Writer's Blocks Software: Worth the Money?
Here's how it works: You type your information into individual blocks, one for each discrete story element, scene, etc. The blocks are arranged in columns, which can be titled with chapter headings, Hero's Journey steps, or whatever method you like to use for organizing your stories.
I found this to be an easy program to learn. Tutorials and sample outlines will show you just how flexible this program can be, and will walk you step-by-step through the process of starting your own Writer's Blocks project.
Right now, I'm revising a fantasy novel using the Hero's Journey as a rough guide. Writer's Blocks allows me to see each step, place my scene outlines into the proper column, and see how I'm progressing. As I add information or change my ideas, I can move things around until I have the form I need. Since I have only a general outline for the whole story, I can fill in as I go and see how many scenes I still need to write, how many steps my Hero has to take to reach her goal.
Another great function is the ability to use color. For a complex fiction plot, you could use one color for your main plot line, and a different color for each subplot, as well as colors for character development and other major developments.
As I complete a section of the "outline," I can then import it into my word-processing program. I've tried this with both WordPerfect and MS Word, and the outlines import seamlessly.
This is especially helpful when I use Writer's Blocks for outlining articles. While I generally don't use an outline for brief articles like my 350-word newspaper column, I do need a good outline for my research-based history articles. For example, I recently wrote a 300-word article on Pictish ruins in Orkney and Shetland, I had a huge amount of research material to organize. With Writer's Blocks, this was a cinch. I just created a rough outline, typed my notes directly into blocks, reorganized the information till I had a good flow, and imported the whole lot into WordPerfect. From there, the actual writing went very quickly – much more quickly than it ever had just using the outline tool in my word-processor.
One thing Writer's Blocks lacks: portability. Unlike index cards, I can't carry the program with me to jot down storyline ideas and automatically insert them in
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