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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Useful for some purposes, not for mine
I downloaded the demo from Screenplay Systems website & played around with it pretty intensively for several hours. The demo version has no expiration, but allows you to input no more than 20 story events (e.g., chapters, subchapters, etc.). However, it comes with a whole bunch of sample files, including complete outlines/timelines of Godfather II, Pulp Fiction, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Star Wars movies, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, & others. So I checked some of those out to see how the program worked, & also played around with outlinining the first three or so chapters of my novel-in-progress.
My main question about Storyview was whether it'll really help me _work_, or would be primarily a toy. I determined that, for my own purposes, it would mostly be a toy. That might be because of my style of working. Outlining has never helped my writing much -- too much of the story always depends on the actual writing & the discoveries made there. And writing an outline is never the same as the actual _writing_....
I looked at the LOTR outline/timeline, & I thought, well, JRR Tolkien wrote a completely comprehensible & imaginative trilogy _without_ this software, so who did this outline? Answer: the authors of the software, long after LOTR had been written. Tolkien might have used different sorts of charting to help him figure out the story, but they were probably pretty much like mine are -- uniquely suited to the work at hand... whereas a program like StoryView is "one size fits all" -- which means, inevitably, it doesn't fit a lot of folks. It doesn't fit me.
The ability to track themes/characters/etc. throughout a Storyview timeline seems helpful, but I seem to be mostly able to keep that stuff in my head. The timeline feature doesn't create a timeline like _I_ need a timeline (chronology of significant events for different characters regardless of whether every event actually shows up in the story) -- it creates a sort of narrative timeline directly from the story as you've outlined it -- in effect, it's the same outline in a different format. It _is_ very helpful for seeing your story all at once, or to see relationships between events -- but not sufficiently helpful to lead me to lay out [money]for it. (...)
In short, I think Storyview might be useful for writers who need a good outlining tool to help them organize their story & to track details like "where did that character first show up?" and "how does that theme develop throughout my story?" It may also be useful for solving certain "what-if" problems -- "what if I stick that passage _here_ instead of _there_?" -- because you can move story events around pretty easily. But for most of the knotty problems I face structuring a story, it's not my solution. For my timeline issues I'll stick with using a spreadsheet, & for other stuff there's always pen & paper. YMVV.
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Storyview Software by Screenplay Systems
Recently, I bought the April issue of Writer's Digest. On the back, there was an ad for this software...the main bargain is how the software helps the writer develop a great plot from brainstorming ideas. So often, we get a mental block but the software helps you overcome the pitfalls of writing and it lets you enjoy your passion. Without good software, writing would be a chore. Do not be mislead by the name of the company that produces the software because the software is a major asset of novel writers.
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Storyview for Screenplay Systems
...I decided to buy it at Amazon because of the great bargain. But the main bargain is how the software helps the writer develop a great plot from brainstorming ideas. So often, we get a mental block but the software helps you overcome the pitfalls of writing and it lets you enjoy your passion. Without good software, writing would be a chore. Do not be mislead by the name of the company that produces the software because the software is a major asset of novel writers.
