Writing Tools Reviews

This forum is for picking apart tricky issues facing any authors in the community. Word choice, action scenes, dialoguing, or plot development. If something isn't working for you, put it up here and see what your fellow community members can make of it. Try to keep examples short and to the point as much as possible.

Writing Tools Reviews

Unread postby Psalm Of Fire » March 12th, 2015, 12:16 am

Hey guys, here's a place to leave reviews or recommendation for writing tools. I've been using a lot over the last few years, but I'll be posting each review as a separate post.

Formating made easy:
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[size=150][Name][/size] [Platform] (windows? Android? Mac? Web-based?) - [price] [link to product website] [b]Description[/b] A writing tool that might be handy. [b]Pros:[/b] [list][*]Thing 1 [*]Thing 2[/list] [b]Cons[/b] [list][*]Thing 1 [*]Thing 2[/list] [b]Conclusion:[/b] Great if you need X, but if you have Y, it's unlikely it will be worth the extra effort
Last edited by Psalm Of Fire on March 12th, 2015, 12:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
"That didn't make me cry. I'm just shedding manly tears over something completely unrelated and super masculine. Like an explosion. An exploding robot. An exploding robot that's on fire. DON'T LOOK AT ME!"
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Re: Writing Tools Reviews

Unread postby Psalm Of Fire » March 12th, 2015, 12:46 am

Scrivner
Windows, Mac - $40
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

Description
Scrivner is the ultimate document handler. Instead of just a single document that can have multiple pages, Scrivner project contain as many documents, notes, revisions, and folders as you need. A document can be a single scene or an entire chapter, and no matter how much you break them up, you can view them stitched together as if they were one. It makes version tracking a breeze, and gives you tons of export options to make your texts consistent.

Pros:
  • Instead of littering your files with 50 documents pertaining to one project, you can have them all in one project folder
  • Easy control over formatting when exporting
  • Zen-like writing mode that hides all the unnecessary interface and leaves you with just you and your text. Extremely customizable.
  • Good backup functionality
  • Clever interface for notes and version tracking
  • Actually, clever interface all around
Cons
  • Search isn't up to google-like standards
  • Doesn't have any cloud syncing or simultaneous editing (google docs has spoiled us all)
  • A bit slow on the startup
Conclusion:
If you don't mind exporting files to share with your beta readers, or just have a more solitary writing experience, then Scrivner is hands down the best writing software I have ever used. It's far ahead of the document editing curve, becoming ideal for everything from books, to research projects -- anything that could benefit from consolidating and organizing many documents more easily. It can even capture and download web pages.

That said, if you like the convenience of google drive for sharing, portability, and search, not even all these features can luer you away. I purchased Scrivner, used it, loved it, and then found myself using Google Docs far more.

If you're solo and like privacy, however, I don't think you can do better than Scrivner.
"That didn't make me cry. I'm just shedding manly tears over something completely unrelated and super masculine. Like an explosion. An exploding robot. An exploding robot that's on fire. DON'T LOOK AT ME!"
-Farmer10
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Psalm Of Fire
 
Posts: 1313
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Writing Tools Reviews

Unread postby Psalm Of Fire » March 12th, 2015, 12:58 am

Articy:Draft 2
Windows - $100
https://www.nevigo.com/en/articydraft/overview/

Description
Articy:Draft is the most incredible plotting device I've ever seen. While initially built for video game plots, it's been expanded to support every narrative medium. It's like nothing you've seen before. It focuses on 2 major things: "entities" (the people, places, plots, magics... anything really, that make up a story) and the information forms used to describe those entities, and how they connect inside the "flow space". It really has to be seen to be understood, but it has a striking resemblance to the way our minds store and link concepts.

Pros:
  • Unparalleled ability to organize and link ideas. Wikis have nothing on this. Freemind has nothing on this. Flow chart generators cannot even hold a candle to this.
  • Relatively intuitive user interface.... for how much power it gives you
  • Eye-pleasing interface
  • Deep search-ability
  • Can track every detail of something as grand as the Wheel of Time series while still being presentable
  • Uses position, shape, and color to present your entities in more memorable ways for those of us who work better with more than just the black and white of a wiki or document
Cons
  • Expensive
  • Moderate learning curve just to get started
  • No remote storage and backing up of data unless you want to pay enterprise-level pricing
  • Can trick you into spending more time describing your world than actually writing
Conclusion:
If you plan on plotting a 7 book series or any video game, give Articy:Draft a long look. Otherwise, it's probably a waste of your time to learn and use the program, personal wikis can do well enough. Still, it's cool to look at and see in use.
"That didn't make me cry. I'm just shedding manly tears over something completely unrelated and super masculine. Like an explosion. An exploding robot. An exploding robot that's on fire. DON'T LOOK AT ME!"
-Farmer10
User avatar
Psalm Of Fire
 
Posts: 1313
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Re: Writing Tools Reviews

Unread postby Psalm Of Fire » March 12th, 2015, 1:03 am

WriteMonkey
Windows - FREE
http://writemonkey.com/

Description
The zen-ist of writing software.

Pros:
  • No distractions
  • Can enable nice typewriter sounds as you type -- can you hear all that progress?
  • Word goals can be set, tracked, and timed
  • Light program, loads fast, requires no install
  • Solid automatic backup options and customization
Cons
  • Uses a syntax for bolding and italicizing that make copy-pasting text to other editors problematic -- text won't appear with that formatting on the other side, unless you export first
  • No support for multiuser or easy sharing
Conclusion:
If you are distracted when typing, or just need to hide everything but the text to your world, this is a great program to try. It has all the functionality of most modern word processors that authors use, all hidden behind a right click, leaving nothing but you and the words.
"That didn't make me cry. I'm just shedding manly tears over something completely unrelated and super masculine. Like an explosion. An exploding robot. An exploding robot that's on fire. DON'T LOOK AT ME!"
-Farmer10
User avatar
Psalm Of Fire
 
Posts: 1313
Joined: January 20th, 2011, 5:14 pm


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