I’ve been playing with spreadsheets in plotting out bigger stories. Which works well in laying out cross-plots, who does what and when. Spotting more than once a nice moment when a pair of characters might overlap their bits of story, meet, and so on. Don’t have Microsoft Office on my home machine. There, I’m using Microsoft Works, that spreadsheet, which essentially is the same.
Anyway. Since it works well in the bigger stuff, thought I’d try it for plotting out my current add for Bolsheviki’s Mage Hunting, over on Protag.
[Meaningful pause]
Well…it worked, but not nearly as well. Perhaps because I was plotting it up on the laptop, and not under ideal jotting-down conditions. Tapping in the plot points, row after row down the sheet, was fun, sure. And each character’s action and reaction across the columns. But. Have you ever tried copy-pasting from a spreadsheet to any kind of working draft…using the f’…fiddly, laptop, pointing device? Tried it only the once.
If I felt like playing a game, then I’d fiddle with that pointing device, however I felt like writing. Laptop has a usb mouse, of course. But the awkward positionings of laptop, and lap, and tapper, as in me tapping, and mouse on paper notes as mouse pad – and inadequate slapdash mouse pad, at that! – frustrated even more so. I want to write, I want to jot it down fast, I don’t need to fight the tools I’m using.
I over-complicated the exercise.
There’s a lot to be said for pen and the back of some recycled fax scrap.
It’s how I used to do all of it, last century.
Happy Thanksgiving Day 2026 To All!
2 weeks ago
