Back in April, I promised a follow up post on the topic of free writing software. I intended to trial Liquid Story Binder to write my novel.
Well, this isn’t the follow up post to that earlier one. Because I couldn’t get my head around LSB, and abandoned it. It seemed to have heaps of potential, but I just didn’t have the time or enthusiasm to work my head around it.
Instead, as regular readers of Pearl Sideways will know, I bought a Mac.
And the main reason I bought a Mac? Scrivener.
The whole time I was testing out the writing software, I kept reading about Scrivener. How all the PC-based software paled in comparison. How the software interface was so intuitive. And how cheap it was. So it seemed like a message from my Muse when my netbook performance took a nosedive and I decided to buy a new laptop… she wanted Scrivener, so that meant I had to buy my Muse a Mac.
It was worth it. I’ve rhapsodised about the Mac over at Pearl Sideways, so I won’t repeat myself. Instead, I’ll limit myself to five great things about Scrivener.
- Scene cards – Scrivener allows you to write scene cards that actually look like index cards, along with a virtual corkboard to arrange them on.
- Document notes – a partitioned space for each scene where you can make research notes, record ideas or questions, or whatever works for you.
- Ease of use – I learned to use the major Scrivener features in less than an hour, and I’ve written several short stories and thirty thousand words of my first novel using the software.
- Structure – the ability to structure scenes and information into chapters, sections, research, narrative.
- It was hard to choose number five – the statistics, the text editor, keywords functionality – but I’m going for something very simple: the ability to switch to full screen. I am easily distracted, and full screen is the only way to write for me.
I might also have mentioned the price, were it not that I bought a AUD$2,000 laptop in order to download the writing software. But I had to buy that anyway. Really, I did.
Update: In response Scrivener’s link to this post (on Facebook) – yes, it has been worth every penny 🙂
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Photocritic.org, David Bosman. David Bosman said: 🙂 RT @ScrivenerApp: 'I, Mother of Pearl' goes the expensive route obtaining her 'Writing Software' Scrivener: http://bit.ly/bYWFHt […]
I love what I have read about that software. I am hanging out for the version that runs on PCs.