Best writing tool to stay organized?

[hellanikthi]

What does everyone use? I’ve used Bibisco and Manuskript for novels before…Bibisco doesn’t seem to have enough functionality to do a complex fantasy IF story, and Manuskript to my memory was a bit glitchy. Been considering trying Scrivener again now that I have a Mac. I’m sure it would be decent for world building, but wondering if there’s anything out there uniquely good for IF? First time trying my hand in this format.

Thanks in advance

[dreamofeden]

I know a lot of authors have mentioned mapping it out in twine or some other flowchart software.

Iirc, the Wayhaven author has posted stacks of handwritten notes, although their story is more linear so it works.

[Loudbeat]

Here are some of the ones I use.

For mapping and notes, Obsidian, simplemind:

Organizational Tools/Programs and Strategies

Hello everyone! I’ve found myself on the incoming urge to switch the operative system of my PC before starting a new endeavor in my life (cause fu windox11 and beyond), and with it, it came all the hassle of trying to find alternative applications to the ones I’m used to and taking advantage as of now that could do everything I do now, and maybe more, but on Linux.

A little of rambling

From windows, I use: notepad++ (to write choicescript and take notes about anything) simplemind (to make mi…

For writing and testing Vscode or Vscodium with this extension:

New Choicescript extension for VS Code (2.0 now runs games!)

I’ve released a new extension for VS Code, the popular programming text editor, that supports ChoiceScript. Along with syntax highlighting and auto-completing commands and variables, it shows common ChoiceScript errors as you write. [screenshot-2] You can find everywhere that you’ve used a variable in your game and globally rename a variable. [screenshot] It outlines your game, showing your choices, labels, and any *global or *temp variables. [outline] You can install it from the extens…

Generate Statistics About Your Stats

To help me balance my stats in my work-in-progress, I modified randomtest to take snapshots of my stats and put them in a .csv file, which Excel and other spreadsheet programs can open. I put the changed code on Github for anyone who wants to give it a try. You should be able to use it just like you would ChoiceScript from the main repository. To try this out, in your startup.txt file, put a special comment that sets up what variables to save: *comment savestatsetup [stat1] [stat2] [stat3] Re…

For reading (more useful with long format texts):

Speed reading tool (not only for speed though)

Hello there. Lately, I’ve been getting into the world of programming, and for one of the final projects it occurred to me to create a speed-reading app. I guess this is not very applicable to the “choice” format but more to the continuous long text, so maybe it could be useful for some people that read a lot (and maybe also to have a brain seizure). By the way, it doesn’t need to be used only for the sole purpose of speed. It also can be useful to have a more comfortable text size, healthier p…

[izzily]

The only organisational tool I’ve had any degree of success with is the oldest of fashioned writing down notes and pinning them to a corkboard

Sometimes it helps just to be able to have something in front of you in a tactile way without having to wade through programs and tabs, I guess.

edit: corrected a typo but I feel like I need to preserve it for posterity: oranifsational

[LiliArch]

@izzily

Sometimes it helps just to be able to have something in front of you in a tactile way without having to wade through programs and tabs, I guess.

I feel like that’s the best way to get a handle of the whole too, but unfortunately corkboards are a bit difficult to work with at a, say, bus station

[izzily]

nah just gotta break out the pop up writing stand.

[herofrvegas]

I’m always jumping between storylines and sometimes lose track of what choices I’ve already implemented. It’s hard to stay organized! Anyone else struggle with this?

[LisHz]

I write notes in the file for myself using comments. I’ll remind myself what the values of a variable mean or write little recaps that I delete when I go back to write that section. That said, I don’t follow full storylines. I tend to write in order. Some choices, though, are more involved and longer than others. Comments remind me where I left off.

Otherwise, I use both notebook and Obsidian. Obsidian is for world details, character sheets, backstory, etc. I also have a list of every plot in the story, with the chapter-by-chapter progression for each.

In my notebooks, I outline individual scenes. I brainstorm the personalities and mannerisms of minor characters. Also, to loop back to your question about being organized, I’ll make “to write” lists that I then check-off scene-by-scene.