Technology, Outlines, and FreeMind

FreeMind is dangerous to one's productivity levels. It eats its way into your good intentions and leaves you wondering just where the time got to. But...it's really fun. And perhaps even helpful. After noticing it on Ara's blog I downloaded it, but expected that it would go the way of other such programs - down into the deep, dark depths of the computer where it would languish until the computer crashed. That happened after I tried yWriter (except for the computer-crashing part); it was just too segmented and demanding.

But FreeMind did not turn out to be that way. I began poking about, trying different buttons to see what they did, and became quite absorbed in the task. I found that at the very least, it is a convenient place to lay out one's plot in outline form, keep track of characters, take notes on locations, and arrange facets of the story in a way that flows logically. I can't say how beneficial it would be for developing the plot, as I already had mine laid out, but it is an excellent means of keeping track of little elements that might otherwise get lost in the clutter.
This is the (mostly) finished product of my endeavor, based on Ara's mapping technique for her novel Riven. On the right I placed the actual outline, separated into the broad segments Beginning, Middle, and Climax; and on the left I put the other information I wanted for quick reference: the Main Characters, the Secondary Characters, the Tertiary Characters, and the Locations. This is a pretty basic layout, but its simplicity makes it easy to follow.

Plot Outline Confession: I don't read books on writing. The great writers like Dickens and Austen didn't, and I don't see why I ought to. I've studied (and continue to study, although not in the stricter sense) grammar and I glean from the books, fiction and non-fiction, that I read, but I don't read books on writing. However, I do know that most authors of writing books discuss how every story is separated into three sections: Beginning, Middle, and Climax. The Beginning and the Middle each have their conflict and climax, which are then tied off in the final Climax. (Ara just wrote an article on outlining that featured this, under the amusing title When Skeletons Dance.)

My first reaction to that hard-and-fast separation was, "Bah!" I'm still not sure that every story has to be set up in that manner, but when it came down to doing a FreeMind outline for The White Sail's Shaking, I was forced to conclude that it, at least, is. As Elizabeth Bennet says, "That would be the greatest misfortune of all! - To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! - Do not wish me such an evil." But anyway, I accepted the sad truth that my novel had defied me and set to work outlining the three different parts. The Beginning is the largest, perhaps mostly because everything is being set up in that part. The Middle, however, bears the brunt of the action, the conflict, and the tension, and there are more branches off the chapters here as more things are packed into a shorter amount of time. The Climax, which I did not enlarge in the picture for spoilers' sake, is the smallest; it has only three chapters. They are large ones, however, and their branches have branches.

Information I don't know whether I actually needed this section, as it is more firmly cemented in my mind than the actual outline was, but I found it fun to add the different "nodes" and separate everything out. The Main Characters section is closed in the above image because it has spoilers, but there I listed all the major players - Tip, Charlie, Lewis, Darkwood, Marta, and Scipio. I did not do any smaller branches with information on them, as it wasn't necessary, but you could if you wanted. The Secondary Characters is for supporting people, such as Decatur (listed with a Number 1 because he is the "major minor" character); I may add to it later on. I also did a Tertiary Character list for the families of the main characters who appear every now and then and who made the characters what they are. I picked out Tip's and Darkwood's to show what I did here; again, not much detail, but you could add more if you wanted to.

The Locations section I separated into Land and Ships. Neither is all-encompassing, or at least is not yet, but I put the major spots, such as Gibraltar, Syracuse, and Tripoli. This was perhaps the least really necessary part of the mapping, but I admit that I did it because it was fun, and I like having things laid out in an orderly fashion. Most of the time.

Bent regarded him, eyes shifting back and forth between Tip's, and then asked, "Are we?"

"I don't know. I've always thought it takes more than one to make a friendship."

From the Shelf

I love books. I love buying them, I love reading them, I love smelling them, I love looking at them. They are, hands down, my favorite things to purchase. However, I am also cheap. Really cheap. I think all the Scottish blood from my mom's side of the family was somehow concentrated in me, for it is rare that I will buy a book for over $4 - to the point where, at birthdays and the like when I give books as presents, my family asks, "Did you pay more than three dollars for it?" Condition isn't very important to me, except in gift-giving - I prefer my books used - so I have a rather battered collection of books on my shelf. And the nice ones? Oh, those are the ones that friends and family have given me.

Shelf One - Left Side: I have a lot of C.S. Lewis, and not nearly as much as I want. The Parable of Joy by Michael Card, on the far left, isn't really mine; I just absorbed it into my stash. Letters of C.S. Lewis came out of a house that my dad and brother bought and renovated, and The Screwtape Letters and The Joyful Christian were presents. I'm not sure why I still have I Kissed Dating Goodbye; I'm not very fond of it. The Four Loves I bought, back in the day before I knew of the wonderful site called Alibris and bought books from Barnes & Noble. The other books I either bought, acquired for free (no, I didn't steal them), or were presents (like the Norsk dictionary over on the right.)

Shelf One - Right Side: Most of these are historical fictions, as the histories are getting squeezed out to go on my other bookshelf. I've been building my collection of Sutcliff novels for the past few months; Frontier Wolf is missing from this picture because I'm still reading it. I actually spent over $7 each for that, The Shield Ring, and The Mark of the Horse Lord, which just goes to show how much I wanted those Front Street editions. (And don't get me started on all the trouble I went through to get Mark.) Let's see... There are still some research books there, but The Influence of Sea Power upon History is in use. Couple of Costain novels, but I didn't care for Below the Salt and so haven't gotten around to reading The Black Rose.

Shelf Two: Did I mention that I like C.S. Lewis? Many of the books on this shelf were gifts, including the three on the left: The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Pilgrim's Progress, and The Chronicles of Narnia. (Yes, I do still have extras of The Chronicles. I can't seem to get rid of them.) Those hardbacks of Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength, and the three Chronicles books were from the same house as Letters of C.S. Lewis. The Silmarillion my dad bought for me. I have most of L'Engle's Time Quintet, but I didn't care for the last one and so never bothered to buy it. The green book to the right of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is The Gammage Cup; I rather wonder how I managed to keep Jenny from taking it with her when she moved out. Over on the right are mostly "girly" books, like Little Women.

Shelf Three: Lamplighter Publishing books on the left, random-assortment-of-classics-which-would-not-fit-on-my-designated-classics-shelf on the right. That copy of Ben-Hur I'm only holding until a friend comes in June and I can give it to her. Most of the other classics I picked up cheaply at booksales or on Alibris. The Lamplighters, which tend to be expensive, I mostly acquired as presents.

Shelf Four - Left: In case you couldn't guess, that Barnes & Noble copy of The Iliad and the Odyssey was - yes - a gift. The lovely edition of Ben-Hur I got from Jenny's mother-in-law; Beowulf was one of Jenny's 3+ copies, and she deigned to let me have it. Shakespeare's works I absorbed into my own collection, as with that hideously orange copy of Wuthering Heights. The Woman in White and Bleak House were both gifts, hence their new condition. I did actually buy Gone with the Wind...for ninety-nine cents. Yes, I'm cheap.

Shelf Four - Right: This Oxford Illustrated set of Jane Austen's novels, a birthday present from my dad, is probably the nicest collection of books I own. (Pride and Prejudice is missing from the photo because I was rereading it at the time.) The copy of Daddy-Long-Legs I picked up at a used-book store; it has a lovely smell. The other cloth-bound books were mostly absorbed from other shelves in the house. Mother West Wind's Children, the blue book, was a childhood favorite.

Shelf Five - I don't have a good photo of this one, but that's all right: I can't reach the shelf without the aid of a step, so it's primarily made up of books that I don't care about very much. I do have three old G.A. Henty's, Les Miserables, Chaucer, A Tale of Two Cities, and some more Shakespeare up there, banished to the top shelf because they wouldn't fit on any other.

Bookshelf Number Two - This is actually an entertainment unit, but who cares? If it can be used for holding books, it will be. This holds my mysteries, histories, and a random assortment of other books that would not fit on my big bookshelf, but were too good to go into storage, such as the Anne of Green Gables series. Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, Dorothy Sayers, and one Mary Stewart novel make up most of my mystery collection.

Those are the books on my shelf. What about yours?