Software to help you write your novel!

My thoughts are this: none. I think it just so happens that there are a lot of would-be writers out there and the software industry knows this and want to tap into that market. What people need to be a good writers isn't software but patience, persistence and discipline. Minimal organization and any word processor (preferably one that saves to .doc as reasons mentioned above) makes this software is unnecessary. My final verdict: save your money. If money is truly time then use that time to keep writing.

 

This is because two questions seem to have combined in this topic.

1. What is a good novel writing software?

2. What software is helpful to writing a novel?

They are very different questions.
The first has no real answer, which has been pointed out thoroughly.
The second has many, which has been explored minimally.

Do you write short stories, epic length novels, or both?
Do you research places, time-lines, history, professions, behaviors, or beliefs?
Do you work on multiple stories?
Do you write customized terminologies or technologies for your stories?
Do you write your character’s biographies?
Do you fill out your imagination with pictures of people and places?
Do you ever find yourself slipping into an earlier work and not remember what it was?
Do you fill stacks of notebooks with research?
Do you cover the edge of your computer monitor and nearby walls with sticky notes?
Do you have stacks of reference books teetering on your desk?
Do you record ideas while driving on the freeway?
Do you travel to places that you will write about?
Do you ever pull over to take pictures that stir your imagination for a story?
Have you ever made a glaring mistake in time-line or plot that went to print then hoped no one will notice?

While the answer to question one is obvious, is the answer to number two really MS Word?
Is the idea of moving physical piles of matter into an organized and referenced onscreen format truly outrageous?

I have a well on a hill, a short walk from my house. Shall I carry my water or turn on a faucet?

 

Then let's restrict it to software to write the manuscripts.

The question of how to organize all your data is far too broad, and this site is not intended to promote software packages.

I find it poerfectly adequate to keep notes in a Word document, and collect all the documents associated with a piece of writing (if more than one document is needed) in its own folder. Word documents can be searched, indexed, whatever you need to make it easier to find your information.

Now the people who create specialized software for writers will tell you all the reasons you need their software. That's how they sell the software.

Other than Final Draft, which is tailored to meet the specialized formatting requirements of scripts, I've yet to see a convincing argument for added bells and whistles.

 

This may be the most important point on the thread (and possibly the whole site.)

I recently read "How I Write" by Janet Evanovich (recommended!) There was a section about software.

As I recall, she uses Word, but she told a funny story about another writer, I think it was Ray Bradbury. Way back when, people would ask whether he uses a pencil or a pen when he writes. When he said "pencil," they'd want to know whether he uses a #2 pencil or a pencil with harder or softer graphite.

Whether you use Word, another software package, a #2 pencil, a feather dipped in ink, or a magic marker and the back of an envelope, the important thing is that you write, and then write, and then write some more. No software package, no special pencil is going to make you a great writer.

Writing with the same software as your favorite author, at the same time of the day your favorite author writes, while drinking the same drink, while wearing the same gray sweatpants, and following the same ritual, is not going to make you a writer. The only way you're going to become the writer you want to be, is to write. The words don't care what software you used. Whatever suits you, whatever tools you want to use, use them, and just write!

Charlie

 

help choosing ebook writer

I am ready to write my first book about my trade and figured an ebook would be the way to go first. I need something that works well and has security features to prevent sharing. There are so many ebook creators that I cant tell which one to get. I think many may of them be junk and I do not want to buy 10 of them to figure it out. Any advice on what to choose?

 

Adobe Acrobat.

 

what to write in

How do you write your book? If you want to write your first real book that you hope to have published do you write it in Microsoft Word and submitt it or do you write in some special software?

 

I dont know but thought adobe was not a good choice due to lack of security features such as locking an ebook to a specific computer and all that.

 

I've always just worked in Word. I know some other have other programs that they like, but you can do any necessary formatting in Word and I'm most comfortable with it.

 

Thanks. That was my first instinct but didnt know if that was the most common way or if there was an easier way.

 

I believe Microsoft is more or less the standard. Well particularly the format .doc. But its also just easy to get the right formating and all that stuff you need.

Personally I either use OpenOffice or Microsoft Word. Whichever icon I decide to click on. Recently though I have been using Microsoft Word more.

 

Microsoft Word. doc format is one of the industry standards (along with rtf), and that will soon be superseded by docx. To me, it makes most sense to use the genuine article. Novel writing programs all just seem to be word processors with a lot of ancillary crap tacked on for no good reason.

 

I used Open Office, and then saved it in a doc format, so it can be opened in Word if need be. I am just comfortable with Office, and have added many new words to its dictionary.

 

ditto that!... ms word is the lingua franca of the writing/publishing world, so you'd do best to use it, if you intend to submit work to agents/publishers... there's no good reason to use any fancy novel-writing programs other than to enrich their makers with money you could use better in any number of ways...

 

If the only thing the fancy novel-writing program does is word processing then I agree. If it does something completely different, like help you organise timelines and keep track of characters then that "something completely different" might be a good reason for using the program -- not to actually keyboard your story, but to do whatever "the something completely different" is.

 

To be honest, I don't find I need anything to keep track of timelines or characters. The story sort of does that for me, and the rest is in my head.

 

Whatever notes I need go into another Word document. Both it and the manuscript are easily searchable.

Of course the people making these WonderApps will try to convince you you need their product...

 

I bet Audrey Niffenegger at least kept extensive notes about timelines when she was writing The Time Traveller's Wife! Different people writing different stories need different tools.

 

there's no real 'need' for fancy programs to do that... it can all be done quite easily and quickly with ms word, so it makes no sense to me to spend money on something more, that'll be just another thing to have to fiddle with...

 

Writing tools for nowadays

Hello, writer community, i´m not sure if this is the right place to put this kind of thread but i coudn´t find a better one so I´ll take this as the right place.

Due to today´s technology, and cause i´m young technology is part of my life since forever, i´d like to know what resources for writers are on the internet, to ease things, like dictionarys softwares to write, ideas you know..

 

My friends and I all really like Liquid Story Binder. It's a word processing program made specifically for writing fiction.

 

Yes, LSB is good. And it features a full-screen function which I like. Saves information in RTF format. I like plain text editors like WriteMonkey and Pyroom (Linux). Those are free. But they're just text editors, so they don't have all the features of LSB.

 

being a creative writer is still a mostly 'flying by the seat of your pants' activity, as are any of the arts...

despite all the fancy technological doo-hickeys that are there just to make money for their makers, all you really need is a brain that's equipped with a gift for wordwork...

online resources i keep in my favorites menu:

http://thesaurus.com/browse/exercise
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/index.html
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index2.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/566/01/
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/tenses.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

these links have been stickied above the 'Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar' section...

 

There's free software out there like writemonkey. And I believe you can save it as a .doc if you have Word.

But I was wondering if people actually do that or if they usually just write in Word?

 

I use Writemonkey and Pyroom. I never write in Word. I save my files as .txt files.