I can relate to that
Work is slow, so I'm reading my Access manual. One of the problems with my job is that my skill set is so narrow that I'm pretty much unmarketable to other companies. Plus, people we hire have to learn our ridiculously outdated software. So I'm trying to learn a little something.
Now, of course, I'm imagining a table of all my characters, related to scene records which are populated with time stamps and summaries, and then a query where I can call up a certain time in the narrative and see where everyone is, and what they're doing. That seems like a great idea, right? Right?
posted by Tim Akers @ 1:49 PM
6 Comments:
YES. Yes, do this wonderful, wonderful thing.
The question is, would it actually work better than a wall of post-its or a table covered with index cards.
Programmer: n. A person who will spend all day writing a script to automate something they could have done in two seconds.
I've often thought i2's Analyst Notebook would make a great tool for a novelist. It's a little pricy, though. Has nice timeline functions in addition to everything else.
http://www.i2inc.com/
Access!? Baby Jeebus weeps!
Scott, my friend, you must understand. Currently all my data work is done in a DOS version of Borland dBase IV. So yes, let the baby cry, but I'm learning Access.
Speaking as someone who's been trying to develop plot-visualising software on and off for a couple of years, I don't recommend getting into it - not if you want to get any writing done, anyway!
Lately I've been investigating personal wikis like ConnectedText. Seems like a useful tool for note-taking/world-building - though it wouldn't do what you're talking about (at least, it wouldn't naturally lend itself to the job).
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