How Dabble Just Might Help You Write Literary Gold

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Dabble, a Camp NaNoWriMo 2018 sponsor, is a writing platform designed to help you become a better novelist. Today, writer and educator Galadriel Mitchelmore shares her experience with dabbling in different writing platforms:

Dabble is “to try”. The dictionary definition implies a blasé application of effort. But the word “dabble” is often paired with “magic” and the “occult”—essentially, bringing out what is hidden. And isn’t that what writers do? Pull up characters, worlds, conflicts, stories—all mined from the mind. Writing is alchemy. It requires transmuting fragments of imagination, attenuating repeatedly until literary gold rises to the top.

Writing is hard. So, is there a way of not getting hopelessly lost in the process? Is there a crucible, of sorts, that the writer can tip all their story elements into? One place where ideas can be experimented with and the results clearly seen?

Paper Rafts Don’t Float, and Word is by No Means Final

In the beginning was Microsoft Word. But Word does not appreciate the writerly mind. For me, story planning and writing is messy. There are myriad ways to create a map of intentions, and I’ve made many in lots of different places—which is probably why it took me several years to complete my first novel. I’m not blaming Word for my incompetence as a developing novelist, but the program has its limits.  

I generated copious Word documents, saving different edits in several folders. When I wanted to return to a particular one, I could never find it.

Ditto that for my use of paper. I used reams of it: post-it notes, A4 plot grids, plain paper, lined paper, notebooks, index cards to hold on the spur ideas, web addresses, research sources, word counts, timelines, character files, story arcs.

Yes, I was being creative; my ideas were abundant, my research thorough. At the time, writing on paper was a comfort; it was helping me to organize my ideas. I thought I was getting on, getting ahead, succeeding.

But you know, paper makes for a poor life raft in a sea of paper. Sure, my ideas were organized—just organized all over the place. Somehow, everything required being neatly assimilated and tied up in Word. That’s what agents want—a coherent novel.

With much angst, I did it.

For the next novel, I needed to work quicker and smarter if I was going to get anywhere soon. I needed an outside pressure, so I joined NaNoWriMo.

I won. I had fifty thousand words of a new novel. As anyone will know with first draft material, any gold is buried in masses of dull prose and clunky sentences. Haunted by my previous novel and slightly sick at the thought of repeating old mistakes, I turned back to the NaNoWriMo pages for inspiration. That’s when I saw Dabble.

I was skeptical. How could a program make you better at writing novels?

Dabble’s subscription was very reasonable; it seemed ridiculous not to try it.

Dabble, and Dive Deep

Dabble’s website will tell you all you need to know. What I will say is, it’s revolutionized my writing process. I still use some paper, but it’s easier to keep notes together in Dabble. The cloud facility means I can work on any computer, anywhere. It’s made story-crafting so much easier. 

For me, controlling scenes is paramount. In Word, scenes and chapters are in one, continuous, scrollable document, and things can get messy. In Dabble, each scene is a discrete document. If I want to try out a variation of that scene, I add a new scene, and because it won’t impact what I’ve already written, I can choose later which one I prefer. The drag and drop facility means it’s easy to move scenes and chapters around. If I need to make changes to my first novel, it’s going to be easier with Dabble. As for the work in progress, well, I haven’t cried yet and I did plenty of that with the first.

No Need to Dabble Alone

Dabble is new and evolving, and the roadmap is exciting. The online community is warm and inviting, and users can request features they think would benefit creative writers. The “Chat with Support” function is brilliant. I’ve really appreciated being able to fire off a question when I’ve needed to, and get a quick to response to my queries and issues.

Dabble is an excellent tool that enables you to focus on writing excellently. Jump in and Dabble! You may make enough ripples of sparkling prose for someone to notice.

Galadriel Mitchelmore taught English at Secondary Level for almost ten years. She now works from home, teaching herself the craft of writing. She’s currently seeking representation for her YA Gothic Horror. When she’s not writing, she can be found tackling her garden or out walking with her husband, Andy, on Dartmoor.