Mac Users: If you didn’t have Scrivener…

I'm using a program called StoryMill. I really like it. It includes outlining, notes, and a timeline tool, as well as some other cool features. I haven't tried the timeline piece yet, but I really like the overall setup. This is where it lives:

http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=127

It's not free, but you can download it for trial and it's good for thirty logins.

And they have a discount running up to the start of NaNoWriMo

Bean (free, open source), or Pages. I might do some of my writing in them anyway, just for a change of pace.

Pages 09 - Only thing I dislike is that it doesn't have an auto-save feature and the spell check isn't as good as Word's is I believe..

Last year I started out writing in OpenOffice and then downgraded to TextEdit because, honestly, I don't care for OpenOffice that much and only use it when I need the formatting.

This year I'm using Scrivener :)

I'll be using Bean for the actual writing portion. I really like its full screen mode. It's simple and customizable. That works for me.

My notes are scattered in TextEdit or handwritten on paper somewhere on my desk, in my pockets, etc. Not very organized, but it keeps my brain working.

I'll put a chip in for Jer's Novel Writer (http://www.jerssoftwarehut.com/AboutJNW.shtml). Light, simple, and loads the whole novel in under 4 seconds.

Oddly enough, I had just downloaded a word processor so I could track my progress in something official and better than TextEdit. Then today I found out Scrivener existed and I have really fallen in love with it.

NaNo 2006: "Untitled" : 16,324
NaNo 2009: "2013" :

Writeroom, most probably. :) or MS Word.

Tina, ML for the Philippines
Refine Me | PinoyWrimos | @pinoywrimos

I have Scrivener and have tried all of the freeware programs available for Mac in the last ten years.

I like to use Text Edit, because it is very fast to open and close. I set up a folder for my novel, and then a folder for each section of the novel, and then inside of those, a folder for each chapter (or what I think will be chapters). As I write, I just dump the TextEdit files in the relevant folder. I make notes and keep photos and other bits and pieces in other files in the main file.

I do a lot of writing for work and use Text Edit whenever possible.

If I didn't have Scrivener, I'd probably be using Q10 on the other PC (I used it last year and finished fast), or I'd find some full screen thing.
Maybe I'd even use Pages.

But if I knew about Scrivener and didn't have it, I'd be seriously trying to get it. It has a corkboard feature, something I REALLY like.

But this year I'll be writing mostly on Scrivener, with perhaps some Q10 or NotePad or some other program when I can't access Scrivener.

NaNo2009: Note: Your True Love Is Ugly

Same here.

Since TextEdit has no word count feature, I use Nano Count with it. For those of you interested, here's where it's available for free download:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16328

Just Pages. Though my work would be a lot more cluttered and disorganized. Not to mention difficult understand.

Nano 2009: Hands of God

Word progress: Just enough, kissing my cushion good bye
Story Progress: Not as much as I hoped for yet
Story Deaths: 3
Attacks on Anadell: 2
Story Nightmares: 2
Story Romantic subplots: OMG where did they all come from
Cup

I had Scrivener and loved it. Then I love my license number when my hard drive died. Now I'm using Bean but when I've got some extra cash, I'm going to get Scrivener again.

danwritesit - You don't need to buy another licence! We have them all on record - just drop David a line at sales AT literatureandlatte DOT com and he can look it up for you.
All the best,
Keith
(Scrivener developer)

Scrivener - Outline. Edit. Storyboard. Write.
Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for our Tip of the Day and Scrivener news.

I used CopyWrite when I had a Mac (mine was running a version of OS X too old to use Scrivener with).

Storyist. Storyist has one absolutely great set of features that Scrivener absolutely refuses to add to its otherwise world-beating combination, and that is professional formats for both play/screenscripts and fiction.

I love Storyist's fiction layout, particularly, since it assures that I get exactly 60 characters to a line, 25 lines to a page, standard headers/footers/chapter heads/title page/short story titles, name-and-address blocks, etcetera. I can set it up so it looks exactly the way my old Corasable Bond pages (double-spaced; pica 12-point) used to look when I pounded them out on my Hermes, many decades ago, all ready to go out in their brown manuscript envelopes, only to come whizzing back again with little "we regret..." notes clipped to them.

Pages does NOT have adequate format controls and will sometimes produce more or fewer lines per page than are professionally required.

Scrivener's main weakness in my eyes is that it deliberately forces you to use another program for formatting. Why?!? Especially since the professional standard formats are so simple!?!

Tsk, tsk, as they say in the comic books.

Otherwise, I love it.

VERBA NON ACTA

Hi nawybot,

Actually you can easily format a manuscript in standard novel manuscript format in Scrivener; Scrivener does not force you to format "simple formats" in another program. This seems to be a misapprehension based on one of Scrivener's features - the fact that it doesn't force you to write in the font in which you print or export. But just take a look at the Novel template that comes with Scrivener (you have to install the Extras that come with the install package). Scrivener just allows you to work in a different font to the final manuscript - if you want to. For instance, I like writing using an Optima font, but if I then want to format a manuscript in most programs I would have to reformat everything after I'd finished, changing it all to Courier double-spaced or whatever. In Scrivener, you can write in Optima and let Scrivener format it for you at the "Compile Draft" stage. At that stage it can add the headers and so on as well. (There is a sample PDF file generated from Scrivener in the novel template too.) But if you want to write in Courier or whatever, double-spaced etc, you can do that too. Then just turn off "Override formatting" at the Compile stage.

Other formatting is not so "simple", and it's true that academics or technical writers will most likely want to do some final formatting in a word processor after exporting from Scrivener (but then Storyist doesn't aim itself at such writers anyway). Why? Well, it would be foolish and pointless for me to try to build the whole of Microsoft Word or Final Draft on top of Scrivener. Scrivener focuses on the stage of hammering out the words; it is not meant to be a page layout program. At the same time, it provides all the formatting features required for simple formats such as fiction and scriptwriting. I try to concentrate on what Scrivener does best and the (once) unique features it provides.

You can also check out the script and stageplay templates that come with Scrivener - you can do them all in Scrivener quite easily; there has already been a BBC TV series part-written in Scrivener, another is on the way, and there are pro scriptwriters using it in the US too (you can see a couple on our testimonials page), so Scrivener is already in use by professionals in that area too. Yes, you'll get the best results using it in conjunction with something like Final Draft, but given that FD is the industry standard, that's no surprise; if you're working on an indie project and don't need to pass a script onto production, though, you could print directly from Scrivener with pretty much all the formatting you need.

Of course, if you are talking about a page layout view, then no, Scrivener doesn't have that yet, as it is about hammering out words rather than worrying about organising them on the page. A page layout view is coming in 2.0, but we already have reams of published authors using Scrivener and none of them have found this a problem. Perhaps it just comes down to what feels right to the individual writer - if you like seeing your writing exactly as it will be on the page as you are writing, then Scrivener 1.x may indeed not be for you. But I just wanted to point out that I by no means "absolutely refuse" to add professional formats - they are there, and they will be improved much in 2.0, too.

Many thanks for the feedback, and good luck in getting your 50,000 words in whatever tool you use!
All the best,
Keith

Scrivener - Outline. Edit. Storyboard. Write.
Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for our Tip of the Day and Scrivener news.

Prior to Scrivener, I had a directory with a text file for each (chapter/day of NaNo writing), which I edited in whatever text editor I preferred at the time (usually vim) combined with a script that would assemble them into the finished product. I had two scripts, one that made a web site out of them, with HTML formatting and a table of contents, the other which made a LaTeX document for conversion to PDF. I had a simple markup syntax worked out which would be converted to the appropriate formatting. I tried using index cards to help me outline but they were forever getting out of sync with the actual story.

With Scrivener, I have a folder for each (chapter/day) with a document for each scene, I use the included MultiMarkDown simple markup syntax, and export to HTML or LaTeX/PDF. I can now use index cards because they are attached to the scene and move with it.

Same process, but so much easier with Scrivener.

I'm using Microsoft Word for Mac.
I don't need fancy noveling programs...

Word for Mac, 2008 version, v12.0.0. It's pretty good. It was free with the laptop, and I'm used to the program.

I second Jer's Novel Writer! I like it, there's an outline, a databse, and more.

Naaah, Scrivener is awesome! =D I wouldn't even consider using anything else. I mean.... if I had to, i guess just iWork Pages... possibly Microsoft Word for Mac, but that one has only one cool feature, which is the Notebook... I guess I'd use that actually, rather than Pages. ^_^ It has tabs, similar to Scrivener. Less functionality, but same premise.

Last year I wrote in Jer's. I even brought a licence for it. But I could never get the database to work how I wanted it to.
Scrivener has sorted that problems for me by just using blocks of text in folders.
I'd love to see tagging in it though. I tend to be better at folksonomy than traditional structures. A possibly a good brainstoming tool. -kinda like X-Mind (which Im using at the moment. - that I can back link to text chunks.

I use CopyWrite, though Scrivener looks pretty neat too. I think both programs have at least a 30 day trial license or equivalent that's free. I highly recommend trying them out.

In my opinion, using MS Word, Open Office Pages, or any full-fledged word processor for a 1st draft or major revision is like working at someone else's extremely cluttered desk, full of references and notes that don't apply to your novel. Those programs are designed to help you take text, pictures, links and other stuff, and format it to look pretty before you print it out or send it to a print shop to be mailed to a 1000 people. All of the stuff that might be useful to you is buried in a thousand menu items and buttons, 90% of which is just in the way.

Going minimalist with TextEdit is a bit extreme for me though. :) Good luck with whatever tools you do decide on, and happy noveling!

- Robert

Scrivener has tagging; it just calls it "keywords". Lower right-hand corner of the window, if memory serves, although you can switch what's in that area so they might not be visible.

Ian
http://beckism.com/

I use iWork Pages to count the words properly and give it a nice lay-out, the novel-writing itself happens in WriteRoom. I have this computer for about seven weeks, so I don't know much about it. I'll check out the other suggestions ^^

Before I got Scrivener, I wrote in NeoOffice and organized my notes in ZuluPad. If I didn't have Scrivener now, I'd type my novel in Bean of NeoOffice. Speed is everything!

I don't have Scrivener ... and don't want it :)
I use StoryMill, which is what Avenir became when Mariner Software bought it - and aren't they the Scrivener people?
As far as I am understanding from my PC friends, StoryMill is much like Liquid Story Binder ... it's not just a word processor, but a complete writing database as well, so all the information you refer to the most is readily available. You can break down your work by chapter and scene, there is a timeline feature, tagging capability, areas for research and character and location information ... I can't imagine writing a decent length story without it.
I use Circus Ponies Notebook for everything else.

- gleefulpagan -

2007: Death's Daughter - Win! 2008: Dragon's Child - Win!
Blogging in the Dark

Hi gleefulpagan,

I'm not quite sure what you mean. We have nothing to do with Mariner Software - Scrivener is by Literature & Latte (that's us; I'm Scrivener's developer), Avenir was by Return Self Software until taken under Mariner's wing and becoming StoryMill. (Scrivener also allows you to break everything down scene-by-scene and bring all your research in etc; although Scrivener and StoryMill are very different in how they work, they fall into the same category of software.) I'm just trying to clarify, not trying to sell anything - StoryMill is a great and much-loved app too, and different writers will prefer different styles of software - it's just that you seem a little confused about what Scrivener is and who it's by! :)

All the best,
Keith
(Scriv dev)

Scrivener - Outline. Edit. Storyboard. Write.
Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for our Tip of the Day and Scrivener news.