Best software for writing a novel

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What's your favorite editor for writing a novel? I've been using Celtx for my screenplay, but it doesn't seem so great for writing novels. Anybody use Ghostwriter?
 

Brightdreamer

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Scrivener is pretty popular, with many features designed to help outlining and research, though sometimes extra bells and whistles are just more things to distract from actually writing.

Many just use Word or an equivalent (OpenOffice, LibreOffice, etc.)
 

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Scrivener is pretty popular, with many features designed to help outlining and research, though sometimes extra bells and whistles are just more things to distract from actually writing.

Many just use Word or an equivalent (OpenOffice, LibreOffice, etc.)

Hey, BD. Scrivener looks pretty good. Thanks for that suggestion! :)

I also found some free software called yWriter that seems pretty good. The only thing I don't like about it so far is that you can't export to a PDF file, so you have to save it as a text file or RTF and then import it into a word processing program and do the final formatting there. That's not too big a deal, though, since I'm writing a novel and there's not much formatting.
 

Al X.

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In the self publishing world, which I suspect is 99% of the interest here, most ebook retailers, e.g. Amazon, Smashwords, etc... have Word as the preferred upload format. The problem with using a plain text editor is that "styles" are not present, which are important if you intend on creating either an ebook, or a formatted POD book so you have to add all that later.

I use Word. I am familiar with Word. It works for me better than anything else.
 

rgroberts

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For those who like Word (like me), ProWritingAid has a plugin for Word. I don't use it while I'm writing, but I've found that it works fantastic once I'm in the editing stage. It finds things I tend to miss, like overused words. It also will check tenses for you, give you readability tips, check for cliches and a ton of other things I'm still figuring out how to use. You can use it real time, too.

There's a free version online and the plugin is fairly cheap. And it doesn't interfere with my love affair with Microsoft Word. :)
 

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Word is pretty much the default tool for trade publishing (although the last thing I sold used Google Docs), but I don't compose in it. I use Scrivener and export to Word when I need to.
 

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I also found some free software called yWriter that seems pretty good. The only thing I don't like about it so far is that you can't export to a PDF file, so you have to save it as a text file or RTF and then import it into a word processing program and do the final formatting there. That's not too big a deal, though, since I'm writing a novel and there's not much formatting.
You can install a free PDF print driver like PrimoPDF that will give you the option to print to a PDF file from any program.

-Derek
 
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In the self publishing world, which I suspect is 99% of the interest here, most ebook retailers, e.g. Amazon, Smashwords, etc... have Word as the preferred upload format.

Minor correction; the preferred format is really an actual ebook file or in some minor cases a compile file. But what most self-publishers use and prefer is MS Word.
 

PeteMC

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Trade publishing absolutely runs on Word, and all the editors I've worked with make extensive use of its track changes and comments features. Trying to use anything else at the editing stage would be very difficult, although as lizmonster says you can compose in something else if you want to.
 

Laer Carroll

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I use Word 2003. I've added several features to it from a large group of macros created by Paul Beverley. Here is the link to them.

http://www.archivepub.co.uk/TheBook

One set of features I use a lot is based on a standard Word action: when you right-click on your document a pop-up menu appears. The standard choices are Copy, Paste, etc.

To them I've added Thesaurus Web, Google, Highlight Long Words, Highlight Off.

The first two, if you highlight a word or phrase Word will launch a browser window, go to Thesaurus.com or Google.com, then insert the word or phrase in the web site. Bingo! You instantly get a web page devoted to that word or phrase.

The Highlight Long Words feature changes the background of words in my document. Three-syllable words get a light grey background. Four-syllable words get a light yellow background. Five or more get a red background.

I use this after I've written several pages, usually ones that make up a complete scene. I can instantly see any words that might be too long for my taste. Red almost certainly, though in rare case a long word is exactly what I want. Grey, probably not - unless there's a LOT of grey words. Yellow is in the middle: they deserve to be considered for a shorter word. There is where Thesaurus Web comes in handy.

Being a software engineer I've tried all the software options writers might like to use. This includes Scrivener, which is a really well-done product. Unlike a lot of software the interface is simple and intuitive. AS IT'S POSSIBLE TO BE. It still takes some work to learn to use.

I rejected all of them. Best for me is a standard product widely used in the writing industry: Word (or its clone LibreOffice). With a little something extra. NOT a lot something extra. When we are writing in white heat with words that urgently MUST to be captured we need something as intuitive as breathing.
 

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I like Scrivener over word for simplicity of organization. In word it seems to me that you need to either have a separate document for each chapter or have one huge file. I become overwhelmed with all of these files or text. In Scrivener, your outline is on the left and switching between chapters, scenes or examining your entire document is really simple.
 

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I like Scrivener over word for simplicity of organization. In word it seems to me that you need to either have a separate document for each chapter or have one huge file. I become overwhelmed with all of these files or text. In Scrivener, your outline is on the left and switching between chapters, scenes or examining your entire document is really simple.

I couldn't imagine trying to write a novel in Word. That would be no fun, whatsoever. I wrote my first book in OpenOffice and that was a chore. It was kind of a self-help book.

Scrivener looks cool! I'm using yWriter, which is great for free software. I'll give Scrivener a try for my next novel.
 
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jjdebenedictis

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I couldn't imagine trying to write a novel in Word. That would be no fun, whatsoever. I wrote my first book in OpenOffice and that was a chore.

:Huh: It's as easy as using Celtx. You set up the line spacing and tabs how you like, and then just write, hitting return whenever you want a new paragraph.
 

mccardey

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In the self publishing world, which I suspect is 99% of the interest here
Here on AW? Is it? I know we're very pro-self-pub, but I don't think it's 99% of writers here self-pubbing. Or do you have data to back that up?
 

lpetrich

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I use macOS TextEdit - like Windows Notepad. No formatting in it, so for marking out chapters, I use the expedient

*** (chapter title) ***
 

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Scrivener is pretty popular, with many features designed to help outlining and research, though sometimes extra bells and whistles are just more things to distract from actually writing.

Many just use Word or an equivalent (OpenOffice, LibreOffice, etc.)
Another fan of Scrivener here, though I agree about the bells and whistles. Word, as a tool for writing fiction, drove me up the wall. I love Scrivener, because it is easy to keep my novel organised, even easier to move scenes around, snapshot a scene, if I'm not sure about the revision I have in mind, etc, etc. There is a free 30 day trial period, if you want to check it out. If you do, I would suggest that you stick to the blank template option, which will give you draft, research, and trash folders. The Literature and Latte site has a well supported help forum.
 

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I couldn't imagine trying to write a novel in Word. That would be no fun, whatsoever. I wrote my first book in OpenOffice and that was a chore. It was kind of a self-help book.

Scrivener looks cool! I'm using yWriter, which is great for free software. I'll give Scrivener a try for my next novel.

If you ever want to try Word, there are videos on YouTube how to format Word for novel writing. It has a nice outline view feature as well (to help plot).
 

Paul Lamb

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I use Word, especially in the "frenzy" of composition. It's what I know best, and it seems to have everything I need. It's also what most of the magazines I submit to prefer. I don't have a need to format for publication (other than the usual standard that most publications require), so I don't delve into those aspects of Word much.

Each to his/her own, though.
 

BradCarsten

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I've recently used 3 programs:
All of them allow you to create chapters and scenes, where each scene is stored in it's own separate document, which allows you to arrange those scenes any way you like.

Manuskript:
-I really likes this program. it has more features than ywriter, but it's also a little more cluttered.
-free
-distraction free mode with nothing but the page in front of you.
-cork board.
-You can track sub plots and then view them along a timeline at the bottom to see which chapters they show up in, although adding a subplot is a little unintuitive. (it took me an hour to figure out how to do it)
-you can create characters, plots and world items and then assign them to your individual chapters.
-Spell check is built in and actually works.
-multiple editor tabs, and you can split the editor into many different windows to view more than one document at a time.
-There is a bug where the program wont launch if you are using windows dark mode, which was a pity
-No rich text, (that I could find) so you can't add italics etc


YWriter:
-free
-Clean, simple interface. Keeps track of your characters, items, and locations, and you can then tag those to your various chapters. The downside is that there is no built in tool for tracking subplots. You have to add a subplot as a character or an item, as a workaround, in order to track them.
-you can add notes, images, times and dates to each scene.
-There is an android / ios app that you can buy for $5, that allows you to sync up your writing with your mobile device.
-It allows you to add a start and end date as well as the final word count and it will then keep track of how many words you need to write every day.
-I couldn't get the spellcheck to work no matter what I did.
-basic rich text allows you to add italics etc
-no dark mode as far as I can tell, and it doesn't respond to windows dark mode settings either.

Scrivener:
clean and powerful. This is a fantastic program that can do everything, including exporting as a mobi or epub, but of course it isn't free.
 
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StylusRumble

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I'm a new convert to Scrivener. I've used open office or word for years and all my work is really labored and long winded. Once I tried Scrivener and could break things into scenes and organize everything all my arcs just fell into place.
Real life cards is way too cumbersome, digital cards I am sold.
 

Thomas Vail

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Even at it's most basic functionality, Scrivener is a must-have in terms of organization and ease of reference once something gets beyond a minimal word count.
 

VVoltairx

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I've used Word, Google Docs, and Scrivener. I ended up choosing Scrivener for the reasons already stated. Super easy to organize. Word was too much of a hassle and I found it distracting. Plus, Scrivener and Docs automatically back up to the cloud. I chose Scrivener over Docs because of the chapter organizing. I was creating a new document for each chapter, which can get really messy. I still use it for sharing my work, which I recently simplified by creating a Drive folder. Google Docs is also nice because you can integrate Grammarly, so it's wonderful for editing.
 

LindaJeanne

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Scrivener rocks. And for any of you Linux-types out there, it runs well on WINE.
 

The Circle

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Why oh why did I enter this thread? Now I desperately have to have a program that I never knew existed before this moment.