25/01/2010 – v1.2
17/01/2010 – v1.1
Yes, it’s true. NovelBase has finally been released!
Go and signup, if you want to try this new novel writing software.
In the event timeline section of NovelBase, I wanted the ability to view events as they occur by dates. This mean the horizontal axis shows a chronological timeline, with the dates increasing to the right. The length of the event, i.e the timespan between the start and end date of the event serves as an indicator of the width, and obviously vice versa. The wider the event, the greater the timespan.
On the vertical axis is a list of characters in your book. Each character can have multiple events, and to show this involves some positioning of the events themselves to minimize overlapping. The event timeline as it currently stands is subject to change. I can see some improvements could be made, but that would have to be effectively a rewrite. The current implementation is functional, in that you can see, at a glance, how the event timeline is shaping up.
As the event screen also serves as the scene writing section, this could be named Scenes instead of Events. A scene can actually occur without having the properties of an event, that is the start date and end date can be left blank. This allows the author to create the scene, without having to worry too much about the dates in which it occurs. The downside is that scenes with no dates cannot be displayed in the timeline. Of course, the author can go back and enter the dates after writing the scene and then it will be shown in the timeline.
I wanted to strike a compromise between the immediacy of writing and the usefulness of the timeline, so that if why dates are optional.
For the first attempt at developing characters in NovelBase I designed a screen to allow the input of relevant information. The goal was to allow the writer to add character information, but not to constrain them. Recording this information is useful for fact checking and consistency throughout your story. Consistency helps build realism in fiction, and the opposite is also true, that inconsistencies can destroy fiction. With many characters, it can be very useful to be able to double check their date of birth for example to ensure that the timeline of the story is possible, and there interactions with other characters occur at sensible ages. So for these reasons NovelBase records the character development details.
I decided to split this information into segments. The first section is named Details. Here the more mundane details of your character can be recorded. First up is recording their name (the only required field, as it is used throughout NovelBase to identify your characters). Also available to record is the character’s nickname, if they have one, and their date of birth. From the date of birth, the character’s age can be calculated at various times in the story, as opposed to just entering the age.
Next up is the physical section of the character description. Here the hair, eye and skin color can all be detailed. As well as the height and weight of the character should this be relevant. By building up a physical description, it will help the author to visualize their characters. Again this helps build consistency by ensuring that you know the characters details.
After the physical comes the personality section. This will offer a sliding scale of where the characters personality lies. That is, are they an introvert or extrovert, are they emotional or logical? Of course people are rarely on extreme or the other so NovelBase allows you to enter a range to show this.
When done for all the characters in your book, a virtal world will be forming in your head. All this should help the character development in writing. It will round out your characters and hopefully give a better grasp of them for use by the author. The character details page of NovelBase is bound to evolve to store more relevant feedback as suggested by the users themselves.
