But wait! Not so fast. How does the state of the art stack up for mobile writing? Can you actually use a tablet for writing just yet? Let’s look at the state of writing software on mobile devices.

Production

• Scrivener – From the Scrivener blog; “…the Scrivener team is looking at the possibility of an iPad version down the road.” Syncing from Simplenote is available.
• SuperNotecard – No mobile app, but if you’re a registered user you can sign up for a profile and enter note cards on the Mindola website, which can be synced to SuperNotecard.
• Celtx – iOS. An Android version is allegedly being investigated.
• Final Draft – Nothing. No mobile app.

Mind Mapping

• Mind Manager – Separate versions for both the iPhone and iPad. No Android.
• Freemind – Nada.
• Thinking Space – Android.

Docs & Notes

The news gets considerably better in the area of note-taking apps. There seem to be a ton of them for both platforms.

• Google Docs – iOS, Android.
• Evernote – iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry, Palm Pre.
• Catch – iOS, Android.
• Springpad – iOS, Android.
• Simplenote – iOS.
• MS OneNote – Windows Phone 7, iPhone.

Blogging

No shortage there either.

• Blogpress – Blogger app on iPhone/iPad.
• WordPress – iOS, Android.
• Tumblr – iOS, Android.

Verdict?

Spring for a highly expensive Windows tablet if you want to be able to run “everything,” otherwise the iPad is your best bet for things like Celtx. Software developers, game on!

P.S. Posted from WordPress for Android on Motorola Xoom.

But there is one downside that I’ve been fighting; Note cards require a lot of space to lay out flat and get the bird’s eye view of the story. It is also physically difficult to cross-reference characters, places, or historical events within your note cards without the use of stickers, highlighters, or some system of special markings. Managing note cards and their associated materials becomes a task in itself.

This means when you set aside time to work on your story, and begin laying out the note cards it’s more like a big event — out come the stickers, highlighters, pencils, erasers, extra note cards. It’s like dumping out your basket for a full blown craft session. If you enjoy that kind of exhaustive ritual, more power to you. But if you’re like me, you value space, efficiency, and effective use of time not spent wrangling all these physical materials then you’re in luck.

SuperNotecard is for you.

SuperNotecard is the virtual equivalent of your story craft basket. You can lay down an infinite number of cards on the workspace, organize them into decks, and cross reference them to other cards or decks in many different ways. It gives you all the power you’d have with ordinary notecards, but with infinite supply and without the physical clutter in your house or apartment.

SuperNotecard is not entirely different from Text Block Author, the little freeware brother of which I’ve mentioned in previous posts. The difference is mainly in the cleanliness and intuitiveness of the interface. SuperNotecard beats Text Block Author hands down in that department.

How did I find SuperNotecard? When I mentioned Text Block Writer on this blog, the one and only Ian Hocking posted in the comments that he uses the Mac-only Scrivener software. I had a friend load the Scrivener demo up on his Mac, and sure enough Scrivener impressed the socks off me.

The problem is I don’t have a Mac.

Thus begun my epic Google search on “Scrivener for Windows.” After digging through dozens of forums, in some of which the Scrivener creator stated himself that there would be no Windows version, I found one poster’s reference to a windows equivalent of Scrivener called SuperNotecard. I downloaded the demo and before long, I was sold.

The demo works for 30 days, at which time you pay a modest $29. SuperNotecard can be used for both fiction and non-fiction projects. An alternate version of SuperNotecard exists which is aptly titled SuperNotecard for Scriptwriting. It too has a demo.

If you enjoy using 3×5 note cards but get tired of the hassle and clutter, then SuperNotecard might be as perfect a solution for you as it is for me.

Check it out!

Then the other day it occurred to me; Maybe there is note card software out there designed to behave exactly like 3×5 note cards?

There is, and it’s called Text Block Writer. Text Block Writer allows you to create, manage, and visually arrange virtual index cards. The best part? It’s free. If you like the free version, you can support the creator by purchasing Text Block Author — Text Block Writer’s big brother.

And so I go from the virtual to the real-world physical back to the virtual again.

P.S. As usual I’ve mocked up one of my crazy structure templates in Text Block Writer.

• …because you’ve probably encountered plotting blocks and could benefit from reverse cause-effect plotting yourself!
• …because we get naturally blocked when we have to think of something on the spot.
• …because it might be the nature of the brain to be more inventive when thinking of reasons for why something came to pass than it is to spontaneously generate a sequence of events in order.
• …because I’ve tried working forwards and for some reason I always draw a blank that way.
• …because thinking of causes, working backwards from an effect forces your brain to connect the dots.
• I’ve been using the reverse cause-effect plotting method suggested in Writing A Great Movie, and it works quite well.