Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: I'm Joanne Morrell, children's and young adult.
[00:00:03] Speaker C: Fiction writer and author of short nonfiction for Authors. Thanks for joining me for the Hybrid Author Podcast, sharing interviews from industry professionals to help you forge a career as a hybrid author both independently and traditionally publishing your books.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: You can get the show notes for.
[00:00:20] Speaker C: Each episode and sign up for your free Author pass over at the Hybrid.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Author website to discover your writing process.
[00:00:26] Speaker C: Get tips on how to publish productively, and get comfortable promoting your books at www.
Let's crack on with the episode.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Hello authors.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: I hope you're all keeping well in whatever part of the world you reside and listen to the podcast in.
Today's interview is with Cameron Sutter from plottr from Idea to Book Bible in Minutes and Visual story planning and WeChat practical use of Plottr from initial idea to Completed Outline Story Snap, an exciting new AI powered addition to plottr, creating visual book bibles in minutes and instantly organizing Author information how AI tools like StorySnap complement, not replace an author's creativity and Cameron's advice to writers about integrating these tools into their process and much.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: More.
[00:01:28] Speaker C: So in my author Adventure this last month.
Because if you're an avid listener of the podcast, you'll see that I was taking a break over September and we are now in October, so I am back. But yeah, it was a break from the podcast 100%. I didn't put any episodes out. I didn't actually. That's a lie. I did do a couple of interviews in the last week of September, but apart from that I really didn't have much to do with it at all. So I did get a break there, which is great. With the Hybrid author. I conducted a few speaking gigs, so that was still part of the business. Wasn't completely a break altogether off working. I still was working casually at the Cellars and I was undertaking some relief work as well. Which to be honest, it was nice. It was a bit of a nice change to rock up to work and be able to do the work and then come home and switch off, which is quite difficult sometimes when you work for yourself and you work from home and you're just constantly fitting things in around yourself and sometimes that can be a blessing and sometimes it can be a bit much and unable to switch off. And I think that's where I've been lately. But yeah, there's this. So the speaking gigs that I conducted over September were roaring success. I was speaking about the Discovering Power of Podcasting session at Melville Libraries Shout Out Lorraine Horsley Gorgeous little group they are. On a Saturday morning. They discovered the power of podcasting. It was a really good session and that was great. I absolutely love going out and talking about podcasting. It's always been a joy and I've got a lot of information to share and I think people got something out of it. And it's always interesting to see who comes along because you get people who are brand new and then you've got people who are sort of mid range. I also conducted a business startup success session at Byford Library, which was a bit of a smaller group. Shout out. Rebecca La Farsmith, lovely to see you. Another friendly face who I know from the writing world.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: He lives up that way.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: It was great to see her. And yeah, that was the first time I'd ever conducted that session and I think it went really well in terms of that, you know, there was inspiration around business ideas and whatnot. So that was great. And the other gig I was part of was the Armadale Writers Festival and absolutely loved the Armadale Library and the team there. Shout Out Bianca was amazing and I was actually on the opposite side for this one. It wasn't an event that I had put together, it was for the Armadale Writers Festival and I was interviewing Holden shepherd from page to screen, talking about his experience of having his work adapted, but also him actually adapting his work because he has been the screenwriter, one of the screenwriters for Invisible Boys, his hit Stand series. And also talking about his new work, King of Dirt, which is absolutely wonderful read. You should. Compelling read. I couldn't put it down. I listened to the audiobook. I have the print book as well, but it was fantastic. And yeah, it was really. That's the first time I've done an in person interview and I've had Holden on the podcast before, so, you know, knew him beforehand and he pulls obviously quite a big crowd. And yeah, it was a good event. I was quite aware just of the time and the flow of stuff, but it went really well. He got asked heaps of questions and I sold a couple books. He sold loads.
But all round it was a really interesting experience. And yeah, I was a little bit nervous actually for that one because I hadn't done something like that before in my mind. You think, oh, it's gotta be a bit easier because you're just having a conversation and that's definitely what it is. But you can just talk to someone and ask them questions and you're sort of bouncing off each other.
But I don't know, I felt like the audience was extremely close to us and I did feel a little bit nervous. I don't think I came across it. It was a really, really good event. Just in my mind I thought, oh my gosh, you know, I had that one split second when the mayor introduced us and opened the festival and I had that one split second where I had the questions with me and everything and I can talk just randomly.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: So it would have been absolutely fine.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: But a bit of anxiety beating like, oh my gosh, I've forgotten everything, I've.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Forgotten my name, I've forgotten all that.
[00:05:17] Speaker C: And so, you know, I wanted to share that because those moments can happen, especially when you're standing up in front of people and it is a horrifying thought to think that you are just going to go blank. I might have gone blank, but as soon as it obviously kicked off I was absolutely fine. There was that moment, different experience, definitely very interesting. So I think that I do prefer actually being the one that's standing up there talking rather than the one that is interviewing. It was wonderful, really great. So I was very fortunate to have had those experiences and had those talking events. And I do have a few more coming up for this month if you are around and interested in the topics. Tuesday, 14th October between 4 and 5. I am at South Perth Library and I am talking about discovering Roblox in Writing, which is part of their Uncover the Facts series.
Writing can be exhilarating but also intimidating. Join us for a talk for writers and creatives where you'll uncover what's really holding you back. So in this talk I sort of touch upon my author fears and how to overcome them. I talk about the kind of internal, external things that I have experienced as a working writer in the last 10 years and most recently my burnout. Like it's actually a thing and it is something that is gets put in your way. So you have to talk about these things and you have to address them and you have to share because people need to know that they're not alone on this author adventure. And yeah, it's really, really common as well. So looking forward to adding these new elements into my long, long list of.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Fears and self doubt and things that.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: I've been absolutely riddled with since putting myself out there as an author. So if you're around then I would absolutely love to see you. I am on Saturday 18th of October, 10 to 11am, I am at Morley Library talking discover the power of podcasting. So if you're around that area and you want to know more about Podcasting. Please come along, we'd love to see you there and finally again discover the power of podcasting. I am at City of Gosnells October 20th for their Get Online Week in Wait and that's 5:30 till 6:30. So I hope to see you there. You can see all my events on my website, hybridauthor.com I am also at the Big Book Market which is run through the Totally lit festival in Fremantle this weekend, Sunday the 5th. And I will be selling my contemporary women's fiction book the Writer, the Hairdresser and the Nurse alongside my non fiction books Shout Out Karen Cunningham. Lovely Karen. We're going to be sharing a stall. So I'm really looking forward to just being involved in that and chatting to people who love to read. It's going to be a different event for me. Quite an all day thing. I think. You're there sort of from like 9 to whatever it is. So it'll be really interesting because as I said, I've done some market stalls last year and at the start of this year a big one and a small one and some of them were sort of Christmas markets and then the other ones and creative ones and just what was that other small one? The small one was just a standard market somewhere. And so it's interesting to see if that translates to more sales for an actual market based on books and people coming around who are interested in reading and specifically wanting to buy books. The other drawback with that is people say, oh well, you're competing against fellow authors and stuff. But that doesn't bother me at all. Really looking forward to it. So I could have done a bit more and I think I'm low on bookmarks and all that sort of stuff. But hey, I'm at a point where I'm just a bit chilled in all this and I'll just go along for the ride and see what happens. So I'll let you know how that goes this weekend. And just back to my writing, which as I said, is why I do all this in the first place and why I've taken a break because. Because if you've been listening, you have heard me say that I haven't been writing and I want to get back to that. My plan going forward is I have set a goal for October and I put it in my diary and it's a five minute writing plan for the month of October. Now. Five minutes. We can all do five minutes. We all have five minutes. Why would I set it to something that's so achievable and so low. Because even I can. I know that I will be able to do five minutes. A I've set something that's achievable because I need that right now. I need to feel like I'm achieving something. And also I'm gonna do more than five minutes. And that's just an absolute given. And I know because I've already started, which is great.
And I'm doing it every day because I want to pick up a writing habit for every single day. Now, writing for me, I can do. I can just do as a job. I do have a writing work ethic, I guess, is the thing. I can sit down and I can do a project and I can apply myself to it, but I need to build the skill. And I want to. People say, oh, you know, you don't have to write every day. I want to write every day. I want to have that in my life. I want to build that in there because I've lost it somewhere along the way. And it's really important to me. And what else is really important is just me having fun with it. This is about me enjoying the creative process, getting back to why I love it, what it's all about for me in the first place. It's actually been quite difficult to switch the publishing mindset off because initially thinking, right, you've got this idea, who's it for? Where is it going? No, none of that. Just writing this for the sake of writing it. Maybe not even having a publishing goal at the end. So things have really, really sort of changed for me and I've decided on a project because I actually have. There's at least three or four that have been hanging around, so they all seem quite important for different reasons. One X is a catharsis for me, and there's a second in series it makes sense to do first because it is the sequel to the Writer, the Hairdresser and the Nurse. People keep asking me for it. They are waiting.
So there's that or there is a YA that's been hanging around since like last year that is really quite important to me as well. And then there's this really fun, like, massive project out of all of them that I had thought about, it keeps coming back to me as well. In 2021, I'd done like a dictation for it at one point and I went back to read it and it's so funny if you do dictate. There's better tools these days, but it was many years ago and some of the words just don't even make sense and it's just a bit crazy. But the bones are there and it's really exciting. You know, I was watching some stuff over the weekend and I just, I've watched everything that I really like and I thought, I need something, I need something. And I thought, well, you know, I'm gonna go and write the thing that I want to watch. It's like they say, write the thing you want to read. I'm doing, I'm doing that. So, yeah, I'll let you know how we go for the best of my abilities. But I've also made a decision that I will be taking a long break from the podcast after I release the last few episodes, and when I hit 200, I will not be releasing anything else for the rest of the year. And going forward next year, we will see.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Thorn Creative, where beautiful websites for authors are brought to life.
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[00:13:13] Speaker C: Cameron Sutter is a YA sci fi author, software developer, and the inventor of Plottr, the popular visual planning software for.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Books and stories of all kinds.
[00:13:24] Speaker C: An avid reader who is endlessly learning how things work, his life's mission is to help writers write more powerful stories.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: And to encourage everyone to read the classics.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: Cameron lives in Oklahoma City with his.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: Wife, six kids, and several furry friends. Wow. Welcome to and Plotter Back to the Hybrid Author Podcast.
[00:13:44] Speaker D: Cameron hi Joanne. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Oh, we're thrilled to have you. We've had Troy Lambert on in the past. I think that was back in January 13, 2023. He was episode 57 and we're almost at 200 episodes now. So it was a little back there. He was.
[00:14:01] Speaker D: Congratulations.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Talking about plottr. And of course, you've been a valued sponsor of the podcast as well. But we're absolutely thrilled to talk to you, who is the creator of the tool and author as well. Can you tell us how did you get into writing and then go on to develop a fabulous program?
[00:14:17] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. So I'll tell you the story, the short version of it. I've been writing on and off my whole life. In first grade, I remember the teacher. So I was writing my first story during English class, and the teacher kind of came over and whacked me with the ruler on my. On my hands, like, stop writing. You know, And I always thought that was funny because I was writing a story, but she probably thought I was writing a note to the person next to me or something.
But, yeah, so I've been writing on and off. And so then in. In seventh grade, I wrote my first novel.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:14:46] Speaker D: And it took me a couple years, but I finally, you know, I wrote it. And. And then I've lost it. I have no idea where it is. I can't find the files, can't find the notebooks. I don't know what I did with it.
But then. So I've been, you know, some years I'll be out of writing and trying to do other things. And then back in college, I took a class by Brandon Sanderson about creative writing, and I started writing again. So after I wrote that one and I was writing the next book that finally, I don't know, I just. I didn't like my process.
I was in this writing group at my day job where I was a software engineer. And my writing process, I just kept rewriting things. I didn't like it, and I was disorganized. And so I was like, you know what? Well, I'm a software engineer. I can make the. The ideal tool for me. And I saw the. I don't know, the threads of your story weaving together, like these different.
Yeah, just different threads that you could see and see what was going on at all times with each of the threads. And so, yeah, I just. I was like, I'm going to build this tool. I can do it. My.
And it's pretty cool because a lot of authors also feel the same way, and their brain works the same way that they want to see the threads of their story.
So that's how it came to be.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: That's amazing. No, I absolutely love it. And I don't like the whole plot art Pants are definitions for writing, but I certainly started out myself by just writing and writing with no kind of direction. And then when I did come across plottr, I am now a plottr from using your software. I know. And I definitely think my work is a lot better for it and for it focus. But I also feel sometimes, yeah, it's definitely part of my process now for sure. That I do the plot and then it just. It saves time as well. And I love your templates that you put in there.
[00:16:28] Speaker D: So, yeah, the templates people love. Yeah, I'm somewhere in the middle, actually. I'm not a full on plotter. I pants a lot of stuff too.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Same though, I think. And there is a term for that as well, but I fail to remember what that one is. Sort of in the middle. Hybrid. We're both hybrid. There you go.
[00:16:44] Speaker D: Right?
[00:16:45] Speaker A: A bit of both. So, yeah, I like that. No, well, that's fantastic. Fantastic. So anybody who did miss those, you know, previous episodes or whatnot, can you walk us through, you know, how an author might use plottr from, you know, start to finish from their first idea or. Or anybody who's never kind of used the program yet?
[00:17:05] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. It's hard to kind of imagine without. Without being able to see it. But yeah, it's kind of like if you think of sticky notes or index cards on your wall where you have different lines for each plot line. And so you can see the main plot line, the subplot. You can see character arcs all at the same.
One of them has a scene card or, you know, an index card, whatever you want to call it, where you can add more details and then you can move those around and drag them around. So it's really great for brainstorming or figuring out the pieces of your story as you go, because maybe you don't know, you have this idea for a scene in your head. Maybe it's the end, maybe it's somewhere in the middle. Maybe it's the inciting incident. A lot of times, at least for me, they just come to me out of order, you know, like, oh, here's a great scene. And so you can just put them down on this. We call it the timeline, but it's kind of the storyboard. You can just put them down on there and then reorganize them later.
And so being able to reorganize them is super powerful. Being able to see them visually and see what your character's up to and how they're changing and how the story is progressing instead of having to keep 50,000, 100,000 words in your mind. And what are the plot points? Just being able to see it visually and simply just makes it so much easier for a lot of people for the drafting part and then lots of other ways you could use it.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is. So can you explain to us as well, what's a book Bible? What do you. What's your definition for that? I haven't really. I've heard of a story Bible, I guess, in screenwriting and things, but what's a book Bible? Is this one of your new tools that has been implemented into PlanTR since, you know, like AI and things?
[00:18:43] Speaker D: Well, so I've heard this term said a few different ways. So there's book Bible, there's series, series Bible, their story Bible. To me, they all mean the same thing. But plottr is really powerful at helping you with staying organized and keeping all your information for the whole series in one place.
So all your character sheets, all the places in your story, all the backstory, world building, magic systems, those kinds of things, they're all in one place for the whole series in one project. It's just so much easier to stay organized and search and find what you're looking for and filter and sort and things like that. When you've written book one and you're working on book two, three, four in the series, that's another way. Whether you're a pants or a plotter hybrid somewhere in the middle, that's how Plotter is going to help you.
Because you're going to have hundreds of characters and you're not going to remember all of them. And if you mess up things, your readers are going to email you and say, why'd you change this character's eye color? That was my favorite character, and I love that he had blue eyes, that kind of a thing. So getting those details right is important.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: And.
[00:19:45] Speaker D: And getting that book Bible, having a book Bible or a story Bible that is organized and easy to search and things is going to make your life so much easier when you're writing a series. And so to answer the other part of that, you mentioned AI, plottr doesn't use any AI right now. There's. There's no AI in plottr. So if you're worried about that, we don't do anything with AI, but we've created this new tool that we call Story Snap, which is outside of plottr, but it works with plottr.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:10] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:20:11] Speaker D: And Story Snap will build your book Bible for you or your story Bible, your series Bible. And what it does is you upload your finished manuscript and. And it will create a plotter file for you and fill in all the details. So it'll list out all your characters and all their. All their, you know, everything about it that it can find and their magic system and it'll build the outline for you and so to just do a super detailed book, bible outline, book summary for you in five minutes.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: So it's kind of like super powerful. So I'm getting my head around it. So way that I use Plotter, it's kind of like a backwards process almost, doesn't it? I guess, like, we use Plotter to do all that and then write the books.
[00:20:51] Speaker C: But then I guess you're writing the.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Book first and then using story, like.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: Putting it into Story Snap, and then.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: It'S turning your book into Plotter. Does that make sense?
[00:20:59] Speaker D: Yeah.
So it's for the people that lean more towards Paner or that haven't been using Plotter throughout their writing career, and they've got all these books and all these manuscripts or even just your first manuscript, and you're like, darn, Plotter is awesome. I want to be able to see it visually. But that's a lot of work to get it all in there.
And so this will do it automatically for you. So, yeah, it's kind of a backwards process if that's the way you go.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: So does it. Will it show you? Because Plotter sort of helps you.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: It gives you the structure and it keeps you on track. Will Story Snap show you plot holes and things from structure?
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Or like, if it's going to.
[00:21:35] Speaker C: Or is it just.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: It's going to organize your characters and different things. Does it give a sort of what a plot effectively from that?
[00:21:42] Speaker D: Well, it doesn't. It right now, it doesn't use any of the templates that people love to kind of analyze your story, though that's something we're planning to build into it. But it does. There are a couple, like, customizable things where you can have it, say, find some problems in my story, and it'll suggest things that this may be a problem or this may be a plot hole, this may be a character inconsistency. But we're really trying not to. This is something that's really important to us that AI we're trying to find useful things for AI that don't take away from the important human parts that a writer needs to do. We're not trying to take your job or do better than you. You know, we're like, that's A very important for us that we're giving tools that help but not hurt authors, I guess.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you're an author yourself.
[00:22:30] Speaker C: Have what?
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Our team sat down and obviously paid attention to the conversations that's been going on or had. You've had concerns yourself as author.
Creative industries are worried. And there's lots of conversations, both negative and positive towards AI and been hearing it for a few years now.
So was this what you guys done? You sort of sat down and thought, you know, how we can sort of help. Help this, you know. Cause I don't know. Rather than. Yeah, I like how you've done something. You haven't changed your initial program. I like how you've made something different.
[00:23:02] Speaker C: To sort of coincide with that.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: I think that's really cool.
[00:23:05] Speaker D: Yeah, that was, that was definitely on purpose. People are worried about AI and I. I think there's so many concerns that we can have for AI on a society level, and those are not. We shouldn't ignore those, I think. I mean, we saw what happened with social media. Everybody thought it'd be awesome. And it turns out it hurts a lot of people, you know, if you don't use it. Right. And most technologies are like that. And so these fears about AI, maybe you didn't want to get into this. Sorry. But yeah, I think we should pay attention to those fears and, and not use it in a way that could hurt people or, or make them less creative or. Or make them do the parts that we need to do the hard work that. That makes us better people. But at the same time, there's some things that, that we can't do that AI could do for us that would be really useful. And I think this is one thing that we found that could be really helpful for people. The other thing that story Snap does is it does a virtual beta reader experience where there's a team of beta readers that will read through your book and it'll give you five different personalities and they'll. They'll tell you in those personalities whether or not they liked it. The ending didn't land. This character didn't land those kind of things. And it's kind of fun. And I think it's useful to get that beta reader feedback. Virtual beta reader.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: I was just going to say, is that. Is it real people or is it like. Is it pretend, like a bot? That's the beta reader.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: A virtual person.
[00:24:25] Speaker D: Yeah. Just AI personalities.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:26] Speaker D: Right.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Yeah. No, that's really cool. I think you've thought of that. Everything there. So has. How Is this out now? Story snaps out there now you can find all this.
[00:24:37] Speaker D: Yep. If you go to StorySnap AI and there's a free trial, you can try out the beta readers thing. And it works on a credit system, so there's no subscription or anything. It just. You pay for the times you need to use it and that's it.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: And does it link like you said?
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Does it link through to the Plotter software as well?
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Is that how does that happen or.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: No?
[00:24:56] Speaker D: Yeah. So when you're building the book Bible, it'll. It'll generate a plotter file.
[00:25:01] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:25:01] Speaker D: And then you can just download that and use it it like you normally would any other file. We're not trying to lock in the Plotter with Story Snap, though. And so it'll. You can just use a. You can download a Word document as well, and it has the same information.
So if you don't. If you're not using plottr, then you can still make a really good story Bible and have all that detail organized for you.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: But like you said as well, and I sort of find, although I use Plotter now for pretty much, that seems to be the process, I still think there might be projects where I just want to write and see how I go. And so I might go back and forth between certain things. So, yeah, that's good. Where the tools feed into each other. If. If you want to go one way for one or one way for the other. And people like integrated stuff as well. And plottr is. Is it companion? I don't even want the word. Is it. Is it kind of companion with Scrivener as well? Can you.
[00:25:51] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. So, yeah, it integrates pretty well with Scrivener. So you can export a plotter file to Scrivener and then just start writing your book in a couple clicks. Or if you've already written the Scrivener file, you can upload that into plottr and it'll put it all into plottr and visualize it for you.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's amazing. And how's the feedback been so far for everybody that's using story snapping?
[00:26:13] Speaker D: Yeah, actually pretty good. There's always the concern about AI, is it taking my book? Is it stealing my work? You know, so we've been very careful about not letting it do that. Where we do it in a way that our servers are talking to chat GPT servers, and it's in their terms and conditions that they can't train on any information that we send that way. So we're not trained on anybody's books, but the people that have used it are just there. Some people said, holy cow. That's a game changer. They didn't say holy cow, they swore. But I don't say that. But yeah, yeah. Some people are saying like, wow, that's really going to change how I write and it's just going to make my.
My series bible at the. So much easier and so much quicker.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I think it's really clever, really.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: Smart and really ethical. How you've approached it and how you've.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Gone about it, you know, is that you've. You've got the. The coin on both sides. As an author, as I said, and as a developer, you're probably very excited about these tools, but at the same time, you can you actually understand emotionally and firsthand what an author's experience with it as well? Because there is a lot of concern and worry about it. And I don't know what the conversation is like in America at the moment with it all, but here in Australia, they're really jumping up and down about stuff coming out.
[00:27:24] Speaker D: Just really.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Something was just sort of released and it was almost saying, you know, the authors want to stick with copyright and so they should. They want compensated for the work.
[00:27:36] Speaker C: They don't want their work stolen and all that.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think someone just sort of bypassed that. They seem to just be more excited about the tools. They're not really thinking about everybody else. But I think it is going to get to a point where they're good. You know, like you said, they're going to have to just have processes in place where they're being ethical about people's work and people get compensated for it because it is. Everybody's living at the end of the day. That's what you know.
[00:28:01] Speaker D: Right. Yeah. And. Well, for some authors, they're using AI because they were already doing. Releasing a book every three weeks or something like that, and that's a hard pace to keep. So for those authors, some of them, they're like, well, I can just feed all my books into it and it'll spit out books like mine, and I can do one every day or something like that. And, you know, they're probably going to make money and that's great if that's the way that I want to run their business. But most authors I talk to, they want to do the writing. That's the fun part. They don't want the AI to do that.
That's the part they like. And being creative, that. That's Why I got into writing too. I want to create stories that don't exist. So yeah, there's a. There's a good way to use it, I think, and wrong ways to use it.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's the same with everything though, isn't it? You know, and. Yeah, yeah, there's always, there's always a good and a bad side and people will use stuff good or they'll use stuff bad or. Or whatnot. I definitely see the benefits of these tools and for quickness and fastness and there. So you know yourself, there's so much to have in an author career and an author platform these days. And it's so much more than just the writing that you can get bogged down. So anything that can kind of help is. Is great. But yeah, taking the writing is. Yeah, not great. But I found the more that I sort of play around with AI tools.
[00:29:15] Speaker C: That, I don't know, it's. It's not stale, but it sort of.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Feeds out the same stuff and it's really just with its responses, it's the.
[00:29:22] Speaker C: Same and I don't know if it's.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Tuning into me asking the same questions about something. But yeah, I don't think it's.
[00:29:28] Speaker D: It's.
[00:29:28] Speaker C: I don't think it's amazing and I'm.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Not scared at all with a. Stealing anything. Yeah, but no, I think that you have created something really special and really exciting. So with Plottar, are you. Is there. Have you got any future plans with Plottar or. You're quite happy? You guys, I know you, you upgrade all the time with certain features like that.
[00:29:46] Speaker D: So we've got some exciting things coming actually.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: Are you allowed to share?
[00:29:51] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. So probably by the time this is published, we're going to have this new feature that's a family tree.
So you'll be able to visualize your family tree or any organization. So if it's a military organization or even a love triangle, you'll be able to put on your characters on a family tree. It organizes them for you automatically and you can have these cool backgrounds so you could use it on your marketing website or in the back of your book and just make this really nice looking family tree so your readers can understand all the complicated relationships.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: I need that now actually, for a book. When's that come in?
[00:30:23] Speaker D: The end of this month actually.
Yeah, so the end of August. So it'd probably be out by the time this is published, so.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Fantastic. Yeah, I do need that for my current romance book.
There's A family and a long. It's set in a vineyard in Perth and there's a long dynasty of winemakers. And I just thought I need to do a family tree, so that would be great.
[00:30:42] Speaker D: There you go. Perfect. We did it just for you. Just for you.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Oh, fantastic. And anything else coming with Story Snap or this is it for now? Because it's brand new anyway.
[00:30:53] Speaker D: It is brand new. I've got so many ideas for how we can make it better, so stay tuned because in the next next little while, we're going to be making lots of really cool things. But in both Plotter and Story Snap, we're not stopping. We've got so many ideas. We're also making a mobile app that is going to be really awesome to capture your ideas quickly. If you're standing line for coffee or on the go or something like that, and you just have that idea, that brilliant idea for your story, we're just going to try and make it really easy to capture that so that you can put it in Plottr later.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: That's cool. I do put all my ideas in there, actually. Like, there's just. I just sort of label them as new projects and new titles, you know, that's how I do it in there for later.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's really cool. Well, honestly, Cameron, that's always so exciting and you just. I love that you're so creative and have so many ideas. Are you writing at the moment or are you for now?
[00:31:45] Speaker D: I am, actually. Yeah. I mean it. After making the tool for writers for a long time, I didn't write because I was focused on helping writers, but I'm back to writing slowly, but I'm back to writing. And so I'm on chapter eight of my current story. It's a sort of paranormal Christian satire book. I don't know what to call it yet.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: Hybrid.
[00:32:06] Speaker D: Exactly. Yeah, it's a hybrid book and I'm really excited about it. I think it'll be fun, so.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Oh, fantastic. That's great. And are you using both tools to develop it or how are you?
[00:32:18] Speaker D: I don't use them at all. No.
Yeah. Heavily using both. Yep.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
Oh, fantastic. That's wonderful, Cameron. Well, can you tell our listeners, you know, where can they. Do they find your books, your work, Plottr, Story Snap, the whole lot.
[00:32:35] Speaker D: Yeah. So Plottr is Plottr.com story snap is storysnap map. AI my books, I write under the name C Lewis S, but it's not spelled like C S Lewis. It's the Lewis is L O U.
[00:32:50] Speaker C: I s all right.
[00:32:51] Speaker D: The C. Lewis S. That's where you can find most of my books. I've only got two published under that name and one under Cameron Sutter. I'm not really on social media much, but our plotter YouTube channel, I appear there sometimes. I'm not on social media very much, so it's hard to find me, but every once in a while I'll pop up.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah, no worries.
Is there any why. You don't like social media, do you? I'm not going to tell you.
[00:33:12] Speaker D: Yeah, I just. Not really a reason. No, I just. I just don't make the time for it, I guess. I don't know, I'm just not good at posting on there.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Oh, fair enough. You're very busy, you know. Six children.
Wow.
[00:33:26] Speaker D: Yeah, they keep me busy, that's for sure.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Along with the writing and obviously having a big development of software as well, so that's.
[00:33:33] Speaker D: Yeah, I think I've got too many things going on up here. I just don't have time to. What am I going to post? Nobody wants to listen to me anyway, so.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Oh, no, I'm sure that's not true. But I love that, like you've got so many ideas and whatever else and it was just like you, you created something to organize it all and shared it with the world and helped everybody else. That is like that too, so. No, that's fun.
[00:33:51] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm going for.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Cameron. That was fantastic. We're really excited to explore Story Snap and of course, fans of Plot are over here, so thank you so much.
[00:34:03] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks, Jan, for having me. This has been so much fun.
[00:34:13] Speaker C: So there you have it, folks, the awesome Cameron Sutter from Plottar. If you're intrigued by Plottar or Storm staff, go check them out at Cameron's length. The great programs. Absolutely great programs. Very, very helpful. Next time on the hybrid Author podcast, we have Searching for Writing Untold Stories with debut author Rose Lane. Rose Lane's writing is inspired by the untold stories of people and places. She has travelled to both London and Nepal as a nurse and has written for multiple publications on topics ranging from anti war activism to music and disability awareness. The Last Tibetan Kingdom is Rose's first book and was selected for the 2017 hard copy manuscript Development Programme at the Australian Writers Centre in Canberra. Fabulous episode with Rose coming up next week. I wish you well in your author adventure. That's it from me. Bye for now.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: That's the end for now.
[00:34:59] Speaker C: Authors, I hope you are further forward in your author adventure after listening and I hope you'll enjoy listen next time. Remember to head on over to the.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Hybrid Author website at www.hybridauthor.com to get your free author pass.
[00:35:13] Speaker C: It's bye for now.
