

Doing NaNoWriMo?  I wrote a simple story outliner last night ... - _pius
http://www.outlineyourstory.com

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_pius
Hey everyone, yesterday I started my National Novel Writing Month novel, which
I'm using as a treatment for a TV show idea I've got.

Anyway, after writing for a bit, I decided to do some outlining, so I wrote
this quick and dirty web app to outline the chapters with acts and scenes.

It's probably bug-ridden and definitely incomplete, but I thought I'd share
it. Let me know what you think!

~~~
michael_dorfman
I went to take a look, and the only thing I saw was a sign-up page.

If you want people to take a look at your stuff, you're going to have to find
a way to demonstrate what it's about without requiring a sign-in.

I don't mind "bug-ridden and incomplete", but creating a sign-on is too much
friction when I don't even know what the potential pay-off is....

~~~
mbrubeck
And there's even more friction. These are all very minor things, but they add
up:

* I tried to sign up and got "bad email or password". Oops, the form on the homepage is actually a login form; I had to click on the Sign Up link and enter my information again.

* After creating an account, I still can't use the program right away. Need to check for a confirmation link in my inbox.

* Now I'm signed in, but I have to "add a story" and then fill out another form with information about the story. How am I suposed to know how many chapters I'll have before I even start?

I would do a combined login/signup form on the home page, or side-by-side
forms. When the user signs in, create their first story form them with a
default title/description/type, and let them click to edit those fields. Some
sort of inline editing (click to edit, or just input fields by default) would
feel quicker and simpler than the JavaScript popups for editing.

~~~
_pius
Thanks a bunch for the feedback!

As I said, this is very much unpolished: just wrote it to scratch my own itch.
If you end up playing around with it, I'd love to hear whether the
functionality is something you'd find useful if more polished.

