Hi
I'm just starting the process of developing a bit of software for novel writers to use. One thing I'm very keen on doing is ensuring it's built from the start with features and design which will be of benefit to those using it!
A lot of software I've seen is designed without much input from end users, so the software producer develops what they think the user needs - in the real world things just don't work that way.
And so to my request....
Any ideas at all about general usability, features, things to include, things to omit - anything at all would be greatly appreciated.
The fairly unique aspect of the software is that it will be completely online - you'll be able to use it from anywhere by logging in through a browser and away you go.
I've looked at New Novelist and Dramatica and have got some good ideas where to start on features, but I really want input from anyone who'd be willing to give it.

I look forward to hearing from anyone who's got a couple of minutes to jot down a few 'it'd be great if it could...' ideas.

Many thanks
Jim

Hi there!

I've never heard of novel writing software.

Sorry if I'm being dense, but isn't the only software one needs for for novel writing just a half decent word processing package like MS Word?

Hi
Sorry, I should have really made it clearer - the software I'm developing is not intended to be a 'use this and it'll write your best-selling novel for you' type thing! It's more a preparation and organisational tool, focusing on characters, scene organisation, timelines, plot, etc. A kind of framework to work with. The ideas I have so far are:
Character description, development
Events and scene organisation and description
Timelines
Character, object and location tracking,
Word, page, chapter counts
Lots of others!

I'm seeing it as a way to split the process down into specific objects, characters, etc and develop them all as necessary and then link them together into the scenes and events that make up the book.
The main thing is that it will be completely online - log in through a browser from anywhere and carry on where you left off.

I hope that clarifies things!

Regards
Jim

Thanks for the clarification.

Sorry but I don't think I can give you any useful input because this doesn't sound like something I would ever use myself, but good luck with it!

Interesting, Jim, but I'll stick with my pencil and post-it notes. Good luck with it.


- NaomiM

I don't think I'd be interested, but never say never...

Those writers I know who use programs like this mostly swear by Scrivener, but it's not available for PC. If you could come up with something which worked that well independent of the operating system, you might get a good deal of interest.

I think one issue would be that a writer's process is both crucial, and extremely individual to them - everyone does it differently, and the more a program tries to provide something for everyone, the more harder it is to use, and most writers are too impatient to get on with writing to spend time fiddling with the program. How many of us use a twentieth of what Word can do, for instance, unless they got sent on a course by the employer most of us don't have? And an awful lot of us are of the 'how do I know what I think till I see what I say', where we do our working out by writing the novel, not least because that reproduces (or rather anticipates) the process of reading the novel

Sorry, don't mean to sound dismissive - I think it's a really interesting idea, and I'll be interested to see what people come up with as to what they'd like in such a program.

Emma

Hi
Emma - you've hit on a key point, one which has been a main reason for me deciding to do this - that of flexibility.
Having had a look at a few bits of software it struck me that most are quite rigid in terms of what you need to put in to it to get any sort of decent output or organisation from it. Too much time is spent trying to put in what the software wants which obviously isn't what people want to do - the software should be a tool /aid, not a focal point.A concept I'm looking at is that very little is actually defined for what you need to put in. The user would define 'objects' which can be anything - characters, physical objects, locations, anything at all. The user then decides what attributes those objects have, for example it may be really important to the story that all characters eyes are described in detail and so the user would set up 'Eyes' or 'Eyes description' or similar as an attribute.
This way the user has complete control over what they need to put in.
There's a host of other features which is growing daily! But my main desire is to produce something flexible which helps organise the huge amount of information generated. There's obviously some things which are essential, but even these could have the ability to be 'tweaked' by the user.
It's not supposed to be something that writes a best-selling novel for you. It'll be a tool to help you write.

Regards
Jim

Well, I'm intrigued. I would love someone to post a list of things essential to the constuction of a good novel, which could be incorporated into a software package.



- NaomiM

Hi Jim,

A few years ago I bought several of these. NewNovelist, Writer's blocks, etc. I also tried using NVivo7 and 8, which qualitative researchers use for analysing text. In the end I went back to Word, even though there are many things I would like it to do that it doesn't appear to handle easily. A word processor specifically designed for writers would get my money. I think it's a good idea as there is nothing ideal out there. For me the most useful aspects would not be to help with the creative process but to provide help with the management of MSS and the handling of text. For example, in NVivo you can tag all of the text on a particular theme (character, setting, etc) and pull it out for analysis. There's a website that will analyse your prose for a whole range of glitches, I've forgotten where it is but I'll try to remember, or perhaps someone else knows it.

In the end there's no substiture for hours of reading and rereading and just doing the work. Some of my favourite writers didn't even have a typewriter. But if you can find a way to create a few shortcuts I'll go for it.

~Rod.

I've been through this process too. New Novelist was interesting for about a day. It fell down because the word processor part of the program was piss-poor. The other program was Writer's Cafe, which is generally crap too, but has a fairly useful subprogram called Storylines. This appears as a split screen with a cork board on the bottom, on which you place cards (much like address cards). The front of the card has a general description, but on the top screen you can go into details, full scenes etc. The result is a printed report which gives you a very detailed construction of your planned novel. Very pretty and quite useful, but the problem is taking all of that work and putting it into a word processor.

I still play with Storylines now and again to help with the basic planning, but then I take the report, put it into word, reformat the whole thing to something more suited to my needs and go from there. From that point on, I'll never go back to Storylines until I start a new project.

Basically, it's a very expensive set of virtual post it notes. If you have a wall free, you're probably better off using that. It saves having to scroll about.

Whatever you use, at somepoint you have to take all of your notes and sketches and ideas, then sit down, open a decent word processor document and start to write.

I would never, ever, use an online package, simply because during the early stages, I like to keep everything private.

However, if you're after suggestions, the things that all writers stumble and worry over is synopsis and submission. If you could find a user-friendly way of editing those, you might have something interesting.

Colin M

If you have a wall free, you're probably better off using that. It saves having to scroll about.

That, for me, is the ultimate limitation of all such programes: you can't see several sets of notes simultaneously - and that's from someone who has a 19" screen and good eyesight: how on earth people manage with laptops, I can't imagine. Where can I put my big plan, the family tree, the notepad for thoughts along the way and Ordnance Survey map? Bringing different windows up is far more trouble because you keep losing your place in things.

I confess to luddite tendencies, though, in that I have a lot of stages which I do on hard copy. One reason is that hard copy betrays your thought processes: your changes of mind, the place you used metaphor X, needed it more two pages later, so changed the first one to Y, then three months later dipped back and wondered why you'd used Y, so changed it to more suitable X. and a year later the copy-editor points out that you've used X twice.... On paper, you see that you'd already thought of X and crossed it out.

I know there are 'track changes' in Word et. al., but one thing that would be interesting would be a 'history', equivalent to that pattern of crossing out and substitution. Something much more sophisticated than the possibility of undoing and, if you're clever, looking on the clipboard for the more major cut and pastes: a system of the sort you have in Photoshop would be very interesting.

Emma

Photoshop history is more of an UNDO function, but when I read through that post I immediately thought of the Photoshop layers, and wondered how that could work - so you could see through the page to the previous edits hiding on multiple transparencies behind, flipping them back to opaque when not required. I think that would quite cool, and easier to use that what I do now, which is to save version 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1 etc.

I immediately thought of the Photoshop layers, and wondered how that could work - so you could see through the page to the previous edits hiding on multiple transparencies behind, flipping them back to opaque when not required.

Colin, that's the most fascinating idea, specially for writers like me, who tend to do a bony, basic first draft, and then put muscle on the bones afterwards!

Emma

(shhh!!! we can make a mint from this. I'm just on the phone to Bill Gates )

Scrivener is amazing - you can download a free trial (if you're on a Mac) from www.literatureandlatte.com. Worth looking at what it does. I use pen and paper as well, because in lots of instances you can't beat it, but in Scrivener I can collate research - including web pages, audio and video files etc - really easily, have it up on a split screen while writing at the same time; it has an index card style story boarding feature. If, like me, you move scenes and chunks around quite a bit, it makes it very easy to do that. You can also do things like use character (and location, whatever you like) tags, which enables you to then put all of one character's scenes together and read them through continuously.