I’ve been playing around with Liquid Story Binder a bit more. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s similar to Scrivener. It’s a PC program and, as far as I can tell, is as full featured as anything Scrivener has to offer, though the interface is a bit different. (By the way, I just went to the website to get the URL, and it’s on sale for $23, so go check it out!)

Like Scrivener, there’s a bit of a learning curve to it, but it’s usable right out of the box. The reason I’m blogging this now is, because I have two monitors to work on, some of the options and functionalities that didn’t work for me before are now a bit more useful.

Here’s a screenshot of what I’m playing with now:

This is actually both screens. The left side is the laptop monitor, the right side is the second one.

On the right, you can see the short story, Forastero, that I’m working on, and something called a Planner, which is where you store your chapters/short stories.

On the left is something called a Storyboard, which works like a set of virtual notecards. You write in them, you can add images, and move them around however you want. I tend to think in chapters rather than scenes, so mine is broken into chapters, but it can also be used for organizing scenes.

The storyboard is my new toy. I’m trying to get a little more into planning than I have been, to avoid some of the questions I keep running into. And I’m wondering if it might help speed me up a little. I didn’t do pictures in this one, but I may try them later in something else.

My favorite part of it is the planner, though, because I like being able to see all the chapters in order. You can move them up and down, or add new ones as you go. You can also write in scenes in the planner, instead of chapter like I do, and have the program build the manuscript for you later.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how this all works in conjunction with the whiteboards. 😀

I threw a bit more junk out of the office today and tried moving the desk to see if it really was as heavy as I remembered. (Yes, it was!) But not impossible. Maybe over Easter weekend I’ll move everything about.