What’s the best software for writing?

A reader asked me what the best software is for writing a novel. There’s a short answer, and then there’s an interesting answer.

The short answer: anything which can output in .doc format. That’s it. A word processor which can produce Microsoft-readable files, the industry standard. Word, OpenOffice, LibreOffice are all fine as long as you save as .doc when sending to anyone else. Several authors I know swear by a program called Scribner, which is designed for long complicated documents, and...