Mariner Software StoryMill for Mac - Manual (Page 6)

The central metaphor
Before you can effectively make use of StoryMill, you need to
understand the concepts it is organized around. StoryMill takes
scenes as the basic building blocks of writing. A scene is a smaller
part of the overall story that may be demarcated by time, setting, or
content. There is the text that makes up the scene, but the
program also recognizes that there are characters (the actors in
the story), a location (the setting), and other information, such as
notes, that you as the author can manage.
Tip:
Think about scenes as discrete ideas that you can quickly
capture - and organize later. You canʼt control when your
creative juices will run - but you can control how you
organize them. So, first jot down the scene youʼre thinking
of - and then decide later how you want to integrate it into
your story. Approaching your story this way allows you to
develop it in a non-linear fashion. Once you capture your
ideas as scenes, then you can get creative again deciding
how you want to arrange them.
Scenes then make up chapters. While scenes are a key
organizational component of StoryMill, the chapters are how your
readers will eventually see your story organized.
Chapters then make up your story. StoryMillʼs novel view allows
you to see your entire story from start to finish as it will appear to
your reader, with alternating chapters displaying a light background
color. Scroll through, review your narrative flow, and admire your
work!
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