Okay, I feel safe here in confessing that I've been developing a spreadsheet that sequentially lists scenes. In separate columns I track scenes with 1) Helen and Nikki together, 2) Helen independent of Nikki, and 3) vice versa. As someone who's process oriented, I'm interested in visualizing how their stories develop and weave together and apart over time. I considered a flow chart format, but think there are too many steps along the way.

Looking for other goodies to add, like counter (min./sec.) references, turning points, and perhaps some other guideposts, if you will. Open to suggestions.

I figure if there's anyone else out there mad enough to have done this already, they'll be here and tell me I don't need to hurtle down this obsessive path. Stop me! No, don't stop me!

Happy Thanksgiving to fellow Yanks out there -
RiverGal

P.S. Also would love to know how to make my accompanying photo significantly smaller...

Happy Thanksgiving from a non-Yank.

I'm not aware that this has been done anywhere here but you may find the brilliant timeline (from the Bad Girls Annex) useful if you are considering the stories in real time (See http://www.badgirlsannex.com/Timeline.htm)

Good luck!!

ETA - As for the photo, you need to shrink it before uploading (e.g. photoshop or some other tool) Do you have anything like that? If not then you can probably download free software to do it.

Hi, rivergal... Happy Thanksgiving. When I "created" my avatar. I used:
http://www.shrinkpictures.com/create-avatar

Hope this helps. Cassandra is right, you need to shrink your photo prior to uploading.

Pat

Rivergal, this sounds like a fantastic endeavor! Keep working on it! I can't wait to see the result, since I'm fairly process oriented myself. Not that this is news to anyone, since I'm the one who wrote the timeline Cassandra linked to, and I'm also the one who put together this piece of silliness.

I'd say you could have a few little icons which go with each scene. Like, one icon for major turning points (the potting shed, the first kiss), another icon for relationship-building (Sophie's World, sign up for classes), another icon for prison-conflicts (the riot, the fight about Carol's miscarriage), another icon for relationship-conflicts (Nikki's jealousy etc). And of course scenes might have more than one icon (the first kiss would be both relationship building AND a turning point).

And of course little screenshots would be cool too--always nice to have illustrations.

This is going to be fun!

Are you sure? I wasn't aware of this part of you, abzug :rolleyes:


Rivergal, this seems an interesting piece. I'm looking forward to viewing the final result. I'd love to offer to help but I wouldn't want to let you down by not coming up with anything, because I just can't find the time to delve into this obsession anymore. But can't wait to see how it progresses :)

Abzug, regarding the icons, I like, I like. I'd also been thinking they'd be a useful tool to represent the most info with the least visual noise, but hadn't put my finger on just what ideas to capture with them. I'd seen and referred to your timeline, but the numberical ranking and comparison? Whoa. I bow down to your powers of analysis. Reminds me of my master's paper, which used a quantitative approach to ranking and selecting potential nature conservation areas!

Lisa289, I hear you! With twin toddlers and a full-time job I don't have a heck of a lot of time to devote to this. Ah, those heady days of youth when Desert Hearts was released and I went bonkers with that.

So screenshots may be a bit much to take on right now, but we could make this a group effort and I could pass the baton to someone else after I take a crack at it.

Looking forward to it, all.

Cheers,
rivergal

You will definitely find folks on this board willing to contribute, screenshots or otherwise.

PS I'm a twin myself, and from the stories my mother told, I don't envy you chasing two toddlers around!