The Word Cloud

Does anyone on the Cloud use writing software , and if so which one? I hear that Scrivener is very popular but it's only for Macs, though I understand there's a PC version in beta. Personally, I think it's expensive.

I've been using yWriter now for over 6 months and absolutely love it. It was created by Simon Haynes the Australian author of the Hal Spacejock books (no, I'd never heard of them either) and is now in its 5th incarnation.
yWriter lets you divide your work into chapters and scenes. You can store your characters and all their details, your locations and your notes. You can set up a timeline for each of your scenes and track their progress whether it be an outline, draft, 1st or 2nd edit, and so on. If you are writing to a deadline then you can set a word count target - ideal for NaNoWriMo. It even has a story board feature. Best of all - it's free, Yup, totally free to download and install and without any need to register. What's more, you don't get annoying messages to upgrade, donate or buy yet more of the Spacejock products.

As you can probably tell, I'm a convert - and no, I'm not on commission

You can download yWriter here:
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

So, do you use novelling sotware? What's your favourite?

I just use a word processor and lots of notebooks and paper, but Scrivener is one of the things that's tipping me towards getting a Mac when my current PC dies of overwork. You can get a Beta of Scrivener for the PC, though...

Emma

Trafalgar,

Well, I've never had any trouble with PCs - no blue screens of death, no hard drive disasters, one virus in 15 years and that I got rid of in half an hour... But I am bored with the compatibility issues, though I'm sure I'll also get bored with being nannied. It's also startling how it's really not as easy as they'd have you believe, tranferring e.g. old emails... And some OU software doesn't copy with Maccery well...

Have to sell a novel before I can afford one, though.

If this is your experience and the advice is from those you trust, fine. There are however, pro-PC IT experts whose default postion is to big up the horrors of a change to Mac.

I'm not allowed a Mac... computer engineers don't like anything Apple (you should hear hubby and his uber-geeky coworkers slate Apple - you'd think Steve Jobs kicked personally kicked all their grandmothers in the teeth!), and so I don't even have an iPod! (But I secretly lust after an iPad... I'll never have one lest I am accused of having some kind of illicit Apple affair, but I do think that is one slinky piece of kit!)

Best setup I ever had was a Linux one, I have to admit, but I don't think any of this software has reached Linux yet. So notebooks for me a little bit longer, I fear!

I'm longing to go Mac and Skrivener...having done Nanowrimo and been a "winner" last November I would get a discount on the skrivener but the Mac is of course hopelessly dear...so I might just stick with me laptop and use ywriter5 like you Trafalgar. Nice to know that you are so pleased with it.
(Nanowrimo people say you need your head examined if you are still trying to write a book without mac+skrivener.)

Ywriter is good and free
Or Dramatica Pro if you are paying.

I'm a long-term Mac user and have Scrivener, but have stopped using it recently, and gone back to my original tools – notebooks and pens plus big sheets of paper to draw out the overall form of the book. It's much more fun!

I've been dipping into the PC version of Scrivener, and it's very neat. I don't think the upheaval of changing how I work - much as I loathe Word - would be worth it for fiction, but for any non-fiction project it might well be.

And I know several other people who are now using Scrivener on their PCs, so you don't need a Mac unless syou need every last bell and whistle of the latest version.

I'm trying Scrivener out too for my masterpiece - says with tongue in cheek.

I am just getting more ram put on this pc in order to use voice recognition-I have been told it is very good once trained. I hand write everthing and I could never write on a pc,(my typing was once good but is definately not now) far too much work to type out the 630 pagesI have done so far- dont know how many words only hypothetically.

I use mostly New Novelist[early version] before the company sold it to an American one. I also have New Novel which I have not reinstalled since my PC was cleared out last year following a hacking experience. No they are not responsible but I am jealously nursing the KB, I also have Write It Now and Movie Outline which can also be used for novels.