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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25081
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25081
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

## Background

I'm a plotter, meaning that I develop my novel before I start writing it. You could say that I'm almost an extreme variety of plotter, as I narrow my outline down to the scene before even starting the first draft. That's just how I write.

When I develop, I come up with all of the things I need to include, like the pieces of character development and stakes, for instance. I figure out what I need for those parts to come about, or in the case of stakes, escalate. When I'm done, I organize all the scenes I came up with, link them together, and then make the outline based off of that.

This means that virtually every scene has an important function it plays within the book. Scene eleven introduces the character's drive. Scene twenty shows the inner conflict in more depth. Scene twenty-three escalates the private stakes of the story. And so on.

I like to keep track of what each scene is supposed to be accomplishing, but in the case of scenes that accomplish several things at once, this gets a bit difficult. Additionally, what I really want is solely the outline in front of me, with the development of the scene hidden, but easily accessible. I don't want to be wading through development while I'm writing from the outline.

Is there a program that can do this for me?

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## What I've tried

I have been using Excel for this. On the left I have the scene. Going towards the right, I have details about the scene, like PoV, location, setting, time, so on. To the right of that, I have a column for each piece of development. Not all of the columns are used for every scene, so I tried combining the development information into one column, but things started to get messy and cramped.

What would be ideal is if I have something like Excel, but where I can hide and view the columns at will. They could be tabs on the top that I could expand or shrink depending on what I need.

Another way this could work is if I have the scene, then a pull down each for details and development. I can click the pull down to view what I have in that category for that scene.

Is there a program that can do this? Best case scenario would be a free program that works on my computer (PC windows 10). I'd prefer to keep my writing off the internet if possible.

Original score: 2