writing software

I wrote in OpenOffice until I discovered Scrivener. Sadly, the latter is Mac-only. It's why I won't move to Linus as the hubby wants me to. I love love love it.

I've used Dark Room. It was kind of cool but ultimately not really useful to me--being unable to see anything else on my computer doesn't remove distractions for me! If you have a lot of trouble concentrating and not checking your email, etc., it might be useful to you.

I also use Scrivener and love it.

I use yWriter and Liquid Story Binder. Personally, I find yWriter works best for longer works - and usually where I build the first drafts of novels. I use LSB for everything else...and 2nd drafts of novels.

For those times when only a plain text Editor will do, I use Getdiz.

Let me be a bit nitpicky here - what is it about those respective programs that make them better/different than just another word processor?

Honestly, I couldn't tell from their various websites what their features/advantages are. They need better PR people =P

Good heavens... I haven't even heard of any of these programs. (Except OpenOffice.)

I just use good old Microsoft Word. For linear projects it seems perfectly adequate to me.

Am I a dinosaur?

If you are, Karen, I'm rumbling along the island terrorizing Jeff Goldblum alongside you. I loves my Word, though I preferred the previous version to the overtarty Word 7.0 and those stupid ribbons.

In addition, I am a major evangelist/advocate for Write or Die. This is a little tool, which can be used either for free "live" on the website or as a more robust downloadable program, that lets you set a time limit and word count goal -- lax or draconian, it's up to you. Can't recommend it highly enough ... it's been a total godsend for me. I wouldn't have got through last year's WeSeWriMo and NaNoWriMo without it. (But then I'm far more constipated as a writer than anyone else here seems to be!)

Capriox, I think the biggest thing that makes Scrivener useful is its index card organization. Each scene (or piece of the document, however you want to divide it) gets its own index card, and you can look at it on a corkboard to move scenes around or just see how they fit together. You can even use different colored "pins" to indicate different things about the scene. Another useful feature is that you can drag websites, pictures, and other documents into the Scrivener project and that way look at your research without having to leave the program.

If you have a Mac, you can download it for a three 30-day trial and take a tour that explains all the awesome features.

There are many, many ways to use Scrivener. I don't care for the corkboard index cards, myself, but I do love the outliner. I love that I can have two scenes on screen at once, I love that I can have a scene in the top of the window and the outline at the bottom, I love having all my research right there in the project, I love being able to nest things, I love that I can export it in a zillion different formats.

I use Microsoft Word 2000. I got it cheaply and it works well. I've also used the free version of Jartre, which is a nice, light word processor that I would recommend.

I use Open Office for most things. Occasionally I write in Google Docs, as I frequently use public computers, and don't feel like messing with a flash drive. And if my muse is being really stubborn, Write or Die usually saves my ass.

Scrivener sounds pretty awesome, but alas, I don't have a Mac.

I use Word. I'm used to it, I use it for work as well, and I can do a passable job of layout in it as well.

Likewise on Scrivener.

~L

I use OpenOffice myself. I've tried yWriter, and while it's nice and can see it's functionality and uses, I am so stuck in my ways to use pen and paper to actually set up plot outlines and such that I really can't (won't) see myself changing.

So, that probably pegs me as a dinosaur, too. Now, if I still had my old 386 computer, I'd probably still be using WordPerfect 5.1.

Add me to the dinosaur pool. I've tried many different word processing programs, but honestly, I don't have the time or the patience to beat yet another learning curve. For both writing and editing, I bounce between Word and yellow legal pads with pens. You know, those round things with the ink in them? Yeah, those. Hey, it's better than when I started out, chiseling on stone tablets. Them boogers are HEAVY.

I absolutely love the track changes option in Word.

Now that I've done Artist's Way, I find myself writing in longhand a lot more. It's excellent pre-writing, in fact, I get most of my plotting done that way now. If you'd told me that even six months ago I would have laughed my ass off.

Hey everyone, just wanna throw in my two cents:

I DO have a mac and downloaded the Scrivener trial. I'm glad that the trial runs out based on how many times you actually use it because (surprise!) I hardly ever open it. I thought it was kinda neat being able to have all my research in one program, and that's still the biggest appeal for me...but I find the index cards and nesting files confusing. The formatting options aren't that broad either. I can easily do more with Pages (formatting-wise), and the new Pages has an outline feature and full screen mode to match Scrivener. However, I do wish I could become more organized in thought, and Pages doesn't really have the ability Scrivener has in keeping things in one basket. I also hear tell that I don't have to have everything in one document, I can split scenes up and save it together as a finished book when I'm through. Appealing, but daunting as it seems Scrivener doesn't become "easy-to-use" until you learn HOW to use it. To be fair though, I only breezed through the tutorial and haven't looked up much youtube tuts. ...But it seems ridiculous to need so much for a writing program! Shouldn't it be more obvious to use? Or am I just that dumb?

I also wanted to ask those who use Scrivener how they make it work for their webserials (if you even use it for your serials). The way I write, I find it much easier (and comforting even) to save all my drafts on my wordpress site, then post directly. How could I transfer my work, formatting and all, to my site? I update weekly, I don't feel like bouncing around from Scrivener to Wordpress!

I use Scrivener for both Scryer's Gulch and the History. I don't use the index cards; I never liked them, and never used them in the "real world," so if I need to look at content like that I use the outliner. I love that I can move scenes/chapters/all kindsa stuff around just by dragging them around in the outliner.

What about the formatting options do you not find broad enough? I'm curious.

At Literature and Latte (the Scrivener site), there are forums where folks talk about their favorite ways to use the program, and there are tons of different templates--screenplay templates, novel templates, short story templates, and so on--to help you organize your work and your thoughts. I love it that I can separate out things into scenes and color code them if I want as to whether they're ideas, notes, synopses, scenes or chapters--and that I can make custom tags.

As to the serial: I write in Scrivener, then compile (not export) to html (you can compile into a whole bunch of different formats in Scrivener, parts of a manuscript or the whole thing). I do have to make a few html changes, but not many (usually just stripping off the header and footer). Since it assigns a class to the italics rather than the <i> tag, I just make sure I define that class in my CSS.

It seems my gripe about the formatting was more about speed than functionality. I missed my toolbar. Clicking around showed me the errors of my ways as now I can have essentially the same toolbar as in Pages (because as a relatively new mac user, these keyboard shortcuts still aren't staying in my head.)

I concede that my own ignorance came about because I was afraid to get out of my comfort zone, but just in a day I found a tutorial or two that is already making Scrivener pretty amazing to use. The smooth use hasn't quite come yet, as I'm still not familiar with the interface, but now I think it was in my error to ignore something like this.

And thanks for the tips, Meilin. Now I think I can give Scrivener a REAL test run!

Huh. I had never really thought about specialized software. I've just been using defaults like Word or text-pad and moving stuff around manually. I think I'm going to try out yWriter (being free), and Write or Die.

EDIT 07/23/10:

I've tried both yWriter and Liquid Story Binder, and I'm kind of wowed. I really had no idea there was dedicated software for this. yWriter is too structured for me, and has room for a lot of detail that's just intuitive for me and I don't want to bother inputting. But I am growing to LOVE Liquid Story Binder. It's liquid. There's so much customization, and so many ways to use the different tools. The fluidity really suits me and is seriously helping me organize (I can have all my lists and timelines and reference pictures in one place instead of scattered on scrap paper over five counties???). I'm going to be trying out some other software just for the heck of it. Thanks everyone for your suggestions!

I love Liquid Story Binder too! Half of my Sim story forum bought it when it was on sale recently.

I haven't really done that much with it yet, except put a pic of Seth as the background and start a builder with the four 10 chapters I have so far. Looking forward to getting more use out of it as 10 grows.

Have you tried the first draft feature yet, where you can't edit or even backspace? The idea of it gives me the heebie-jeebies. I'm a write a sentence, agonize over it for hours until it's perfect, write the next sentence type person.

I usually plot on paper, then transfer it to web somewhere for me to look at, ive got a forum I run with a private section just for me, so i post different stories as their own threads I can reply to. With stories that are actively updating, i put stuff as a draft post. When writing actual posts, I generally just write into the wordpress post directly. Yay firefox spell check!

Anyone know of good EDITING software? Something that would let you make changes, and let the changes be shown in red marks , showing the original still, like an edited manuscript?

I use a combination of yWriter and Word. yWriter is great for the serial format, because I keep each story as a chapter, each instalment as a scene, and can keep track of everything really easily.

I got hooked on yWriter during NaNoWriMo, and I still use it for the firstiest of first drafts of my novel(, just when I'm trying to get things down and in an approximate order, because it's really easy to move scenes around. yWriter has a lot of other functionality (timelines, notes, PsOV, etc) but I've never really used them. It also has annoying limitations as far as word processing goes (lack of formatting controls, for one, and changing all my dashes into hyphens for another, SIGH). So I tend to use Word for that aspect.

If anyone is interested, Scrivener now has a windows beta version. I tried it, and it's definitely nicer looking than yWriter, and offers the same functionality, and probably a few more features. However, I just couldn't get used to it. Macs have always annoyed me silly, and I suspect Scrivener works to Mac logic. That said, I know a lot of people who love it, both the Mac and Windows versions.

Hi all,

I'm pleased with the civil discussion of editors on this site, vs. flame wars I've read on others.

You invest time in learning and using an editor; e.g. embedding finger movements into muscle memory. Thus, switching to something new is an anxiety-prone prospect.

I look at it this way. As a writer, time is my most precious resource. Careful selection of tools is critical to using my time most productively. Writing is hard enough without fighting software or dealing with the many extra finger strokes and distractions that many programs impose. Unless you pay very close attention, you may not even be aware of these time-parasitic actions, but they drain your time and energy nevertheless.

I've gone through many editors over my writing career. I've lost work due to discontinued programs with proprietary file formats. I've wasted time messing around with the non-standard formatting procedures, many rather obscure, that most editors impose.

I've come to these conclusions:

1) Open source is best for me. Why? Incredible variety of powerful tools of value to a serious writer. Downside: Yes, you've got to invest in learning.

2) Any editor I use has to produce simple *.txt files, or ascii files with markup that I can easily filter. Why? The simple ascii file, *.txt, is likely to endure far longer than any proprietary format. Note how often MS Word has changed it's file format.

3) I now use lyx, which is available free for both MS Windows and Linux.It's a front-end to Latex, a powerful typesetting language used world-wide by commercial typesetters. The learning curve is fairly low but, in general, it's dead-easy to use with minimal distractions between thought and copy. With the click of the mouse I can see and/or output a beautifully typeset file suitable for direct upload as a Createspace interior file.

4) I've also learned how to use a handful of powerful open source programs for converting across various file formats. For instance, I can convert a *.pdf file to a set of *.png images with ImageMagick. Here's the command: convert -density 300 myhfile.pdf myfile.png. Simple as that. And the *.pngs look great on the screen.

I've looked at Scrivener. I understand that they are now coming out with a Linux version. That may be useful for a complex project like a 400-page thriller. (I'm constantly forgetting character names). I'll look at it when it's available in the Debian repository. But it will take powerful benefits to lure me away from my present work flow.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I'd only add that bottom-time at the writing task is far more important than choice of editor. But the choice of editor can definitely make your bottom-time more productive.

Best to all,

LRP