When I started planning the story for my comic, Dark Time, a dark fantasy time travel epic. I used paper, sticky notes, and journals to capture my ideas. Eventually, I looked into software solutions to organize my thoughts. I tried Excel, Word, Scrivener, and Plottr, but none of them worked out for me. I wanted a digital solution for plotting visually to mitigate the overwhelm of digging through mountains of text.
Then, I realized the software I use for design projects works extraordinarily well at writing projects! It is called Figma and it is a free application you can use on the web or download to your computer. It is a powerful graphics and organizational tool primarily used by UI/UX and product designers to create user interfaces, but that doesn't mean it can't be used for other things!
The whiteboarding & diagramming functionality of Figma called Figjam is incredibly helpful for organizing ideas. Plotting multiple subplots and book story arcs is a big task and I am able to simplify that complexity by using the diagram tools inside of Figma. It helps me tie loose ends and make sure the story is on track.
I am providing a book outline template for Figma. This one is geared towards three act structure. You can use it in Figma and edit it however you'd like.
Here are some images of the interactive book outline template:
You can find it for free, here: Figma Story Plotting Template
For the writing phase of the scripts for my comic, I use other software. I will write a follow-up post on the other tools I am using for writing scripts and character development.
For now, I hope this can help others!
Follow me on my journey to creating my dark fantasy comic book / graphic novel, Dark Time.
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