I am now using Liquid Story Binder. It's great. I got it for Christmas along with WriteWay. Both have free trials. LSB is my favorite. Other than that I use LibreOffice.
I've reverted back to using TextEdit simply because I find all the formatting options of a more sophisticated program to be too distracting. I already have major problems with constantly rewriting and editing my work instead of, you know, actually writing. The other problem I find with specialised programs is the learning curve involved. When I want to write, I want to write. I don't want to have to figure out how to use a program to do it. I therefore become very quickly frustrated and instead of writing I end up wasting time trying to figure out some completely irrelevant and niggling little quirk of the program. Perhaps if I took a quick course to learn a sophisticated writing program properly, or at the very least dedicated significant time to doing nothing other than learning the ins and outs of the program before attempting to use it to write, I'd be using such a program. But I find my time is better spent doing other stuff, like living.
I agree. Hand writing is not only often unintelligible, it is also frustratingly slow, impossible to edit, and unacceptable for submission. Not to mention that some of us have handicaps... I can't wait for speech-to-text software to get better! Does anyone have success the those? I lose ideas because I can't put them down fast enough :-( fwiw, Discussion of tools (software, ref. books, anything that can help a writer) is very useful, especially to new writers. Thanks for the comments.
I do notes and outlines by hand, use Pages on my iPad if I'm downstairs, and Scrivener if I'm on my computer. My handwriting is awful and it isn't going to get any better, but I understand it so I don't really care
Scrivener keeps you organized, expands your abilities, keeps your data close at hand, but you still have to use a word processor to finish the work. Even Scrivener tells you that in the introduction. Helluva lot better than MS. It lost so many thousands of words for me that I sprung two grand for an Apple. Had to sell a rare Jeep to fund it, but it was worth it. MS su$ks. I get anxiety attacks when I have to use my office PC. Apple ain't perfect, but my rum consumption is way down since leaving MS. JMHO
Perhaps a late reaction, but for my two cents: I use yWriter. The main reason is the easy way to organize and reorganize scenes and chapters. I also use the 'scene-description' functionality to write short outlines for scenes I have already figured out in my mind, but can't type out yet entirely. It offers extra options to define characters, items, and locations. All that is optional, as are the myriad of other things I've seen in menu's and never use. Usually, I write the actual scenes in word and then import them into the software. That way, I don't get lost in all the different files because they're all nicely ordered and labeled in the program.
did not use it myself, i might try to find it and use it, see how useful it is.it could be helpfu in my novel.
I used to use yWriter but found it limiting so I switched to Storybook. I love it! It allows me to see my outline at the left and the scene I'm writing at the right. At the bottom, it has my storylines laid out as "cards" - each on their own timeline. You can just drag them around.
I actually use something called 'writers app' which I have on my iPhone. It gives your many options to use when working on a novel or a character or even notes. It is very good considering it only cost me 69p lol - I think if you want to use a program, then there is no problem in that if it gets the job done so best of luck x
I was about to start a new thread for inquiries about writing software when I stumbled upon this one. I was thinking of just sticking to good old MS Word. Handwriting is not even close to being an option for me. It's beyond illegibile but not because I was never taught properly but because of an issue with my nerves. My hand starts to get jittery sometimes when writing. I broke my wrist back in high school and since then it has behaved with a mind of its own. It sweats profusely after eating certain foods which someone informed me was called hyperhidrosis. I'll look into the software previously mentioned early in the thread and see if any of them impress me. Otherwise I'll just stick to what I am used to.
I used to use a simple Open Office word doc, but then discovered the joys of MS Word. I have no reason to complain about word, but would love to try some writing software.
A Review of Scrivener I've been using Scrivener software as a free trial for about a week now and I'm loving it. I'm going to wait out the free month, but then I'm sure I'll buy it. What I like about it is how easy it is to navigate through scenes I've written, as well as structure my story and plan out future scenes. I break it up by scenes, but you can break it up by chapters or anything else. In Word, I would have to have separate documents for story notes and previous drafts, etc., but Scrivener lets me keep it all in one SCRIV document. I like to view my old draft as I'm typing a new one, and I can also split-screen two different drafts in one window, instead of opening two different windows like I had to in Word. I also like setting daily word count goals, and it tells me how many words I'll have to write (If I write 5 days a week), and has a progress bar that pops up. It does not count words I type in In general, organization is great with Scrivener. I was getting the hang of it in Word, but this is much more intuitive. I can chart out all my scenes and easily shift them around. I find that, on a first draft, I'm definitely not a linear writer. I'll have a great idea for a scene later in the book, and this program makes it a piece of cake to write that way. There are some things I don't like about Scrivener, however. I don't like that the keyboard shortcuts seem really new (aside from basic ones like copy/paste), so I have to learn new shortcuts. Also, the tutorial videos are pretty lacking and if you want to learn all the features, you have to use it's "interactive tutorial" which is a document that asks you to do stuff. It's pretty time consuming, so I haven't finished it. Also, while it's nice that you can have a full-screen mode without distractions, you can't do that split-screen, which is all the time I'm typing. And while it's nice to have a progress bar, you can't graph out your daily progress like they do for NaNoWriMo, so I'm still keeping track of that in an excel sheet. All in all, I don't know if it's better than other writing software, but I do know that it's been significantly more useful than word. Whatever problems I have with it, I also have with Word. I still haven't done much with it's "Research" feature (where you can keep images and cache websites, etc.), or used it's character profile feature. It is nice that it has a ton of features, but you don't need to use them all at once.
It's interesting, thank you for a detailed review. I took the free trial too, as my "drafts" are huge and complicated and I have loads of research from various projects, so the idea appealed to me. But I found it too time consuming somehow, haven't stuck to it, I wonder whether I should give it another go.
Glad you found it helpful! It is pretty time consuming to get used to it, but so far I've found it worth the effort. Still not excited to finish the interactive tutorial, though
I have been using Scrivener for a while and it's way better than the horrible program I used before, but I find it easier to just jot a scene down or write a bit of dialogue out of my head with pen and paper sometimes. Problem is I get cramp real fast when I try to write more than half a page. my typing is sooo slow but slowly improving. If you can get down something it really doesn't matter what you use, but if the program or tool is too hard, frustrating, or complicated for you to use, try something else.
I usually find myself using the documents on google drive, because it means I can access it from virtually anywhere, although lately I've found myself getting into word itself. I tried Write or Die once, but it didn't download properly, which is a shame because it cost me $10.
This has been really interesting. I love technology and since I can type faster then write, I it use it. When I'm home I tend to write using MS Office on my laptop. When I'm out, usually waiting for my kid's activities to finish, I write on my ipad using their version and then email a word version of it to myself to save to my laptop. Really I should use google drive, or one of my other internet document storage programs because it really would save me when my hardware craps out. My laptop craps out regularly due to age. I use Evernote for saving ideas and resources. Handwriting is a lost art. My hand could never keep up with my brain so it turned out all squiggly shorthand.
I have a very old laptop that I loaded ubuntu on and use it only for writing. It use to crash on me all the time and lock up. However, now I can write and surf the web without any issues. Ubuntu is Linux, but it's very easy to use. If you've ever touched an apple you'll like it.
I'm with Jazzabel on this. I have looked into Scrivener, and it sounds complicated, but no doubt functional and useful. But honestly, nothing there that I need, that I can't do with iPages. The only difference is with iPages, I have to organise, set up and name the various bits myself. The ability to work on two screens at once is there, along with the option of writing notes at the side, etc. I have created a folder which I named "Research" and this is where I dump my ...research, under headings I've also created myself! Another one I've labeled "Timeline." Notes on Character, etc. Because the Apple system is hierarchical (sp?) you put folders within folders, so everything is where you want it to be, and you can check via the sidebar where everything is located without having to open the folders. Therefore I keep old versions of chapters, simply by naming them by content and date, and storing them all in a folder with the specific chapter's name on it. Those are stored in another folder with the Great Big Novel's name on it. I can go back and access anything I've written that way, very easily. I have also created templates for how I want my pages to look (including headers, footers, page numbers, the font, size, etc), and just click on the template and start keying in. Thesaurus, special characters, dictionary ...all there. So, for the moment, anyway ...I'll skip Scrivener. I've never used Microsoft, so I have no idea what "Word" is like. I have Text-Edit too, which I find useful when emailing parts of my novel, or accepting formatted writing samples from people who aren't Apple or Pages-compatible. TextEdit tends to keep formatting intact when transmitting via an email attachment (I use Yahoo.) I just copy/paste my iPages document into TextEdit, and send that as an attachment, and so far no one I've sent to has had a problem receiving it, formatting intact. TextEdit itself is very simple, and doesn't include very many formatting options itself. But it seems to accept them when transferred from iPages. Weird... I've got to admit, I also scribble ideas down by hand, into a notebook as well! Sometimes these make it into my computer, sometimes not.
