The first Tool we want to examine is some software that could come in handy in the writing process. As you are probably aware, there are a lot of products out there that claim to help make your writing perfect…or at least make it easier to write. We’ve used a few and have debated others with both writers and editors. Opinions vary, but it’s obvious that no one piece of software does everything a writer needs, so please read our comments and carefully consider your needs. Our intent in these postings is to make your decisions easier by giving general advice and suggestions, but we will be mentioning a few tools by name (in which case, we’ll link to their sites).
Software comes into play in all the phases of the writing process. Some help you get your words onto figurative paper, some will correct your grammar, some will analyse your writing for style issues, some will format your work for ebook or literal paper, and some even claim to guide you through the entire process. As our wont is to start small and work our way up, we’ll address these stages linearly—from beginning to end.
Getting Words on Paper, the Quick and Easy Way
One of the first steps in any writing project is actually writing it down, and there are a variety of programs that help with this. The most basic one is already built into your computer (assuming MS has got you under their control): NotePad. There is no formatting, no grammar or spell check, no dictionary or thesaurus, not even a word counter…nothing but a blank piece of paper in a typewriter. The advantage over a real typewriter is you can change things around, edit, copy-n-paste, and search, and it’s ready to go right out of the box (just verify that Word Wrap is on). If you want to mark a title or some place to come back to later, I’d suggest surrounding the text with “==…==” or “-=…=-”. Those are probably never going to appear as text in your novel, so they’ll be easily found in a search when you go back to clean things up.
Setting NotePad to full screen and hiding your taskbar, all you can see are your words (and a small menu bar that’s waay up at the top). If that’s all you need to keep focused on writing, then you’re ready to go. It’s a really good way to get started—but once you get past a certain point, and your project starts getting out of hand, it gets difficult to keep track of where you are. That may be the time to copy out the text and transfer it into a more powerful program, ready to move ahead to the next steps—but…when your next idea strikes, just pull out NotePad and get going.
Get Writing
You can play around with different programs…or you can write. Yes, finding the right one may help you write better and faster…but only after you’ve put forth the time to learn how it works. If you have a long-term goal in mind, that may be the way to go, but for those just starting out…or those who only want to write one book…then the effort isn’t worth it. There are plenty of editors and book doctors who will accept a .TXT file to clean up, so there may be no need to invest either time or money for something that won’t add much to the process.
The conclusion is that it may be worth it…but it may not. You are the one who will make that decision. We are only here to help by gathering information that may help. Our problem is that there is so much software out there, that we certainly won’t have time to investigate all of it, so if you have some familiarity with a particular program and want to share your experiences, please let us know. We’d be glad to expand our knowledge of what’s out there and may feature your comments in a future post.