'Scrivener' and other writing software

[Mandapanda]

One of my favourite authors has been blogging about a writing software called Scrivener which she loves. One of the fun features she's found is a 'name generator' for your characters which has heaps of settings. When she widened the parameters to include Hindi and Hispanic names and asked to alliterate them she got these suggestions:

Harshad Hazelton
Mahatma Manson
Frank Furse
Rogelio Redding
Alan Atkin
Archie Arnold
Chandrakant Charlton
Robbie Reid
Aditya Aslam
Basilio Burke
Damodar Dornan
Clarence Cannell
Octavio Oliver

That feature alone would keep me amused for hours! (You know what they say about small minds!) I looked at the software further and it seems great to me. Here is some of the blurb:
Writing a novel, research paper, script or any long-form text involves more than hammering away at the keys until you’re done. Collecting research, ordering fragmented ideas, shuffling index cards in search of that elusive structure—most writing software is fired up only after much of the hard work is done. Enter Scrivener: a word processor and project management tool that stays with you from that first, unformed idea all the way through to the final draft. Outline and structure your ideas, take notes, view research alongside your writing and compose the constituent pieces of your text in isolation or in context. Scrivener won't tell you how to write - it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application.

I am curious to know if any of the writers in our group use writing software and what they think of it. I didn't even know it existed until today!

[Paul]

LyX for us ( http://www.lyx.org ). It doesn't look pretty on the screen but ho boy, when you generate the output it's truly a glorious example of fine typesetting.

We use the Memoirs style package with it.

A lot of people seem to spend countless hours in pain tweaking with MS-Word/Office and many other things - we just export and it's 100% ready to go to the publisher.

The downside... it's not the easiest thing to set up in Windows (but dead easy in Ubuntu).

Paul.

( Scrivener is a stunning piece of software, a fine example of Mac culture )

[Brent]

I used to develop and sell my own writing shareware for the PC... a writing organizer/submission tracker that got renamed many times and is now called YourOtherMind.

However after retiring and then winning the Writers of the Future Contest I decided to focus more time on writing and I've stopped selling/developing YourOTherMind though I still use it for my own stories and novels!

I've heard a lot of great things about Scrivener and I've talked to the creator of it a few times and he's a nice guy.

Also, while not specifically writing software Duotrope.com is a pretty decent place to find information about where to submit your writing (and it has a basic submission tracking).

[Murray]

I use yWriter as a way of managing all my scenes. I'll generally write and edit in Open Office, but paste the results into yWriter so I can keep track of word count and structure, drag scenes around and rate scenes for readiness. For fiction, it also tracks POV, characters and a bunch of other stuff I never use. It's pretty good for free software.

[Cheryl struggles to catch up]

Wow. I'm not a writer, but I boggle. Think of Asimov and his Underwood, or DeFoe and his quill! Y'all are spoiled.

[Dianne]

Just before Christmas, the Scrivener website started offering the software for Windows, which was a great change. However, I tend to find that I use MS Office for my world-building and plotting thee days, leaving yWriter to gather dust on the HDD.

[Jacqueline]

If you are looking for convincing names from a particular country, google their Olympic medal winners or something like that. Personally, I use their Miss World contestants - they have to be useful for something.

[Mandapanda]

Jacqueline wrote: "If you are looking for convincing names from a particular country, google their Olympic medal winners or something like that. Personally, I use their Miss World contestants - they have to be useful..."

That's hilarious Jacqueline!! I love knowing how authors choose their character's names.:D