Today I want to talk about word processors.
Probably not the most riveting topic in the world, but when you are writing for a living or spending a lot of time working on novels, I think the software you choose to use is a very important thing to think about.
You mean Word?
If you are anything like I was a year ago, you probably do not know there even is another option to good old MS Word. If you don't have a license for that, you may have ventured into the realms of free word processors such as Apache Open Office or Google Docs.
Both of those look very similar to MS Word, and they have largely the same functions - Google Docs has the advantage of being able to save to your cloud and access from your phone.
I think that these are solid options, but there came a point on my journey where Word was crashing a lot because of the size of the file I was working on, and even though Google Docs saves to the Cloud, it is frustrating that you are stuck with either working in a hundred different files to keep each chapter separate, or on one HUGE document which is hard to navigate.
There are also no options for slotting a bit of research into the file or adding things such as images to refer to.
You may be fine with that, but I'm going to talk about some other options and explain why I think they are worth considering if you are moving further from the realms of hobbyist and spending a lot of time writing.
What are the alternatives?
I am using a Microsoft SurfacePro 6, running Windows 10, and Scrivener and Bibisco are both saved to and running from a micro SD card I use to boost the storage on my laptop.
I am not going to discuss writing on a mobile phone, because I refuse to do that, but Scrivener is available for iOS and Stary has an app for both iOS and Android. If there is any interest in a post about how to write without a laptop or PC I will discuss/show my set up to write on Kindle.
Spoiler alert: I use a mechanical keyboard and treat it like a laptop I will be covering Stary, and Scrivener in this post. Bibisco and a general summary of pros and cons for these will be in part two.
I'll start off by discussing Stary, because that will take the least time.
Stary is the parent company of Dreame, Ringdom, Slash, and Innovel. They are the company who you are contracted to if your book is signed on any of those platforms, and when you publish your work, you do that through the Stary website or app.
When you have created a story, it will appear on your dashboard alongside the stats:
Clicking on 'New Episodes' will take you to the page you use to upload your chapters:
It's essentially a very basic word processor. You get a little counter in the bottom corner which shows you have many words you have written, and you input the text you want to publish in the main box on the right.
You can write your chapter in here. If you use something like ProWritingAid or Grammarly you will get a little help with catching spelling errors and grammatical issues. You can save the work as a draft, or set it to publish at a later date. I don't recommend doing things this way, but if you don't have any other option, you could type directly into the New Episode box before publishing. One of the reasons I don't think this is a great idea is that you may be asked to send your manuscript to your editor when the book is complete. They don't always do this, but if they do, you are going to have a bad time compiling the book into a document because clicking on another chapter can crash the browser and it takes a very long time if it does work. It will make your life a lot easier to use a different word processor.
Because I prefer Scrivener, I will discuss that next and explain why I think it is such a good option, particularly in relation to episodic writing.
What even is Scrivener?
Scrivener is a really awesome piece of software that is aimed at writers. They describe themselves as the "go-to app for writers of all kinds" and I think that is a fairly accurate description.
Rather than opening the program and seeing a blank screen, you pick the type of project you are working on and the blank project is tailored to suit that.
For the purpose of this blog post, I have just created a 'Novel (with parts)' from the Fiction tab.
You can see this is somewhat familiar-looking, but there are some differences, particularly on the left of the screen. I'm not going to go into absolutely every feature Scrivener has to offer, but I will cover some of the ones I find the most useful to me.
One of the biggest advantages of using Scrivener is the Binder - that's what that column on the left is called. It is divided into sections, which you can create to suit your needs, but the default sections are based on whichever template you have chosen to work with. You can also download loads of templates which have been created by other users - my favourite is the World-Building Leviathan template which has converted that particular world-building method into Scrivener format.
The Binder makes it possible to make notes of important details and keep track of things you have mentioned in chapters:
Additionally, you can keep the plot and chapter outlines in the document and pull those up to refer to using Scrivener's split-screen function when you are working on the chapters:
Each chapter can be written on a fresh document within the Binder, which means you can refer back to specific chapters without scrolling through 200 pages on Word, or opening up an entirely different file on Google Docs:
And when your book is complete, you can compile those all into one document using several different options for formatting so that they are easy to send to your editor.
There is also a very handy way of tracking your progress, which is absolutely invaluable when you are working episodically, particularly if you want to meet your Daily Update quota for an extra bonus:
The Project Targets, Statistics, and Writing History buttons all help in different ways and I think they are very powerful tools to have as an episodic writer.
Project Targets allows you to set yourself a target for the entire book, and for the writing session you are currently in. It tracks the number of words in the sections you are including in your wordcount, and the amount you have typed in the session. You can set a target for the day/week/month and it will let you know how close you are to hitting that by filling up a progress bar:
You can change your targets for the entire project and each individual session, the deadline for the project, and the days you write by clicking on Options.
Statistics is another particularly awesome feature on Scrivener - it shows you a myriad of things, such as how many pages your work would be if it was printed as a paperback:
You can also look at how often you use certain words, which will help you to spot any patterns if you want to avoid overusing particular phrases or descriptions.
You can set it up to ignore the most commonly used words and things such as character names.
Writing History will let you see how many words you are writing on average. That can help you figure out when you are most productive and how long it will take to complete the work:
The other feature I find really helps me to work on Scrivener is Composition Mode. That pulls the writing screen up full screen, and dulls the background if you don't have the page set to cover the entire screen so that you aren't distracted by other things as you write.
In this picture I have the page in Composition Mode, with this blog post in the background:
Scrivener can do far more than I have talked about here, but these are the things I have found the most useful when writing my fiction. I don't think it's perfect, but I do think it is far superior to the traditional alternatives I gave at the top of the post. In the next installment I will talk about Bibisco, which is a program aimed purely at novelists, and then weigh up the pros and cons of this vs Scrivener. I hope that you found this interesting - I know it's something I hadn't considered until recently but it has drastically changed my working style for the better and I find it really helps me to stay organized and on track!
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