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Writers are creative people. We create all over the place. In fact, we are so creative that we create while we're eating, driving, drinking, sleeping, and even showering. That's the way creativity works--nonstop.
Unfortunately, such venues into the creative underworld make keeping track of our creativity, well, difficult. Cataloguing isn't one of our strongest suits. We could be working on describing the murder weapon in Chapter Twelve and wonder suddenly if we'd bothered to mention that dad's handgun was stolen in Chapter Three.
Worse, word processing software doesn't do much to help creative |
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writers create. Sure, they'll point out spelling errors (sometimes) and grammar errors (sometimes) and convert typos into semi-literate lingo. But beyond that, forget about it.
Enter two free writing software packages: yWriter5 for PCs and Jer's Novel Writer for Macs.
The first, yWriter5, is a PC program that breaks a novel into manageable scenes and chapters, which you can drag and drop as you move around the story. The program automatically renumbers chapters as you move them back and forth (thank God!) so that you don't have to. It provides a running word count and readability reports for each chapter, and the program keeps a log of your daily productivity so you can check your progress (ouch!). Download the software, or read more details, at http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html.
Jer's Novel Writer works much the same as yWriter5, except that it's designed for Macs; and it allows you to add margin notes so you can type down those flashes of genius without losing your focus on Chapter Thirty-Nine. The software has a feature called "automatic outline" that makes locating a particular scene or sentence particularly easy. The outline is expanded as you write (the "automatic" part of the feature), and you can drag-and-drop outline elements around for greater clarity. You can download the program at http://jerssoftwarehut.com/jers-novel-writer/download-jers-novel-writer.
My final gift to you isn't a writing program; it's a writing law site. Called Rights of Writers, this is a blog maintained by a lawyer and writer on all aspects of law relating to writers. It covers such topics as copyright, fair use, public domain, famous people, registered brand names, and onward into legal infinity. If you have a legal question related to writing, check it out at http://www.rightsofwriters.com/.
Until then...
Smoke if you got 'em.
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