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Plotting with Excel



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Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:37 pm
Swires says...



Plotting with Excel

Plotting is often considered a hard, boring and perilous task to complete by writers both young and old. Many writers find themselves buried in maps, character sheets and plot outlines and its easy to get disorganised, and more to the point – it is easy to lose track of a story!

However has anyone really thought digital? Computers save time and are great for organising things, it is fascinating when writing combines with computing. Then it hit me: Microsoft Excel. This is a program that 90% of people have lurking around and apart from math homework it is rarely ever used.

Microsoft Excel can simply be explained as a big, never ending table, great for plotting. This means that characters can go at the top, each can have a column and the scene numbers can go down the sides. Then, quite simply you can start to fill out what happens, chronologically to your characters throughout the story.

One handy tip is paragraphing in Excel: Enter doesn’t work, you have to use Alt + Enter when typing to get onto another paragraph.

Another useful tip is to format the spreadsheet so when typing words start at the top of the cell. To do this highlight all cells (or click in the corner to select all) and right click. Then click format cells, click the alignment tab. Underneath “Text Alignment” is “Vertical” click the drop down box and select “Top”. Enter and there you have it.

Plotting in Excel keeps things organised for me and I enjoy it because its so much more clear than handwriting. I have included part of Scall’s Magic plot below.
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Plot Sheet.xls
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Sat Jan 20, 2007 5:47 pm
Firestarter says...



I really like this, Adam. I've attempted to set-up plots in Excel before, but never had the idea of putting the characters in the columns. Good idea. I might just use this for the idea I have at the moment :)
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Sat Jan 20, 2007 5:56 pm
Emerson says...



Many writers find themselves buried in maps, character sheets and plot outlines
Sounds like fantasy!

When I "plot" (If I do) I go for the usual outline form. Of course, I don't write fantasy, and I don't tend to have several plot lines going at once that exist in different areas, so its pretty easy just to follow chronological order, and not die in the confusion.

Either way, nice tip :-D I've seen several methods of outlining. Outlining by scene and character has always confused me, though I'm sure someone else will take advantage of it.
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Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:05 pm
Kitkat_1122_ says...



I'll have to try this. I kinda need to organize my papers *has papers scattered in room*. I would have never have thought of using excel to organize my stuff.
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Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:06 pm
Esmé says...



After quoting Kitkat I have nothing to add, lol.

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Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:15 am
Ohio Impromptu says...



I did this, and it works very well. I set it up by having scene in the first column, characters involved in the second, events in the third and other notes in the fourth. Maybe I'll try your way, if I ever decide to write something with a great enough number of characters.

Anyway, thanks for the tip. :wink:
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Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:01 am
Myth says...



I have never used Excel before, until recently, and this is a whole lot better to plot than what I do on Word. Thank you VERY much, Adam! :D
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