Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
Spreadsheets - Blog Posts
You know the procrastination is bad when you start making excel spreadsheets.
Crayola made a habit tracking spreadsheet for the new year!
I'm not sure if they'll actually be using it though...
Update #2: A New Outlining Method, Dropdown Plotter
I've been having a hard time conceptualizing how to plan out a novel lately. It used to come so easy to me. Now that I'm a real adult, it feels like there isn't enough space in my brain anymore for me to have my story all in my head without writing my ideas down somewhere.
So, good outlining methods, which can be hard to come by, are crucial for my writing process.
But, a lot of traditional methods don't work for me.
In my opinion, it's extremely important to have an outlining method that doesn't overwhelm you, and which feels creatively freeing. And when do I need to be more creatively free, than when writing an IT Crowd fanfiction?
So I've come up with a new outlining method that I'd love to share with you all! I call it Dropdown Plotter.
Dropdown Plotter uses the dropdown menu feature, which can be found in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, to help you better visualize (and, most importantly, easily reorganize) the major aspects of each chapter of your story.
Basically, it's a spreadsheet that includes, at minimum, 8 columns.
Chapter Title
Plotlines
Included Character(s)
Perspective Character(s)
Location(s)
Chapter Story Description
Writing Stage
Due Date
Why keep track of these things? Balance. Basically, making sure your characters, plotlines, POVs, and important locations all get adequate page time.
It's a lot easier to conceptualize these things when you have it on a color-coded spreadsheet, zoomed out really far, and can see in a big picture way. For example, you might see that the red color indicating "Legolas" is in a scene, drops off after Chapter 17. You might see that the green-coded plot about his missing shoe is only important for 5 chapters in the middle of the story, or that we're spending almost the entire story in the bathroom and never in the evil lair.
So, how do you use the Dropdown Plotter?
First, you go into the dropdown menu, and you can see all the plots you've selected. There's a handy "search feature" for those writing the next Game of Thrones. You want to click the little pencil icon in the bottom right, which is the "edit" button.
On the right-hand side of your screen, a column will pop up called "Data Validation Rules." From here, you can edit the names and colors of each item in the dropdown menu, and add or delete things as you'd like.
Make sure to click "allow multiple selections" on the bottom of the data validation rules pop-up. This will allow you to select multiple characters, multiple locations, and multiple plots when you're in the dropdown menus.
Don't forget to click "Done" at the bottom!
On top of the dropdown menus, the nice thing about working in a spreadsheet is that you can always drag and drop the rows and columns. This makes it extremely easy to change the order of scenes around, in a way that feels very impermanent and easy.
Here is what my Dropdown Plotter looked like for the first three chapters of The Grant: An IT Crowd Fanfiction.
Looks pretty, right? And pretty outlines build confidence! Not only that, but what I like most about this outlining method is that it encourages me to be less precious with my ideas.
It's way less intimidating to overhaul major aspects of your story, such as the dominant POV, the main plot, etc., when all you have to do is click a little button in the dropdown menu to change everything. When I'm editing a little blurb in a spreadsheet versus an entire step outline, it reminds me that no writing problem is insurmountable, and nothing is ever really set in stone.
Again, it builds confidence.
Unfortunately, I've only built a Dropdown Plotter in Google Sheets, but I've provided a blank version to share with you all. The nice thing about spreadsheets is that you can add and delete things as you see fit. For example, some people might want to add...
More columns indicating multiple scenes within the same chapter!
A "Story Beat" column, to mark the specific plot beats each chapter follows (as in the Hero's Journey or the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet).
An "Important Info" column, to mark any worldbuilding or character details discussed or introduced in a certain chapter.
Literally anything your little heart desires!
Happy outlining and I hope you enjoy the Dropdown Plotter!
A little while ago I saw someone made a spreadsheet to keep track of all the fanfic they read and became obsessed. I started searching to see if others have done the same and discovered they had. Got inspired and made my own spreadsheet and have started keeping tracks of the fics I've been reading from Sep. 1st (though I might have missed a few). I'll probably wait till the end of the month to share some photos so I can finish tweaking it but it looks so beautiful!!!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ioRg8ZUBsxJQCjQfdGEXK6ibYRWD1SJqVcHEFV1udZI/edit
I made a list of every game on a Nintendo console minus the Switch, I started with Switch games and then decided I’m gonna do that once Switch stops being supported
I think I might have the spreadsheet autism. I’m supposed to be writing a paper, but I ended up procrastinating by creating a spreadsheet detailing by how much each state’s minimum wage fails to support basic costs of living.
Gamehouse games order
Another useless spreadsheet! But I also like this one, so I'm sharing.
Maybe someone else like Delicious series by Gamehouse and its spin-offs (I treat them as such) and wants to know correct timeline order to play them all. Well.. Not all. There's only ones I like.
List of game series included:
Delicious
Heart's Medicine
Fabulous
Dr. Cares
Sally's Salon
Parker & Lane (though it doesn't have any connections to Delicious)
Last two don't have their locations named, because I haven't played them yet :)
Rugrats episodes
Huh, this one is completely useless for normal people, but I like how it looks, so I'll post it too.
This is just list of Rugrats (1991) episodes you can find on Wikipedia.
I made it to check what episodes I have on my old DVDs and how many I'm missing. It's one of my favourite shows I still rewatch sometimes.
I deleted markings, but if you're interested, I have first three seasons almost in full and lots of random episodes from seasons 4-8. And three movies, but they're on separate DVDs, so no surprises there.
On second page you can find it filtered in production order (that partially helped me to explain why some older episodes were on my DVDs)
Talent materials for all chars of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail
Okay, this one is probably the biggest project I've been using for years now. It lost it's usefulness in last year as Hoyo started implementing many things from here into HoYoLab and game itself (not like if they look my work as basis, but as functions presented here aren't unique anymore), but I still prefer to use my own thing. Game's version feels more convoluted and it's just easier to see full picture.
Включает русскую версию
There's instructions on the bottom Weekly boss materials ones, but it works about the same as Hoyo accompany rewards sheet. You'll have to make your own copy to use it. File -> Make copy. Also, there's links to my updating sheets, so you could easily access them from your copy.
There's two pages, named after languages they're in. GO INTO "ENGLISH" ONE.
Links are supposed to lead directly to English page, after you get your copy, just delete Russian page if you don't need it.
Everything updates as soon as materials get officially announced.
These little sticker note looking things on the right show how many silver and gold items you can craft out of extra mats you have (gold ones take into consideration silver ones you can craft!)
Sadly, you'll have to manually change amount of mats needed for character if you level their talent, as well as amount of mats you have. I thought about automating it, but haven't come to solution yet.
It is automated now, you just set character's talent levels and it counts everything. I kept old version too if someone prefers it that way.
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I'm that into building characters, in fact, I have all genshin characters at 9-9-9 talents, except Mizuki (because I don't have her) and those who uses newest weekly boss (but I have all needed talent books for them and those who I don't have). I used my spreadsheets to keep track of materials needed.
Maybe I could make similar spreadsheet for enemy and local specialty mats? Let me know, if you'd want it.
I actually made these too, check them out, if interested.
I also plan to make something similar for ZZZ, but not sure how yet. It probably won't have Russian version, cause my mom doesn't play it, so maybe it could be one file with three pages for different things? Weekly bosses, regular bosses and skill materials. I know someone already made very nice site and there's useful feature in game, but again, my goal is to generally build everyone, not focus on one character.
I made ZZZ one too, just gotta find time to post it.
I'm sorry for Russian version being on the first page, my mom also uses these and she might get lost if English one would be first.
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Genshin Impact
Weekly boss materials tracker
Talents
Honkai: Star Rail
Weekly boss materials tracker
Traces
Pokémon games spreadsheet
So, this one doesn't have any functionality and is only meant to make Pokémon games less intimidating for a newbie. I literally made it just to get understanding of all these games, generations and what came when, etc. Mainline and Legends only.
It has Pokémon Green as "Third version" for Red&Blue, but I just wanted to show that in Japan it was "Red&Green" (they also got their own Blue later). There's a note about it, but it's not all that noticeable.
I might have had links to ROMs here originally, but I don't want Nintendo to hunt me down, so I removed them from this spreadsheet.
Hoyo Accompany rewards
So, let's start with something useful if you're a something of a collector yourself. This spreadsheet helps you track your accompany rewards.
I'm a little crazy about collecting virtual stuff that I can track like this, so I made this spreadsheet. It has all characters that have their own widgets. Sometimes, you can accompany characters even before they're released or got widget of their own through HoYoLab (currently Tribbie, Mydei and Mizuki are such characters), so I want to note that I only add those who has widget.
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Besides letting you mark what you have already collected, it shows how many points you still need to be able to get everything (including what might be added in the future) and how many days it'll take.
Every character is meant to have Badge, Frame, Background, Comment decoration, UI style and Sticker set. Everything, except stickers (70 points) costs 160 points.
Gray columns on the right are additional stuff some characters get and if it's gray, it doesn't get taken into account.
When there's 10 or less days left, days cell will turn green, because I like to keep them in round numbers. It won't be highlighted after you have enough points, getting toned down instead.
"LVL90/80/60" flags are meant to show you that there's more than 10 days left, but if you can max out character's level, you'll get enough points in time without starting new 10 day cycle. You can ignore it or keep track of maxed out character levels if you want. It's just my personal quirk.
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This spreadsheet gets regular updates for newly released characters, but if old characters get updated I might miss it. You can inform me about it and I fix it.
It has links lo my Tumblr and BlueSky as well as to itself, because to be able to use it, you'll have to make your own copy of it (File -> Make copy), which won't be updated automatically. You can always just add new characters yourself, if it feels like too much hassle :)
Please, note that it has three pages, one for each game.
I, personally, use a bit different version with my own markings and such, but for simplicity I changed most of it to simple flag marks.
English isn't my native language, so I'm sorry if my sentences or choice of words seems weird or wrong.
I make spreadsheets
Okay, I'm done, I want to share my stuff with someone who isn't my mom.
So, I make lots of different spreadsheets in Google Sheets, either just informative or with some functions. All in different themes and fandoms. I plan to post them separately and use this post as masterpost with links.
I feel like Tumblr is the least scary place to post stuff like this, but maybe I'll post them in BlueSky as well one day.
There won't be lots immediately, cause I want them look good if I'm going to actually show them, so I'll post the ones that are already in presentable shape.
I hope people would find at least some of them useful.
There's like... Four of them? Damn. Can't show really personal ones, sadly. But I constantly update and make upgrades to some interactive ones, so it feels like I did a lot of work.
Also, if you have an idea for a spreadsheet, message me, I'd love to make something, I take great joy in making them. Fandom doesn't matter.
Links:
Hoyo Accompany rewards
Pokémon games spreadsheet
Talent materials for all chars of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail
Rugrats episodes
Gamehouse games order
Pokémon weaknesses and effectiveness charts