Webbo has been scanning the virtual world for solutions for writers
In writing as in life, going accidentally off piste can lead to something really useful. Story Planner (www.storyplanner.com) is a new website launched by Joanne Bartley. Joanne was initially an instinctive writer, but a screenwriting MA taught her the joys of structuring a piece of work. She developed an obsessive approach to planning her own writing projects, which include long and short fiction and screenwriting, but with various plans in notebooks, Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and on bits of paper, she wanted a way of keeping all her plans in one place. The result is Story Planner, a website designed to help other writers keep all their work together. It offers a variety of planning templates that suit different writers’ styles as well as varying styles of writing, including Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat screenwriting method; the snowflake method for creating a one-page outline; Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Structure (a variation of the three-act structure and the hero’s journey plan) and many more. Similarly, there are log line planners, synopsis plans, chapter plans, character plans and setting plans. Registered Story Planner users can use one plan for free (ie save their work in it). Premium membership allows access to all the plans for $12 for three months or $40 for a year.