Writing Tools

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Loren

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What other writing tools are there that are like Scrivener?

I have been using it on a machine that not connected to the internet (can't be connected) and Scrivener's licensing seems incompatible with that arrangement.

Scrivener seems to have some unique features that go far beyond Office or standard word processing packages that I find helpful.
 
For actual initial writing I find a very simple editor (no formatting) with tabs for each open document and able to search/replace all files related even if not opened
Notepad++ It has far more powerful search and replace.
I mark *bold* and _italics_ thus and it's recognised later.
Then I use LibreOffice Writer to assemble the pieces (copy,paste, autoformat which fixes quotes). I use it then to edit / format.
I export HTML and use mobi creator and/or Calibre to make ebook to read the novel in one go on Kindle or Kobo after 1st complete edit/proof read. (though LibreOffice does have eBook creation plug ins).
Libre Office PDF and HTML creation is better than MS Word.

I will not entertain ANY program that needs Internet unless it's a program for Internet use (Browser, email, RSS, FTP etc)/
 
Ray McCarthy said:
For actual initial writing I find a very simple editor (no formatting) with tabs for each open document and able to search/replace all files related even if not opened
Notepad++ It has far more powerful search and replace.
I mark *bold* and _italics_ thus and it's recognised later.
Then I use LibreOffice Writer to assemble the pieces (copy,paste, autoformat which fixes quotes). I use it then to edit / format.
I export HTML and use mobi creator and/or Calibre to make ebook to read the novel in one go on Kindle or Kobo after 1st complete edit/proof read. (though LibreOffice does have eBook creation plug ins).
Libre Office PDF and HTML creation is better than MS Word.

I will not entertain ANY program that needs Internet unless it's a program for Internet use (Browser, email, RSS, FTP etc)/
Click to expand...

Thanks, Ray.

I use OpenOffice, LibreOffice's close cousin. It's an excellent software package that seems to be free of bugs (go figure, Microsoft). I use it a lot for my work.

But for the large size of my novels, Scrivener has a lot of things going for it that Office could never hope to do. I keep all my notes attached to each chapter and there are sections to put all my characters' bios, places, and research. All one click away.

I also have an entangled program called Aeon Timeline that helps keep track of people and places throughout the course of the book. I actually have two concurrent worlds in the book that operate at different rates of time (one world time runs 7.975 times faster than the other) and have different day/night cycles. Keeping track of times between the two worlds as characters shuffle back and forth between them is interesting, to say the least, but I digress.
 
Loren said:
But for the large size of my novels, Scrivener has a lot of things going for it that Office could never hope to do. I keep all my notes attached to each chapter and there are sections to put all my characters' bios, places, and research. All one click away.
Click to expand...
Open Office is really dead, all the major devs moved to LibreOffice
You CAN do that in any of MS, Open or Libre,
But I prefer that in Notepad++ using a file per chapter and tab per open file.
Also of MS, Open or Libre, support a navigation pane. I use Heading1 Heading2 and Heading3 for Sections/Parts, Chapters and sections to have navigation and auto TOC.
I also use a spreadsheet with sheet for each kind of thing.
Finally I paste the text files of Worldbuilding etc into a private copy of MediaWiki* installed locally and also a mirror on a passworded protected Web site.

(* Free and can be installed on Windows or Linux or Max OSX if you install Apache and PHP etc, it's what Wikipedia uses)
 
Ray McCarthy said:
Open Office is really dead, all the major devs moved to LibreOffice
You CAN do that in any of MS, Open or Libre,
But I prefer that in Notepad++ using a file per chapter and tab per open file.
Also of MS, Open or Libre, support a navigation pane. I use Heading1 Heading2 and Heading3 for Sections/Parts, Chapters and sections to have navigation and auto TOC.
I also use a spreadsheet with sheet for each kind of thing.
Finally I paste the text files of Worldbuilding etc into a private copy of MediaWiki* installed locally and also a mirror on a passworded protected Web site.

(* Free and can be installed on Windows or Linux or Max OSX if you install Apache and PHP etc, it's what Wikipedia uses)
Click to expand...

I am confused how you use MediaWiki. What does it offer for your writing?

Is your computer Windows, Linux, of Mac?
 
Mediawiki is only for archive of worldbuilding already snippets of text. Makes very large projects easy to navigate. Your own custom encyclopedia.
It's trivial to install on Linux as even Linux desktop easily has Web Server components. On Windows you have to download the free Apache, MySQL and PHP etc versions for Windows that are the same functions as the Linux ones (These are available for OS X too). Then the same Mediawiki that Wikipedia and/or a Linux web server uses can be installed locally.

All I have works on Windows and Linux (Though NPP/Notepad++ is running on WINE on Linux). Notepad++ won't work on Mac, but there are I think nearly as good text editors for OS X. OSX has the smallest and most expensive range of applications because its a niche.

I also create custom dictionaries (interchangeable between MS Word, OpenOffice and LibreOffice with a small edit) for each family of novels as well as a generic user custom dictionary.
 
Last edited:
I'm old-fashioned. I write in Word, and my only other tools are notebooks. Lots and lots of notebooks. Inefficient maybe, but I've been doing that since the early Nineties, and old habits die hard. Plus, there's something visceral about putting a pen to paper, and I tend to remember handwritten notes more readily than typed information.

Admittedly, one of my goals in life is turn into a crotchety old man and scream about kids on tearing up my lawn. Dang whippersnappers.
 
Hi! Arriving to this thread a bit late, but I'd recommend you try using Ywriter. It's a free software that allows you to create chapters and scenes, export them into .rtf .html, export various reports, make notes, create an ebook etc. Created by a guy who is both a programmer and a SF writer. Maybe not eye candy, but it's easy to use and does the job well in my opinion.
 
Just MS Word and Google Docs, really. No fancy organisational program (although I should probably try one anyway), just words on a page.
 
Got the license fixed with Scrivener. I would not go back to a regular word processor now. The features it offers are way beyond Word.
 
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