How do you use yWriter?

[Janna]

Specifically, how do you use yWriter with Storybook? I just downloaded
Storybook and had a look, but I'm not totally sold on it just yet. (My
fiance totally is, of course; he's very much a proponent of open
source software.)

As I said in my intro post, I'm only now beginning to really use the
characters, items, and locations features of yWriter. I mostly have
been using the program to write and edit (and keep track of drafts). I
export to .RTF after each draft is complete, so I have a backup copy
(and one that I can send to beta readers for C&C).

So, what do you use yWriter for? And for those of you who use yWriter
and Storybook together, what do you use Storybook for that you don't
use yWriter for, and why do you do so?

Thanks for any responses!

-Janna

[Ivory]

I use the characters and locations. I sometimes add something in the
items. I downloaded my first two novels into yWriter (both were ready
for first revisions) and was amazed with how many times I flip-flopped
on a characters name, sometimes simple spelling, but a couple cases
where I completely changed a characters name mid way. I am totally
sold on the character list. I only put major locations in. I use the
feature that automatically adds the characters and locations to the
scenes.

For my newer work, I have on project underway that I totally outlined
in yWriter. It was a lot of work, but it gave me a chance to work out
character relationships ahead of time. I'm not sure how well the
tempo will work out once I start filling them in.

I recently discovered the export synopsis function. Now that I know
what it does, and now that I am being asked for synopsi (is that
plural?), I will be creating better text in my scene descriptons
instead of using it to store notes.

I use the project notes to collect data I may have mined off the
internet, and to store ideas I may have for sequels.

I do mark scenes and chapters as unused for occasions where I want to
make massive changes, but might want to go back without going to a
backup.

I leave the chapter titles alone, chapter 1 ... and put a short title
in the description. I stretched out my main screen so I can see the
chapter "titles".

I also use ywriter as a storage cabinet for short stories and poems.

I have looked at storybook, but not used it. I may give it another
look for a book idea that is proving a little harder to map out.

For the most part, ywriter does everything I need and still has loads
of features I don't use, or don't know how to use.

[Morven Westfield]

Yesterday I downloaded Storybook because I've got multiple plots and I
needed a way to look at them side-by-side. I tried yWriter's
Storyboard view, but I have to scroll to see everything, and that
wasn't working for me.

Of course, if you have enough scenes, Storybook scrolls, too.
Storybook scrolls vertically; yWriter scrolls horizontally. So,
depending on which way you prefer to visualize things, you might use
Storybook just to get a handle on plot threads. Speaking of plot
threads, Storybook actually has a method of seeing the threads (it
calls them strands), which is helpful because you can see the threads
side-by-side.

All of my work, though, is in yWriter, and I love it, and the yWriter
version is the definitive source of the novel. I just copied and
pasted a one-sentence scene description into Storybook to use its
storyboarding feature.

It helped me figure out a few problems I was having, so it was worth
the half-day it took me to copy everything in. I guess I'd use it
again to map out a complicated book, but then I'd definitely use
yWriter to write the book.

I love the way that I can keep yWriter and my novel on the same USB.
It makes it really easy to work on my novel during my lunch break.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "yWriter" group.
To post to this group, send email to ywr...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ywriter+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/ywriter?hl=en.

[Chaophim]

I actually use a suggestion that Simon made, IIRC, which is I use
FreeMind to mindmap my novel (using the arrow links to match plot
threads). I'd love to see FreeMind integration into yWriter (or
something similar), but in Freemind I create chapter and scene nodes
for notes, thoughts, musings, etc.,

As for how I actually use yWriter, I followed the directions and set
it up as a portable app. That way, I have it on my USB drive at all
times and (since I am a computer tech by trade) can plug it into any
machine once the Muse speaks, jot down my thoughts, save, and go. :)

I also have FreeMind installed as a portable app - haven't tried
Storybook yet, but will definitely give it a go soon.

On May 9, 11:51 am, Morven Westfield <mor...@morvenwestfield.com>
wrote:

[Morven Westfield]

I tried FreeMind, but I found it awkward. I know it's just me -- I
have problems with graphic-type programs, even though I need to see
things visually.

I went to CNet's downloads.com and searched for a different mind
mapping types of programs and didn't find one I really liked.

Aha! I just discovered something. Simon already provides the ability
to print scene cards (Scene > Print scene cards). The cards appear in
your browser. The problem is that if your cards exceed your page
length, you can have a card sliced in half.

I just tried the following, and it might work:

1. Use Scene > Print scene cards to print the cards to your browser.
2. Copy the entire page (Ctrl-A on Windows).
3. Paste the entire page into your favorite word processor.
4. Change the orientation of the page from portrait to landscape.
5. Reduce your margins until none of the text is chopped off on the
edges.
6. Print single-sided copies.
7. Throw the cat out of the room, if you're not at work.
8. Cut them into individual cards and rearrange them on a horizontal
surface.
9. When happy with the arrangement, tack them onto a corkboard, tape
them together in a vertical chain, or use the appropriate tape to
temporarily tack them on a wall or door. (oooh, backside of a door! If
I use painter's tape/masking tape, they won't leave a mark and hubby
won't divorce me!)

[Morven Westfield]

Duh. Forgot to tell you what my environment is.

Windows XP
Word 2007
American size letter paper (8.5 x 11 inches)

[Morven Westfield]

Last post, honest. I need to get back to work ;-)

On closer inspection, it didn't work as well as I wanted. One large
card split in half, but maybe I should just look at my cards and trim
down the scene synopses.

Or, I could use Project > Export Project > Outline, which gives me a
text file. I could copy and paste that into Word and play around with
it.

I could open a Word doc and set it up to use, let's say, a shipping
label template, and copy and paste each one over, then print out and
I'll have all the cards the same size. Hmmm. Probably not bad for just
getting started.

Ooooh, I wonder if those old pin-feed index cards I have would work in
my laser printer...

Anyone else have any ideas?

[Jennifer Brinn]

I just use regular index cards. Or ones with the post-it note sticky
stuff. I can use colored cards and/or Sharpies for further detail.

Most printers with an adjustable manual tray can take index cards for
printing, though I've found that the ease of this varies by
printer/settings.

Jennifer

[Morven Westfield]

What's your process for getting the scene info from yWriter to your
index cards?

[Jennifer Brinn]

I focus primarily on what I need to work on. Index cards for me tend
to be big picture items like plot balance, finding the gaping holes,
etc. Generally, I write just enough to know what the card stands for.
"K gets arrested; B sneaks into cafe." Etc.

I approach it several ways for color coding:
1. I am looking at plot balance, so one color will be plot A
elements, one will be Plot B, etc. This means that when it is spread
out I can see where I forget all about plot B for seven chapters.
This is usually done with one card per one scene, with any relevant
info jotted down.

2. I am looking for a basic plot breakout (generally done at
beginning of project). In which case the elements are Plot,
Character, Setting, and the like. This is how I map out the big
overall layout of things. This is one card per item and arranged at
how in the story they fall. This will also include things that are
happening but that the characters don't know yet (i.e., is totally
off-screen). This is a much more fluid part of the process.

3. I am mapping out a single plot thread or character arc. In which
case this is closer to #2, but without the entire rest of the novel.
This is done far more often than I like, but it is apparently part of
my process when I get stuck. Stupid writing process, always getting
in my way.

Eventaully, it all ends up back into yWriter until I need to do
another round of it.

The thing for me is that the index cards are a tactile thing,
something I can move around and sort and feel with my hands.
Something that mind mapping software or yWriter's storyboarding
doesn't quite help with. I need to get my hands deep into the dough
and knead it all.

The more of the indexing I do up front, the better.

Hope this answers your question.

Jennifer

[Birgit Schultz]

I'm looking fro a clever workflow myself. Best imo would be (at least for Europeans with A-size paper) to have an option to print four scenes on horizontally oriented A4 paper which would easily cut into four A6-sized "cards". I have not found a fast and easy method yet to do so.

Birgit

2010/5/10 Morven Westfield <mor...@morvenwestfield.com>

--
Imagination is intelligence having fun!

[Judy R. Johnson]

On 5/10/2010 11:46 AM, Birgit Schultz wrote:

I'm looking fro a clever workflow myself. Best imo would be (at least for Europeans with A-size paper) to have an option to print four scenes on horizontally oriented A4 paper which would easily cut into four A6-sized "cards". I have not found a fast and easy method yet to do so.

Birgit

2010/5/10 Morven Westfield <mor...@morvenwestfield.com>

What's your process for getting the scene info from yWriter to your
index cards?

====================================
 NEW -- JRJ>How about using a label printer such as Dymo?  Get the biggest size of labels and zip your idea onto an individual label whenever you like, stick onto cards (both sides if nec), and sort and rearrange and stick to the back of a door or paperclip onto hanging ribbons or pin to a blanket (fold-and-carry aroundable) if you don't have corkboard.  You can color sort with highlighters or using little colored post-it labels, which can be changed if necessary.

--
Entwife Judy
Who doubts if the status quo is ever well enough to be let alone

[Simon Haynes]

Judy R. Johnson wrote:

> On 5/10/2010 11:46 AM, Birgit Schultz wrote:
> > I'm looking fro a clever workflow myself. Best imo would be (at least
> > for Europeans with A-size paper) to have an option to print four
> > scenes on horizontally oriented A4 paper which would easily cut into
> > four A6-sized "cards". I have not found a fast and easy method yet to
> > do so.
> >
> > Birgit

yWriter4 used to do it. yW5 has to use the incredibly stupid dotnet print routines, which is why I output everything to the web browser.

Unfortunately it's much harder to make things line up to A4 or Letter size in a browser window, which is why the current 'Print Scene Cards' option doesn't produce the same output as YW4.

Cheers
Simon
--
Software designer & programmer
+ author of the Hal Spacejock series

[Morven Westfield]

> yWriter4 used to do it. yW5 has to use the incredibly stupid dotnet print routines, which is why I output everything to the web browser.

Simon,

Here's what I finally did:

1. Made sure that all my scene descriptions were only one or two
sentences.
2. Created a Word doc using the shipping label template (under
Labels).
3. Opened the text file I got from Project > Export Project > Outline
and copied and pasted that into Word a scene at a time.

As I add scenes, I'll create a new "label" a print it out.

I wish I knew enough about Word macros. Maybe I could read the file,
using [scene] as the marker for a new card, and then copy it into the
Word template.

Or, maybe I could write a macro that would insert a page break before
each occurrence of [scene] and buy some individual index cards and
print a "page" at a time.

JRJ, you mentioned a Dymo label printer. I actually have a similar one
by Brother. The labels would get a bit expensive, which is why I'm
looking for a print-to-paper solution. The index cards might work. I
have some at home. I'll have to give it a try!

Simon, I don't know if you can add an Export option that would allow
us to export the scene list to an RTF file with a page break before
each occurrence of [scene]. You're able to add the chapter headings
and concatenate the scenes, so would this additional option be
possible?

The size of the printout would be up to the user. That is, I'd take
the resulting RTF file, open it, and change the page size to 3 x 5 so
that I could print an index card. Someone in a country that uses
metric sizes would use an appropriate size. Hmmmm.... I don't know if
this is a property of Word or of the printer driver, but I know that I
can choose how many pages to sheet to print. Birgit, I don't know if
that would help you, but you could play around with printing in
landscape mode (horizontally). It might work.

Speaking of work, that's the last thing I want to do, is to give you
more work, but if this wouldn't be that difficult, I'd be eternally
(and monetarily -- grin) grateful, Simon ;-)

Morven

[Judy R Johnson]

Actually, what I wrote was the suggestion about dymo labels.  They are labels that come on a long ribbon, and print one at a time unless you ask for a seriatim bunch.  The big shipping labels can hold quite a bit of text, and the fonts resize so that whatever you plunk into the window will fit -- within reason.  The notes could then be peel off and slapped onto a 3x5 or 4x6 inch card, and further coded for color with little postit bookmarks. 

Would dymo labels work from yWriter?  How about from Freemind?  Could you make it so?

Actually, I think any text I select I can cause it to print on dymo.  But to do it automatically for some things would be nice.

Judy R. Johnson

---

From: "Simon Haynes" <spac...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 1:27 AM
To: "ywr...@googlegroups.com" <ywr...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [yWriter] Re: How do you use yWriter?

Judy R. Johnson wrote:

> On 5/10/2010 11:46 AM, Birgit Schultz wrote:
> > I'm looking fro a clever workflow myself. Best imo would be (at least
> > for Europeans with A-size paper) to have an option to print four
> > scenes on horizontally oriented A4 paper which would easily cut into
> > four A6-sized "cards". I have not found a fast and easy method yet to
> > do so.
> >
> > Birgit

yWriter4 used to do it. yW5 has to use the incredibly stupid dotnet print routines, which is why I output everything to the web browser.

Unfortunately it's much harder to make things line up to A4 or Letter size in a browser window, which is why the current 'Print Scene Cards' option doesn't produce the same output as YW4.

Cheers
Simon
--
Software designer & programmer
+ author of the Hal Spacejock series

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "yWriter" group.
To post to this group, send email to ywr...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ywriter+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/ywriter?hl=en.

[Simon Haynes]

Judy R Johnson wrote:

> Actually, what I wrote was the suggestion about dymo labels. They are
> labels that come on a long ribbon, and print one at a time unless you ask
> for a seriatim bunch. The big shipping labels can hold quite a bit of
> text, and the fonts resize so that whatever you plunk into the window will
> fit -- within reason. The notes could then be peel off and slapped onto a
> 3x5 or 4x6 inch card, and further coded for color with little postit
> bookmarks.
>
> Would dymo labels work from yWriter? How about from Freemind? Could you
> make it so?
>
> Actually, I think any text I select I can cause it to print on dymo. But
> to do it automatically for some things would be nice.
>

I have a dymo label printer which I've been using for some time. Unfortunately there aren't any working Windows 7 drivers for it, which is irritating. The thermal labels are also very expensive, at least here in Australia - and my latest project has over 200 scenes, which would require a couple of rolls of labels.

Re printing, I use a VB6 program (my own) to print labels on the Dymo, but printing to it from dotnet has the same issues I mentioned with printing scene cards.

I do intend to work out the dotnet printing routines, but I'm somewhat put off by the fact that Microsoft's own programming hints include a classic about not trying to write your own print routine and writing to Word Doc files instead. Since I make a point of writing binaries which will also run on Linux, that's the last thing I want to do.

[Simon Haynes]

> Simon, I don't know if you can add an Export option that would allow
> us to export the scene list to an RTF file with a page break before
> each occurrence of [scene]. You're able to add the chapter headings
> and concatenate the scenes, so would this additional option be
> possible?
>
> The size of the printout would be up to the user. That is, I'd take
> the resulting RTF file, open it, and change the page size to 3 x 5 so
> that I could print an index card. Someone in a country that uses
> metric sizes would use an appropriate size. Hmmmm.... I don't know if
> this is a property of Word or of the printer driver, but I know that I
> can choose how many pages to sheet to print. Birgit, I don't know if
> that would help you, but you could play around with printing in
> landscape mode (horizontally). It might work.
>
> Speaking of work, that's the last thing I want to do, is to give you
> more work, but if this wouldn't be that difficult, I'd be eternally
> (and monetarily -- grin) grateful, Simon ;-)

I think the best option would be for me to allow users to generate a CSV output file which could be mail-merged into Word/OO/etc as address labels. Once you have the template set up you should be able to feed anything into it.

[Dain Unicorn]

Just a thought... If the printer you use will accept 4x6 photopaper
then it should accept 4x6 index cards fed one at a time.

I used to use the envelope slot on my old HP932c when I needed a stack
of cards.

May not work with modern printers but it might be worth a looksee

Dain

Sent from my iPhone

[Simon Haynes]

Dain Unicorn wrote:

> Just a thought... If the printer you use will accept 4x6 photopaper
> then it should accept 4x6 index cards fed one at a time.
>
> I used to use the envelope slot on my old HP932c when I needed a stack
> of cards.
>
> May not work with modern printers but it might be worth a looksee
>
> Dain

I know our laser will take DL envelopes, and I think the Canon inkjet does too.

Cheers
Simon
--
Software designer & programmer
+ author of the Hal Spacejock series

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "yWriter" group.
To post to this group, send email to ywr...@googlegroups.com.

[adrian]

I don't. Tried it but found all I need is in y-writer, it maybe that I
am not clever enough to need all that stuff.
All I do is look down the list of scenes I've made and the whole book
is before me. So I just stick to y-writer now.
If any one can show me how it would improve things, I'm always happy
to learn

[Morven Westfield]

On May 11, 8:07 am, adrian <the.woodenboat...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I don't. Tried it but found all I need is in y-writer, it maybe that I
> am not clever enough to need all that stuff.

No, maybe you're really clever and can keep multiple plots and
character arcs in your head at once. Many people can. I can't these
days.

I think it's because I have too many things in my mind at once and so
many interruptions that by the time I can get back to the story, I've
forgotten where I was going.

Simon just added a fantastic feature that allows you to print scene
cards. This is going to help me immensely. I can lay them out on the
floor and shuffle them around, I can stick them on a wall board for
reference, and I can even keep a deck of scene cards with me if I know
I'm going to be stuck in a doctor's waiting room or something.

But the big help is when I have sudden overtime at work or go on
vacation or otherwise get interrupted, I can come back, print my scene
cards, put them on the floor, and I can view the whole project at
once.

I know writers are supposed to write every day, but I'm a technical
author by profession and sometimes the writing deadlines at work take
precedence and I end up working late at night at home. Or sometimes my
head is just so wrapped up in heavy, complicated protocol crap that I
just can't surface and think creatively.

Thanks again, Simon!