One Stop for Writers
by Cindy Layton
Some days writing feels like the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 is washing over me.
Fortunately, I still have one hand free and I’m able to move my mouse to call for help, which comes in the form of a program called One Stop for Writers.
While I’m okay about calling for help, I can also be pretty stubborn in my refusal to accept it. Resorting to software triggers doubts about whether it will stifle creativity. If I input a few names, a place and a dilemma will a mass of binary code spit out a ready-made story for me? At what point does the story become the creation of a coder and not that of a creator? I know, a little too dystopian for this blog.
One Stop for Writers, though, has some interesting tools that keep a writer organized, provide a huge resource for character development, and supply an emotional database in a thesaurus. That’s for starters.
It also layers a series of character-building tools using a structure based on the elements of traits and provides additional databases to prompt the writer with everything from idea generators to world-building lists, checklists and templates.
For example, the “Idea Generator” provides a place to explore a character’s emotional wounds, fears and internal growth. There are templates to begin exploring the character arc or the backstory, using levels of progression, each one digging deeper.
There are tools for story maps and timelines.
The site provides fourteen different thesaurus options, covering emotions, negative traits, symbolism and even one titled “Weather and Earthly Phenomenon.”
All of which is to say, it’s comprehensive for most writers’ needs. It claims to appeal to those who need structure but also to “pantsers,” those free-wheeling, fix-it-later kind of writers, of which I am one.
I do know that, to tell different stories writers may need to employ different methods. Is this the method to pull me from the stuck place?
The site holds a trove of potential. It’s straightforward and well organized, and I can see the practical applications of the various pages.
So, although I tend to resist anything that hints of organization as an inhibitor to the creative mind, this has a good chance of landing on my go-to list.
The software was created through a collaboration with Lee Powell, creator of Scrivener for Windows, and Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman, the founders of Writers Helping Writers. They provide a free trial but run on a subscription basis. Even the limited amount of content that’s accessible without a fee is useful. Try the “Tips” page, which is filled with sheets of story-telling help.
Check it out the full site here.
