Writing Tool: Freeform (iOS)
Not too long ago, an author friend of mine mentioned using Freeform, an iOS app, to organize his thoughts on a story he was working on. He added photos of his cast, notes on each of them, and a day by day outline for each of the major characters, along with what happened for each of them on that day.
I recently tried it out as I’m working through revisions on Sure Shot 2, and I found it works similarly to my revision wall without filling up a corner of our spare room with notes. It’s MUCH more portable, being on my phone and syncable with my iPad, and it lets me visually see the novel, chapter by chapter.
(If you’d rather avoid spoilers, don’t look too closely at the image here.)
I used color coding to designate two plotlines in the story–they are more intertwined than is suggested here, but it’s not until the purple notes start appearing that my MC begins to understand the second plotline. The orange borders (which are actually just created by layering an orange “note” under the chapter notes) are places where superheroes appear in the story–right now, not a ton of that (though I also just noticed one chapter that is missing the orange border but should have it). The one with a yellow border (a little harder to see and differentiate in this image) is actually a second note, which is a plot point I need to expand on from that chapter.
I might rearrange the chapter cards into a timeline, so I can see which chapters happen which day, possibly using some arrows to mark the chapters that involve more than one day or span the midnight marker for another reason. It’s nice to be able to move stuff around, take additional screenshots, and then put it all back the way it was. I could also add in other shapes to mark where certain characters appear, so I can tell if all of the major characters appear where they should (or don’t disappear if they should be around).
One downside of Freeform is that it’s only on iOS. So if you don’t have an Apple device, you aren’t able to use it. There are also more robust options available as apps. But for something that came built in on my new phone, it works well enough for me, and I’m glad my friend clued me in on his use of it so I could figure it out as well!
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