Using LaTeX for Story Structure

To visualize the plots of my fiction writing I’ve created two LaTeX packages that turns plaintext descriptions into pretty-looking graphical representations.

The first package is based on Dan Harmon’s Story Circle – storycircle provides a command accepting the eight descriptions of each stage of the circle:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{storycircle}

\definecolor{descriptionfill}{HTML}{F7F7F7}
\definecolor{nodefill}{HTML}{299AE0}
\definecolor{pathcolor}{HTML}{404E7C}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
    story circle radius=4cm,
    story circle path/.append style={
        line width=2ex,
        color=pathcolor
    },
    story circle node/.append style={
        text=white,
        fill=nodefill
    },
    description/.append style={
        fill=descriptionfill
    },
    story circle radius=2.5cm
]
    \storycircle{% YOU
        A character is in a zone of comfort or familiarity.
        }{% NEED
        They desire something.
        }{% GO
        They enter an unfamiliar situation.
        }{% SEARCH
        They adapt to that situation.
        }{% FIND
        They get that which they wanted.
        }{% TAKE
        They pay a heavy price for it.
        }{% RETURN
        They return to their familiar situation.
        }{% CHANGE
        They have changed as a result of the journey.
        }
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

I’ve also found a vertical timeline to be really helpful to get an overview of the events in a story – vtimeline does exactly that:

\documentclass[x11names]{standalone}
\usepackage{vtimeline}

\definecolor{timeline}{HTML}{299AE0}

\begin{document}
\begin{vtimeline}[%
description={text width=8cm},
row sep=2ex,
timeline color=timeline]
19 July 1953 & Someone is born.\\
26 March 1960 & Someone else is born.\\
\elapsedtime\\
1966 & They meet.\\
1974 & They have a fight.\\
\withoutdate{Things escalate.}\\
\withoutdate{More events unfold.}\\
\withoutdate{One or the other dies.}\\
\end{vtimeline}
\end{document}