I Think I’m In Love

On By MarquessaIn On Writing

Yes, you heard me.

I’m in love. Or at least I think that I am.

Is my search finally over? Can I now simply “get on” with my life?

I’ve weighed the pros and cons and analyzed the situation to determine what would be best for me so no more procrastinating.

I’ve made my decision and I’m sticking to it.

yWriter5 is the software writing program I think I love. I have been testing it out over the past few days and I think that the two of us will have a long and healthy relationship.

After reading lots of reviews online about the pros and cons of using Evernote, OneNote, Scrivener, and yWriter, I narrowed my choices down to yWriter5 and Scrivener.

Though I am addicted to my Evernote for keeping ideas, lists, notes, and drafts of potential blog posts, I don’t think that it would be well-suited for writing a novel. And already being versed in Evernote, I don’t feel like cheating with OneNote.

Besides the fact that Scrivener costs around $40.00, numerous reviews spoke about a steep learning curve and tons of wonderful features that go underutilized by even experienced Scriveners. Being frugal (*cough cough cheap*) and for someone like me who refuses to read any kind of instructional manual, the words “steep learning curve” sealed the deal for testing out yWriter first.

I uploaded all of my posts that are currently under The Story So Far and can already see that being able to write scenes and drag and drop them in a better order will be priceless, especially since my preference is for writing my most interesting scenes and then linking them all together.

yWriter5 even has options to keep track of the Point of View, the Location, the Goals and the Characters involved in each scene.

My plan is to continue playing around with yWriter5 during this month of August and setting some SMART goals for September to follow through on in October before hitting NaNoWriMo in November.

Do you have any “novel” plans? What are you using as software?

©2015 Marquessa Matthews. All Rights Reserved.

 

29 thoughts on “I Think I’m In Love”

  1. I feel like such a novice… I wrote my one and only novel (self-published of course) just using MS Word. Even though it was hugely impractical (on so many levels) it never occurred to me there was software out there that could help…
    Then again I suppose a word-processor is probably OK in comparison to a quill, a pot of ink and some parchment but still, I feel a whole new world has been opened up to me!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
                  1. M. Burgess Taylor

                    Burgess is my maiden name.. 😀 I’m from Charleston, SC… Most of the Burgess’ I’m related to are from Georgetown, SC or from Scotland. 😀

                    Liked by 1 person

                    Reply

  7. I quite like Scrivener, but I really only use it at the very beginning and the very end of writing my novels. I am a classic MS Word gal, and so write the bulk of my novels with that program, but when I am brainstorming or finalising the format, I use Scrivener to organise my thoughts. : ) Good luck with yWriter!

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    Reply

      1. I don’t exactly outline — I really use Scrivener to catalogue histories and research and character bios and snippets of prose that don’t fit anywhere yet. Then as I am editing, when I ‘finalise’ a chapter, I port it into Scriv. That way I can rearrange if I want to, though I haven’t yet had that situation come up. : )

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
  8. Jeremy Light (author)

    I swear by Final Draft 9. I do all of my writing from rough ideas and free writes all the way to finished manuscript within FD9. Its pretty expensive (I think I paid $249.99) but totally worth it. Its not just for screenwriting.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
      1. Jeremy Light (author)

        The templates are all phenomenal. I use: outline, manuscript and novel mainly. Have never used others. Its very sophisticated and picks up on character names and autofills them for you as you type. The formatting is always explained through samples that one can just delete and write your material sort of through them. Its s very clean interface. No annoying office-like stuff. Just a nice pristine writing space.

        Liked by 1 person

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