Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Do you use any writing software, and does that make it easier/harder to edit and move things around?


I recommend a program called Scrivener to collect all my ideas and then combine and develop my first draft of the book. After trying a number of other software programs, I’ve found Scrivener to be far superior to them and at a fraction of the price. Check out their site to see the capabilities and uniqueness of the program.
However, as I near the end of the draft, I will often transfer the document to Pages to do the final formatting.
Incidentally, as I work through the various drafts of the book, I print it out in different formats (with different fonts and font sizes) to edit it. I find that this helps me notice things that I tend to overlook when I keep printing out the book with the same format, font, etc.
For me, I find it most helpful to print out the book in single space to edit it early in the process when I’m focusing more on the story’s flow, then 1.5 or double space to do more word-by-word copyediting, and then in single space again at the end of the process to look at the book more through the eyes of how a reader would see it.
Get the tools, nail down the process that works for you, and then go for it. Remember, software is simply one tool at your disposal. Story matters more than anything else, so whatever helps you improve your story is the program you need to use, even if other people think it’s clunky.

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  6. Well i didn't use any software yet but after reading this post i wanna surely try this. This official site provide us detail about how we can use it and for what purpose.

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