![]() If you are the kind of person who doesn’t want to put their stuff in the cloud, that’s fine. In other words, I want my mind map in the cloud. I’m looking for a tool that’s easy to use, has a basic free plan that offers all the features I want, and I don’t want to have to download and install anything. There are a lot of mind mapping tools out there. But who showers these days, amirite?Īnyway, why do something in a simple, familiar, guaranteed-to-work way when I can use this opportunity to test out new tools? And yes, procrastinate. Or I could use pen and paper or move sticky notes around on a wall or floor or draw mind maps in the steam on the mirror after I shower. It was too similar to my last plot, and there was no way to connect it to my protagonist’s internal character arc in a way that wouldn’t feel clumsy and forced. Turns out, I have to throw out the plot that I’ve got and start over with a new one, because the other one just wasn’t working. In a lucky coincidence, I happen to be stuck in the early phase of my next novel. That’s where mind-mapping tools can help. That’s all well and good if you already have an idea for a plot, and now just need to fine-tune it, maybe move some pieces around, add some clues and red herrings, that kind of thing.īut it’s not particularly useful when you don’t have much of a plot to start with. Read our Midjourney review here.Ī few days ago I wrote about how to use the free online app Miro to plot out a story. AI-generated illustration created with Midjourney. All proceeds go to helping us pay for original stories and to support writers of speculative fiction. Although Im currently writing a full manual for it, the QuickStart Guide a little further down should contain everything you need to dig in and get using Scapple.Some articles may include Amazon affiliate links. Most importantly, because its purpose is to allow you to get ideas down and make connections between them quickly, Scapple is dead simple to use. Creating and removing connections is as easy as dragging one note onto another. ![]() Instead, you are free to write anywhere on the virtual paper and individual notes can be a short or as long as you like. Where Scapple is slightly different from most is that it doesnt force you to make any connections, and it doesnt expect you to start out with one central idea and branch everything else off that. Im well aware that theres already a plethora of mind-mapping software out there. The main advantage of doing this in Scapple instead of on paper is that you dont run out of paper (the Scapple canvas expands to fit as many notes as you want to create), you can move notes around to make room for new ideas and connections, its easy to delete and edit notes, and its easy to export your notes into other applications when you know what you want to do with them. Scapple is a tool for getting early ideas down as quickly as possible and making connections between them. (If I didnt hate the word brainstorming so much, Id probably call it brainstorming software.) When Im in the early stages of any project, whether thats a writing project or a software project, I tend to throw a bunch of ideas down on a big piece of paper, spacing out as-yet unrelated ideas, clustering related notes, and drawing connections between them, trying to work out how everything fits together. ![]() Is the software equivalent of how I work out my rough ideas on paper.
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