I write in TreeDBNotes Pro. The tree structure lets me organise and access all my assorted character and plot notes very quickly.
I'm not 100% sure, but Cog might be saying: If you are printing out a manuscript and going to send it to the publisher through the mail... Print on one side of the page only, so that the other side is blank. The opposite of this is known as double-sided printing.
I'm surprised that nobody has really mentioned Microsoft OneNote. It comes with the 2007 Student Office Edition. It can simply replicate, on screen, an array of scraps/binders and folders of information. The tab system along the top allows for you to tab each chapter in different colours and also set aside sections for plot/characters/sub plot. Within each tab are 'pages' (like a section within a section) so you can keep pages of research copied and pasted in each chapter tab as you go along. I am doing a lot of research on topics I know little about. It helps to keep it to hand while you are writing and saves on the cost of printing it out. It's worthwhile taking a moment to learn its features but its actually very intuitive and now it seems indispensable to me. When it comes to printing my completed manuscript I will copy the text into MS Word I think. I don't think that will present too many problems.
I'm a bit late to this one, but I have found Liquid Story Binder rather helpful in that it allows me to keep track of all my characters, create journals with calenders, timelines and whatever else strikes my fancy. I know it's a bit of overkill and I should listen to the old-timers (as in nearly any one who has written longer than a few years) that seem to mostly agree that less distraction is better. The program also is handy in that all my seperate projects (I'm up to about 7 now) are easily reachable at the touch of a button. I can very easily switch between projects and parts of projects. I can also easily create a project for a new concept and leave it alone until it strikes my fancy to actually start writing on it, which may be months. It's just convenient for me to keep everything neat and tidy and not lost some-where in some-folder on my harddrive (organization is probably my biggest challenge). I know someone else mentioned it, but it really is flexible and I have found it useful. When I need to have it formated to word (rarely, but it has happened) I copy and paste out of the writer screen and into openoffice or word. Then I can format to my hearts content.
I've just got Word 2009, it's a change from Word 2002 and at first I hated it. But now, I really like how is spaces the lines when I'm writing a draft, giving me a little space to leave comments and edits when looking through it. Also, I hated the way I couldn't indent passages on it, but now I've found a way to do that.
Just one note: I've used OpenOffice ... You get what you pay for. Cogito is correct in saying that most puboishers expect MS. It's tough enough in this business. Why make it harder on yourself than it has to be?
good point... if one wants to be a pro, it makes best sense to use what the pros do, which is what the majority of agents/publishers prefer...
My writing toolset: 1) Microsoft Word 2003 (Word > OpenOffice. I love GNU software, but it's the truth. ) 2) IHMC CmapTools: Great for outlining and any other "mindmapping" you may want to do. Free software. 3) Filehamster: Automatic backup/revision-tracking software. Every time you save your work, a unique backup is made. (Ever wished you could restore that one part of your story you wrote over two months ago? Now you can.) Can be configured to prune old backups so you don't fill up your hard drive. (Hopefully an external one. Don't put your backups on the same drive as your working copies! You don't want all your eggs in the same basket.) Free software. The pro version has some nice features though, and it's not that expensive (~$15). 4) MozyHome Free: Another backup solution, only this one automatically backs up your files to a remote server every day (or however often you set it to). That way even if your house burns down, you're covered. It only backs up the files that have changed since the last backup, so it doesn't take very long. The software is free, and the free account you can sign up for gives you a generous 2 GB to work with. (More than you'll ever need for Word documents.)
Microsoft word for the laptop and for the mac I use text edit. Go figure lol. If I have neither, an iphone notepad would work too or a composition notebook.
Did you know that, apparently, simply using Microsoft Word to write you novel is right up there next to worshiping the devil? And so I am curious, what is your favorite writing and/or organizational software? Mine is Scrivener, though I may or many not have obtained it in a slightly less than legal fashion . . . .
I tried to use Scrivener, but because I write my stories in chronological order i.e. no scenes here and there, it wasn't as useful to me as it could have been. So I use Word. It does everything that I need it to do.
I write using the text editor Emacs. My documents are in a typesetting markup language called LaTeX. When I want to see the formatted results I convert my LaTeX documents into a PDFs with the LaTeX tools. This results in very high quality output, which is nice, but mostly I use the system because I am familiar with it from my technical writing. I haven't (yet) attempted to publish any of my creative work so I'm not sure how acceptable my documents will be when and if that time comes. LaTeX is quite standard in the academic community but of course this is a different world. I figure I'll cross that bridge with I come to it. For organizing my stories again I use Emacs and free-formatted text documents. I actually started working on a program that I'm calling WriterDaemon to assist with the organization and analysis of creative fiction but that program is in an embryonic state. Right now it only knows how to count words in LaTeX documents while skipping formatting commands and comments.
Another Word user here. I've never felt the need to try other software because Word works just fine for me.
If ever curiosity gets the better of you, I have it to understand that Scrivener (my personal choice in software) is still offering a free beta for Linux.
I downloaded Ywriter cause it was free but I haven't used it much. It does keep things organised so I might use it for a book that needs a lot of planning but most of my stories are free form. Character's and scenes don't get created until the story calls for them. Scrivener does look pretty cool. Though, I just don't know how much I'd use it. I already bought Final Draft ( a scriptwriting software ) It's really good but I haven't used it much either.
I used Word, CeltX and yWriter. Now Scrivener (I need to have an easy form to see the synopsis of the chapters or I get lost, habit inherited from when I was a computer programmer :/). And Jota+ in my tablet.
If you happen to be on a Mac, the port for MS Word is really, really poor. Any poorer and I would call it broken. Also, if you're poor and ethically not inclined to d/l cracked apps, MS Word is really expensive.
OpenOffice is an excellent free version of Word. When I was a little worse off, I downloaded it and was surprised to find how similar to Word it actually was. There's nothing dodgy about it, and I used it a lot and it worked fine. If your budget is a little tight and you like Word, then OpenOffice is the way to go.
