I use Dramatica<\/a> to plot – and I don\u2019t recommend it unless you want to spend years learning what it means (some of the terminology is tricky), but it leads to the possibilities of fiendishly complicated plots that hang together beautifully at the end. Again, I use almost ALL the text boxes in the program that allows me to store bits and pieces of thought – and they can all be transferred to the working files when I need them.<\/p>\n I use Dramatica\u2019s Scene\/Chapter list function to set out what goes where, and then copy that structure to my Scrivener project for the writing. I end up easily with an outline of the whole project in either program, and I keep the correspondence between the two up-to-date. Dramatica keeps track of what goes where with checklists, so I can see that everything (called appreciations – apps for short) I answered when creating the story actually ends up in a scene in the final story.<\/p>\n Because I have all this structure in place – which can be collapsed or expanded to any level – when it comes to the writing part, I have a single scene at a time in my workspace with several files containing every little piece of character, plot, or theme that is going into the scene. When I start the writing, I don\u2019t yet know how these bits will be expressed by my characters within a scene that has a short title – “Scene 9.1 – Andrew restless after fight; sleeps at Kary\u2019s house,” but with a solid structure I can have the fun of figuring out how to make the pieces fit – and the knowledge that when I\u2019m done, the scene will fit neatly into its slot in the Chapter and Book.<\/p>\n A scene is about how much I can work with at a time: my brain won\u2019t keep more than that loaded without dropping bits. Since I usually take several naps during a writing session, I\u2019d make no progress if I had to go look at the whole. Within the scene I set up as many beats as I have topics to expand, so that a scene is composed of one to several beats dealing with a small subset of ideas\/dialogue\/action\/thoughts, and segues neatly into the next beat, so that a scene is a set of linked mini-stories with transitions that make sense. Structure within structure.<\/p>\n Once I don\u2019t have to worry about losing that absolutely wonderful Idea I had for a plot bit in Chapter 19 just because I\u2019m writing Scene 9.1 about the fight aftermath, because I stored it for when I get there, in a searchable format I can\u2019t mess up, it frees my mind to concentrate on the scene at hand – and how I want to actually tell the story I\u2019ve invented. It\u2019s like knowing I can bring the red thread from the back of the tapestry to the front to weave in a rose when I want one, because the red thread is there, on the back side, ready for me to use.<\/p>\n Just writing a bit about this makes it seem impossible, but if you are interested in more control, and in some of the tools I use, please drop by liebjabberings.wordpress.com<\/a>, and type into the search box: scene template [8 posts with screenshots of the Scrivener template I\u2019ve created to store my bits; downloadable], Dramatica [for apps and plotting],\u00a0 and structure [how I use it when writing]. Select Categories such as \u2018CFS\u2019 for how my brain works and why I have to manage it to even write at all, or \u2018fears\u2019 for the things I do battle with regularly which keep me from writing. Check out the Pride\u2019s Children tab to see the novel being created with these tools posted, a new polished scene every Tuesday – and judge for yourself whether my method produces something you find readable. Or the short story \u2018Princeton\u2019s Dancing Child\u2019 – also plotted with the tightest form of Dramatica.<\/p>\n Hard to believe, but this complicated superstructure makes it possible for my writing to be simple: once I get the ideas in order, the writing flows – a topic for an entirely different kind of post.<\/p>\n Note from Marlene:<\/strong>\u00a0 Click here<\/a> for 9 reasons why Nina Amir uses Scrivener.<\/p>\n
![\"Alicia](\"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Alicia-Butcher-Ehrdardt.jpg\")
<\/a>I’m Alicia (ah-lee-see-ah). I use: Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt. No ‘B.’ No hyphen. And no, I’m not related to Amelia. My middle name is Guadalupe.<\/p>\n