Hello,
I've left the world of macs and entered the world of windows. I'm looking for a useful app to plan out a story and i'm struggling to find a perfect one.
I use fade in to write and it does have index cards and I've downloaded an app called index cards but they aren't perfect for story mapping.

Does anyone use a program for planing out a story they would recommend?

Well, you've come to the right place: I've got pretty much of all them and use them regularly.

It should be noted that most of them do nothing that can't be done on a piece of paper, a corkboard, index cards or a few text files...but I myself still use them for various reasons.


One of the things I've realised over the years is that  there is no one program or system that works for every story, but there are programs that work great for particular styles.


Some to look into:


Dramatica Pro. A work of genius. It can do amazing things, and is perhaps the only one that can actually tell you what to write. It is deep, complex and encourages you to build a  coherent story structure built around theme. It;s downside is that is is almost insanely un user friendly, and requires massive investment to learn.

Great for deep, complex stories, for structuring, for working out what's wrong with a story. A work of art. It has many, many unique features and I particularly like that you can split the function of the Protagonist from the Main Character. The Protag is the one who pushes the story forwards, but he's not necessarily the character whose POV we see the action from. This allows some sophisticated story telling (such as True Detective recently where Rust was the Protag, but the Woody Harrelson Character was the MC/POV character). The other models assume the Protag is also the Main character.


Truby Blockbuster. Based on Anatomy of Story: For $279 dollars it basically leads you through the $20 dollar book. However there are also genre add ons for $79 which can be used alongside each other (up to three at a time) and introduce specific genre beats to the structure. Something which is fairly unique. Madly expensive, and the software architecture groans a bit...but good if you have deep pockets.

Save the Cat: Good software version of Synder's method with story beats for the ten types of story mentioned in the book eg Overcoming the Monster. Won't let you progress onto a question until you've answered the preceding one to force you o get the structure right up front. Rigid, though.

Contour. Simple, affordable structure package that works really well for linear, genre stories. Best when used in conjunction with own knowledge, or by adding the lessons of Truby to it.

Story Weaver: Cheap but pretty good question based system from one of the makers of Dramatica. Particularly good for creating weird characters and for helping to inspire unusual stories. Once you've got the questions, you'll probably just Copy and Paste them into Scrivener and not actually use the app ever again...but the questions are worth the $15 entry fee imo.

Plot Control 3. Based on the work of a writer whose name escapes me, you answer questions and it creates a structure for you. Not bad.


Causality: New software that creates Setup/Payoff "causal" links and also contains a full script writing package (which is not great, as yet). There's a trail version.

Story Touch : New software from City of God director. Very technical, but you can add graphical values for emotions, conflicts, values and all sorts of other stuff that hasn't been seen before. Full version is temporarily available to test it out. Too anal for me, personally. It feels like a Maths lesson, but it allows incredible control, even allowing you to map out and follow each characters emotions from scene to scene.


Power Structure: Short on templates outside of Heroes Journey, it's overpriced for what you get, but the Index Cards in for some reason always seem to make my ideas flow well. Also handles scenes and plot points well. There's a limited functioning demo available. It has a sister package called Power Writer that should be packaged with it, and it should be sold for about $30 instead of $100. Still, it's not bad.

Character Writer 4 : Builds characters based on Enneagrams and also has a story creator which despite being basic is sometimes surprisingly useful for developing a quick, if vague, skeleton for a story. Too basic for the price, but I do occasionally use it. Free trail available.

Martha Anderson $3 Scene Tracker...simple, effective....alongside her blockbuster book, it's a solid, and pro way to create and track your whole story. It's basically an Excel sheet that copies the corkboard method.


DIY methods:


Scrivener: The Daddy of all writing packages which is fully customisable. There is nothing in it to help you at first, but you can adapt it to have templates, story beats and anything else you want...but you have to make it all yourself, or download it, and the software can be a little daunting at first. Still, it allows you to create your own scene templates and once you've built them, you've got them forever. Most writers won't use much else once they are comfortable with it. A lot of Pros use mindmaps to brainstorm the story, then export it to Scrivener as an OPML..which will automatically create scene/index cards and you can start writing straight away. Phenomenal package. Also syncs with mobile/cell phones.

Scapple: Just a mind map tool, essentially an enormous piece of blank paper, but by double clicking you can create your own scene structures and link them altogether. You can also import the file directly into Scrivener. It's all on you, but the fact you can do anything, means you can create a layout for any kind of structure..linear or non-linear. You are only limited by your imagination. Free trial.

Writer's Blocks: Basically a set of index cards that you can write on. Too expensive to recommend, but functional. At $129 dollars it only does one thing, and the $40 Scrivener does that one thing and everything else besides.

Evernote: 200 million world wide users can't all be wrong. Essentially just a bunch of digital notebooks that can be made into anything, including story templates, storyboards and anything else. A bit weird to find your way around...I frequently end up in places I don;t want to be. Free.


Packages for Novellists but also work with Screenplays:

Marshall Plan. Novel Creator 5. 138 genre outlines created by a Pro literary agent covering all genres and sub genres.

WriteitNow: Alongside Scrivener, the best writing package out there. It;s got good outlining tools, but it's all stuff you have to do for yourself..it doesn't actively help you structure.

Writer's Cafe: Nice app that works as a false desktop and creates an immersive, fully customisable writing environment, but it's all DIY stuff in terms of structure.

Rick

Well, that's insanely useful. Thank you so much.
I'm going to go through these tomorrow and see what i find useful.

What I'm looking for is something like index cards that let's me arrange scenes and have them branch off so i can really build a clear picture of my screenplay before i write it.

Some index cards have a word limit which is annoying because I'm looking to flesh ideas out and i don't want restrictions.

Thanks again. This is such a great site.

Scrivener and Writers Blocks might be good for you.

I think there's a free trail of Writer's Blocks.