Outline 4D (formerly known as Storyview 2.0)

Posted by drm vorlock
Sep 3, 2014 at 09:55 PM

I want to create a timeline/eventline to help plot a novel which is not told in chronological order. I’m looking to create a purely chronological eventline, as well as an a-chronological ‘throughline’ with the scenes in the order in which the story unfolds, correlated with parallel eventlines showing ‘who-knows-what-when’ for several characters. I may end up using paper and markers, but I’d like to find some software which would allow me to change things around freely without facing the tedium of constant redrawing.

The event tracker of Outliner-4D looks like it might do I want, but I’m put off by the software’s premium price combined with its apparent abandonment and lack of mantenace updates. Also a 5 day trial for O4D seems unecessisarily parsimonious—certainly not much time to get comfortable with the ins and outs of the program or to determine if it is going to crash frequently on my win7/64 and/or be a resourse hog.

Unfortunately, searching “event tracking software” (for novelists) yields slim pickings, so I’m asking for any suggestions before I download the O4D trial.