Better Than A Shoe Box: Outliner Program Overview

Writers are notorious for scribbling on napkins, sticking Post-It notes all over the place, tossing magazine clippings into boxes – a variety of methods of collecting and saving ideas and information.  None of them are particularly effective:  ideas too often get lost, information is unlikely to be systematically drawn together into usable form.
Outline Overview
There’s a better way, a system in which articles, stories, even books come together seemingly out of nowhere.

This blog, for example, was never conceived.  It created itself.  Let me explain.

Once I had my epiphany to seriously BECOME A WRITER, I started exhaustive research into the writer’s world.  What software tools were available to writers?  What online writer communities are there?  How does one find and evaluate literary agents?  How does a writer best pitch article ideas to magazine editors?  How does one organize the business aspects of writing?  I needed to learn the answers.

To keep my discoveries at my fingertips, I created a hierarchical outline for myself, using the Storyview outlining facility.  Every week, new information was tossed into the outline, which was refined and constantly reorganized as I went along.  Outliners, I had already discovered, truly facilitate this kind of incremental accumulation of information.  After a year had passed, I discovered that this blog was sitting there within the outline.  GOSH!

I’ve actually been using the Storyview outline function this way for quite some time.  A number of major feature articles and books grow steadily but surely within numerous outlines.  As I come across a relevant article in one of the many publications I monitor, notes go immediately into the appropriate article/book outline.  Small step by small step the material accumulates until one has enough material to begin serious writing.

For the non-fiction writer, this process can be invaluable.  Even fiction writers might find it useful for fledgling ideas though, as you will see in later blog posts, there are specialized programs for fiction writers that will also meet this need.

There exist a number of computer outline programs that can be significantly useful to writers, even at the very beginning stages.  They essentially fall into two categories:  the single-pane outliner and the double-pane notes/information manager.  Both are useful for the writer.  Some of the programs even edge over into word-processor territory, with enough power to turn out completed work.

Single-pane outliners are the most familiar to old-timers who were taught the value of outlining in high school.  Everything is in one place, in an outline that cascades through several layers.  Making life easier, the computer outliners can move large amounts of information around at the click of a button, as an outline grows and evolves.  They can also collapse and expand the outline, providing powerful views of one’s outline as it grows.  I simply cannot imagine moving forward as a writer without the power of an outliner at hand.

Double-pane outliners are arguably not outlines at all:  they are instead note or information managers.  As you will see, these programs create outline hierarchies, but also reveal only one extended elaboration or note at a time.  Still, they are extremely powerful tools for writers; many will prefer them over simple outlines.

Just what is an hierarchical tree, the building block of these program tools?  It, in fact, is one of the most fundamental conceptual elements underlying computers.  PC users will know it already as the organizing principle underlying Windows Explorer and other file managers.

In fact, while we are at it, let’s explore some specific steps one can take to harness the power of Windows Explorer to help us writers work better.  We’ll turn to that in one of the blog’s next posts.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Related Posts

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the RSS feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Sorry, comments are closed.

Web Analytics