software for writing books

[stxopher]

Of course! Efficient AND deniable! Built in angst and a fallback reason on why my writing is...well, let's just say I refuse to read my work to the dog anymore until he quits rolling his eyes after the first couple paragraphs.

Now the software can be blamed. (Silly dog has NO technical skills and won't know the difference when I tell him.)

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by stxopher

Of course! Efficient AND deniable! Built in angst and a fallback reason on why my writing is...well, let's just say I refuse to read my work to the dog anymore until he quits rolling his eyes after the first couple paragraphs.

Now the software can be blamed. (Silly dog has NO technical skills and won't know the difference when I tell him.)

dog, obviously, has no sense of propriety...

[Dr. Drib]

The new version of WriteWay Pro (1.9) is a significant enhancement to a very fine program.

It's very sophisticated and polished, and has a wonderful way of tracking your writing goals.

Also, you don't need to import or export text: Just simply print it from within the program, fully previewing your document in Draft, Document, or Galley mode (and printing in any one of those three modes, if desired).

WriteWay Pro works on the idea that scenes comprise a chapter, and this is how one works on a story or novel.

There's also a Storyboard button and a Characters button that one can use to create characters and character traits, filling in the necessary information as it suits the writer. Or simply ignore it.

The Storyboard is very versatile and can be viewed in different ways, showing either Book Notes, Act Notes Chapter Notes, or Scene Notes.

There's also a Research window, where one can record linked websites or just fill in information, as desired.

There's a lot more here - and I should probably contribute some screen shots - but this is starting to turn into a mini-review. It's a fully mature program and is a joy to use.

I'm not affiliated with the program or the programmer.



Don

[mukoan]

No one has mentioned "focuswriter" yet. I love its simple interface, the way it opens up to where you left off. I also find the "daily goal" quite a useful feature.

Completely free for Windows / Mac / Linux: http://gottcode.org/focuswriter/

[Andanzas]

Zen Writer looks like a simple and elegant text editor and it's being offered for free today at http://www.giveawayoftheday.com. Its website doesn't have much information but it's probably enough: http://www.beenokle.com/zenwriter.html I haven't used it yet but thought someone might be interested.

[teh603]

How the heck did I miss this thread before?

I use Kate, which is a notepad equivalent used in Linux distributions with a KDE frontend. Just remember to set the line endings in the open/save preferences to "DOS/Windows" instead of "UNIX" to make things work properly with Smashwords and other sites.

Gedit is also nice, but I don't remember if it can do DOS/Windows line endings by default. I know you can manually set it when you save the document. Gedit is a lot more primitive than Kate in most respects, but its also available for a lot more platforms since Kate is KDE-specific.

For compiling the final document, I use either OpenOffice or LibreOffice. OO on the laptop which is still running Kubuntu 10.04- the last Kubuntu version to ship with OO- and LibreOffice on the desktop. By compiling from a .txt file, I'm able to sidestep a lot of the "making Word cooperate" issues mentioned in the Smashwords style guide.

I make my covers using GIMP, with a lot of extra filters and plugins installed. If I can't find a public domain image to do what I want, I either pay an artist or go out and shoot my own photo.

Kate and OO/LO are bundled with any release of Kubuntu. GIMP and gimp-data-extras aren't part of the standard loadout, but can be installed from the Kubuntu repositories using either kpackagekit (in 10.04), Muon (11.10 and later), or the command prompt. All are free to download and use.

[aecardenas]

Scrivener all the way if your are a Mac user. It's the perfect way to organize all of your thoughts, ideas, notes, research, various drafts, create character list, and compose in a non-linear fashion, which is pretty much how most of us write anyway, and then you can compile your work in a variety of different options.

What's also cool about it, is that you have different starting templates that you can use for each type of work--so if you are doing a novel with Parts and Chapters, then there is a template for that; if you are writing a Screenplay, then there is a template for that; if you are writing short stories or poetry or a stage play or a non-fiction (such as essays or research papers, etc)...there are templates for those types.

Oh, and did I mention it also has this cool little "cork board" feature, which allows you to brainstorm with scenes on notecards and mix-match them on a cork board and rearrange them on the fly, depending on how you are pacing your narrative, etc.

And it's not that expensive either. I think just $45, and worth every penny. I use it for all my novels and scripts (both stage and screen), and have ever begun to start using it for poetry and song lyrics.

[MrPLD]

We're still using LyX ( http://lyx.org ) on Ubuntu here for our writing, for pBooks it's just too easy. For eBooks I dump to HTML and then fine tune it in vim.

For covers, I mostly Inkscape ( http://inkscape.org ) due to the great quality but infrequently require GIMP to do some image touch-ups.

[anamardoll]

I've been using the Windows Scrivener and like it a lot. I'm very fond of the ability to highlight a piece of text, right-click, and send a copy to another section of the document. Great for character notes.

@MrPLD, that's a really lovely cover in your avatar!

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

@MrPLD, that's a really lovely cover in your avatar!

Thank you so much for saying so, lovely to hear, it was an interesting one to do. Now I wish we'd just have the book out already

[StueyNZ]

I use Emacs and DocBook. But then I'm a software kinda guy, so customising the DocBook XSL stylesheets to produce a half-way decent .EPUB file is not an imposition.

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by StueyNZ

I use Emacs and DocBook.

What sort of sick person uses emacs? Everyone knows vim is better Holywar in 3...2...1...

(just kidding - great to see other hardcore people out there )

[BryanThomas]

MS Word and Notepad++ to do the HTML/CSS bit.

[dadioflex]

I chew words into a gooey ball and spit them at a rough wall. Whatever doesn't fall off, I call the edit.

[teh603]

So I just tried using Geany, and it seems to be a little better than Kate in a few areas. It uses GTK instead of Qt, so it works better in distros with GTK frontends. For non-Linux users, that doesn't mean much other than I can use it in frontends other than KDE.

Feature- wise, its mostly the same as Kate. Line numbers, the ability to create windows- style .txt files by default, and it has a built- in word count which Kate doesn't have.

There are Windows and MacOS ports as well as the main Linux builds. Dunno what their default line endings are, though.