example, though one of the simplest she provides:  Eats, Shoots & Leaves or if you prefer Eats Shoots & Leaves.  There is a distinct difference.  First off, imagine a panda bear.  He eats, shoots and leaves (which requires he has a license to bear arms or at least can hold a gun) or he eats shoots and leaves (which only requires he stick to his diet).  The title alone makes me giggle, but if you don’t get it yet, don’t purchase this book until you feel good about your use of grammar and punctuation.  If you are intrigued already, this is definitely the text for you.

It is important to note that Truss is English, but she kindly shows where the British vary from the Americans in grammar.  So do not fear you will refine your understanding only to find you will only be accepted by the British as knowing what you are doing all the time.