Novel writing software

Through NaNoWriMo (or, more accurately, through the-NaNo-boards-which-I-read-while-procrastinating) I discovered there’s a whole subgenre of applications designed specifically to help writing. They’re not word processors — at least, they’re not page layout programs or office control programs, the way MS Word is. This has its upsides and downsides, but I’m definitely enjoying checking these out.

The general theme of these programs is “project management,” specifically “project and document management for writers.” You create a project, which contains all of the files for whatever the project is: novel, nonfiction book, whatever, and you can easily access any file quickly. The most common way is via tabs (these are in a lot of web browsers as well, so you might already know how to use them)

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A guy named Jerry is developing Jer’s Novel Writer (aka JNW), which has the best possible price currently (free) but is also in development. Which means some stuff isn’t implemented yet, and there can be problems with the software, like suddenly quitting. Hasn’t happened to me, but another user reported it.

But Jer has some really cool features as well, enough to make me wish he’d stop doing whatever other nonsense he’s doing (like trying to find work and a place to live) and grind on JNW.

Pros: The best feature is the automatic addition of elements to the database. If you write deathless prose like, “Diane had gorgeous brown hair and a stylish way of wearing cable sweaters,” you can select Diane and ctrl-click (or right-click) to add the name to the Database list. Then select the description part of the sentence, ctrl-click, and you add that to the description of Diane. Very quick. Makes keeping track of what in the hell you’ve said about various characters or places or things or whatever really, really easy.

When you want to see what you’ve seen about these various people or places, you just click on the database and choose what you want to read about.

Another great feature is his automatic section and chapter numbering. None of the other programs does this, at least so far as I’ve been able to figure out. He also keeps a line under each Chapter name in the Outline where you can put a brief description of what’s in that chapter.

Another great feature: margin notes. You’re typing along and decide you need to remember something, but you don’t want to put it into the text? Stick it into the margin right next to the text.

Cons: Development software, which means it could have weird bugs. It keeps all the chapters in one file, which isn’t terrible (especially given the outlining feature), but I’d like the option of keeping chapters or parts in different files. The writing page isn’t big enough, although it’s bigger than some of the others.

Jer has a forum for reporting bugs and adding to the wish list, and he’s great about responding to feedback.

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The snazziest program is Ulysses. It’s also hella expensive, at Euro 100.

The best feature by far, which makes Ulysses very attractive (though not as of yet $135 attractive) is the full screen mode. The text you’re writing is the only thing on the screen. No dock, no desktop, no menu bar. It’s like having a sheet of paper in the typewriter. I understand MS Word on Windows does this, but MS Word on Mac doesn’t.

In the few times I’ve used it, I wuv this feature. I covet this feature.

Pros: Did I mention Full Screen mode? Well, the Full Screen mode is just faboo. There’s a preview window so that when you’re in one document, you can “peek” into another document and see what brilliant things you said in that one without leaving the current file. Every document has a “notepad,” somewhere you can store notes about that file.

Cons: Formatting within the text is, shall we say, non-intuitive. No, you can’t just do Command-U and expect one word to be underlined — the entire damn document gets underlined. Neat. No, you have to choose “Emphasize” from the menu. The main window is way too busy and complex — the full screen mode is almost a must have, given how busy that main window is. The documentation for such an expensive program is appalling. I’m still wondering what the window in the lower left corner is. (Update: Now that I’ve used the program some more—and I definitely like it—I see this is the window to peek into the notes file for another file.)

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There’s also CopyWrite. ($30)

Pros: You can keep links to URLs or files that are related to this document.

Cons: The writing window isn’t nearly big enough for me. I also find the list of related files right above the writing window to be a big distraction.

I thought this seemed to be a relatively good project manager, especially for the money! If I weren’t so interested in JNW, I might get into this one.

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I didn’t care for WriteItNow ($44) at all, because I think it’s a Windows port that takes advantage of none of Mac’s advantages or even its standard interface.

Pros: Each project also has a “Records” file, which allows you to keep track of where you’ve sent this particular project, the dates, the result, and how much you got paid.

Cons: Awful user interface. I don’t know if this sort of look is acceptable on Windows, but it’s godawful and unacceptable on Mac. The app itself is more than a little buggy. When I was just trying it out, I kept running across weird interface behavior.

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The downside to all of these programs is, of course, formatting. They don’t do page layout the way Word does. I think the program designers will have to give a little leeway in the area of formatting, because otherwise what I’d have to do after finishing my novel is export all of my files to a word processor like Word to print them out correctly. Oh, yay, just what I’d want to do Since the intended target for these programs is, like, writers, I think they ought to make manuscript format part of the design.

I already do a lot of this stuff in Word — I have my book file, I have my Notes file, I have my Characters file, and it works fine. Except for three things: 1) It’s a pain in the ass switching back and forth between the files. 2) I get very nervous having big files in Word, which is not, shall we stay, the most stable of programs. 3) It’s Microsoft, which I would like to deal with as little as possible.

I haven’t done any major writing in any of these programs yet. I’m most interested in diving into Jer’s Novel Writer, but if someone wants to give me a copy of Ulysses for my very own, I wouldn’t turn it down. Did I mention it has a Full Screen mode?

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By the way, I recently discovered Word (OS X version, at any rate) has a mode they call “Full Screen.”

They lie.

(Like that’s a damn surprise, right?)

The full screen mode mentioned in the applications above (plus Jer’s, which now has it) are true full screen—that is, they take over your monitor entirely. You don’t see your desktop, or your icons, or nothin’. Just the text. Which is what writers are always saying they want!

But Word’s is yucky and should not be how Full Screen Mode is judged.