If you know of any useful websites or perhaps run one yourself, feel free to recommend it. If I find your site suitable for my weekly feature then I will do my utmost to accommodate it. In return I might merely ask that you link to my blog. But please (and I mean this in the politest possible terms) do not ask me to advertise your commercial service.

Not so much a site but a tool this bank holiday weekend. With the nights drawing in and Autumn just around the corner, what better time than to start writing a novel to pass along those colder, darker evenings?

Feeling daunted? Worried about getting all in a muddle over plot threads, who is where and when, relationships, who knows who, what they spoke about last time and many other things that need to be carefully plotted out over the best part of 100,000 words? Storybook may be just the tool you need for a helping hand.

I’ve been testing it for the last couple of weeks. Its a free tool and here is my honest opinion.

Personally I find it a bit unnecessary. Sure, novelists get confused sometimes and are not sure who is supposed to be where at a certain point, how old a character is, who they know and have never met but that is where a notebook come in useful. That is also the point of numerous re-reads and edits in order to polish a long-term piece of work such as a novel.

It is a comprehensive planner which is fine if you need that sort of thing but I suspect that most writers are going to use one or two functions at most. I found only one feature useful and that is the chapter list as a quick reference guide to what is going on and when. This is the most useful part of the tool.

I can’t say I would make use of the character tool (at least not with established characters) as there’s too many details to enter in. However, I’m recommending it as “Site of the Week” because I like the idea, even if in practice I personally haven’t found it useful. Hopefully some readers of this blog might put it to good use.