good writing app?
Hi!
I have been looking for good software to write a novel on. I usually work on short fiction and have been making do with Word. Word isn't going to cut it for long book with various characters and chapters. I also need to organize my ideas as they come and go.
In short, i need a simple but fairly thorough app on on which to layout, organize, and write a long book.
I have looked into Copywrite and Z-Write and they are both ok but have limitations that keep me from committing to them.
Thanks in advance for all your help.
I have been looking for good software to write a novel on. I usually work on short fiction and have been making do with Word. Word isn't going to cut it for long book with various characters and chapters. I also need to organize my ideas as they come and go.
In short, i need a simple but fairly thorough app on on which to layout, organize, and write a long book.
I have looked into Copywrite and Z-Write and they are both ok but have limitations that keep me from committing to them.
Thanks in advance for all your help.
Comments
I personally still like word is your best bet if just use different files and name them accordingly. I know it isn't perfect but Word is a powerful program; you can do a lot.
Pages does offer TOC and in-document hyperlinks, FWIW.
I think for a large writing task your best bet is still going to be breaking the book into different files, e.g. separate documents for each chapter, and a folder for notes and research. Don't expect one program to pack everything into one file.
if you're interested in a separate notebook-style app for your various notes and ideas, Alepin (my choice) and VooDooPad are both very good.
But there are so many out there that if you're really interested, post this same question on a writing forum. There you'd be more likely to find people with experience with one or more of these programs.
--B
Pages looks cool, i had a chance to play with it a bit at the apple store. However, it reminds me more of the (often useless) templates in word then something to organize my writing. I may buy iwork though instead of the upgrade to Word.
Copywrite is very good but somehow the set-up just doesn't feel intuitive to me. It sorta distracts me from actually writing. However it does have the very cool feature that lets you change a name or whatever throughout the document.
I very much like Z-write although the small window is wierd and the limited spell check also distracts me because i start focusing on little mistakes. So what i've been doing is writing in word and then copy and pasting into Z-write. It works but its annoying.
Anyway, if i could find software that is as simple and easy as Z-write with some of the better features of Copywrite, i'd be all set.
Or maybe i'm just procrastinating my writing again with all this.
Thanks, i love to hear from people who have similar experiences.
Neil.
a.k.a. Arnel