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Originally Posted by GlenBarrington
I've not been a big fan of yWriter, not because it's ugly (Windows Scrivener is every bit as ugly), but I find the program a bit 'fiddly'. However, I DO like the idea that there is an Android version.
Maybe now that I'm a bit more comfortable in my writer-ish 'skin', I'll give it another go.
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Y'know, compared to Scrivener, I don't find it fiddly at all. I guess what I like about it is that you can be as fiddly as you want. You can, for example, add information for your scenes list for each chapter, so you know what locations you use, what items (cars, wrenches, the candlestick!), along with notes, or not. You can track what viewpoint a particular scene is written from, if applicable--or not.
It allows you to use the Goal/Conflict/Outcome or Reaction/Dilemma/Choice tracking, to keep your plot moving along, if you're a fan of Dwight Swain. For Plotters, that can be invaluable. (Not so invaluable for Panters, too; I recommended it to one of my clients and he said that although he thought his book was finished, after he plunked it into YWriter and thought he'd use the Action/Reaction tracking--"just for fun"--he realized that he had TONS of dead-air scenes clogging up his thriller and learning that helped him pare it down and make it lean and mean. Says he never would have realized it without YWriter.)
To me, it just has everything--or not. That's the part I like. You can make use of every single function, or not. I've simply never found anything else that's quite as complete that doesn't make you leap through all sorts of BS to make it work. And, of course, the timeline, which I rave about all the time, if you're trying to track some massive number of characters in some massive saga.
And, lastly--it doesn't need a manual the size of the NYC phone directory, either. It's all pretty straightforward, which I also like. And Simon's added eBook export capabilities, too, which is pretty cool. (n.b.: I have NOT tested these, so I can't say how great, or not, they are.)
Hitch