

Novlify is a writers tool for outlining, drafting, and visualizing your novels. - novlify
http://novlify.com

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anigbrowl
It looks like a to-do list for writers. To show what makes it different, you
really need to show how it makes it easier to visualize a complex story.

You chose the example of Robin Hood and his buddies stealing from the rich and
running off into Sherwood forest, with the wicked sheriff in hot pursuit. From
a writer's standpoint, this isn't a story, this is an episode - something
happens, then something else happens. It's no more dramatic than a weather
report. Dramatic tension arises from the differing outcomes that result from
characters' choices - for example, Robin's friend is captured, so now Robin
has to decide between fleeing or risking capture. A whole story involves a
sequence of branching events, with various inputs and outputs such as
characters, places, items and so on. I wish your video had taken the time to
show a complex story made up of multiple episodes; as it is, I am not sure
what makes it different from a stack of index cards.

You might want to look At Adobe Story, which is more geared towards film
scripts but has a fairly slick interface for managing these 'fictional
assets'. Final Draft is the market leader in that area, and while it's ugly
and unintuitive in many ways, it does have a lot of valuable functionality
because every noun or verb mentioned in a film script is eventually going to
end up as as a line item in a very detailed budget and schedule.

Imagination is free for novelists, but the cost of organizing and structuring
a complex story is in the editing and rewrite time, so try to show how your
product can help authors manage complexity rather than how easy it is to get
something into it.

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novlify
Wow, thanks for all the info! I will definitely put that new-found knowledge
to use. Do you have any thoughts or examples on managing complexity?

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anigbrowl
Hmmm...syntax highlighting for characters, locations and other tag categories
(items, plot coupons...whatever the writer wants to add); Dynamic DAGs from
tags (see every scene where they appear in a tag cloud or force-based network
layout; metapages for tag items; relationship builder between scenes using
nodal sequencing concepts. This paper describes some music software I find
interesting and presents some innovative UI concepts for representing
procedural rules for constrained linear outputs:
[http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~cema/nodal/downloads/Nodal.pd...](http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~cema/nodal/downloads/Nodal.pdf)

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olivier1664
Seem nice. I love the efficient design. (But I'm not in the target audience,
so...)

There is a bug on Internet Explorer 9: when I click anywhere on the page, the
Sign-Up pop up appears (not just on the button).

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novlify
Thanks! I will get that fixed ASAP

