Kushiel's Dart & Software
Soooo... one of my SOs has given me "Kushiel's Dart" by Jacqueline Carey, which I will be reading the next few days. It was recced to him to being quite nice and possibly something I would prefer over what I read (and not liked so much) the past weeks. We'll see. Anyway, I am happy to get more food for thought.
I am looking into writing software, as I've got to the stage where it is either occupying a wall with reference cards or some other structuring method. The one I so far like most is WriteItNow4. I've tried and discarded StoryBook and YWriter5 (and really disliked I had to install add-ons on my computer due that).
It seems that either software is geared towards helping those who write disjointedly (scenes at the end before scenes at the start) or those who need an ascetic environment to concentrate. And then there is software which forces you to think in preconceived plots or artificially round out your characters.
All of that is not my problem, I tend to write strictly from page 1 to where you put "The End", because I need to know what takes place to write the reactions. I also tend to always have rounded lively characters, that's because I can only write about such characters intriguing me, my stories are character-driven, not plot-driven. I usually do have plot somewhere at the back of my brain and for some reason it simply slots together. I would love to put some of that down somewhere though, especially where I have "ideas" and flashes of small genius. :-) Well, and I can concentrate myself, thank you. I tend to prefer the help of music for that, no need of a working surface.
WHAT I would like are small things, like visualizing the story aids (cards), like a good thesaurus, something which finds doubles (the same words too close together), maybe common writing mistakes or at least a search for adverbs and adjectives, a filing system which allows me to put down notes about characters and places, like for instance webpages I found which relate to what I write. Such stuff.
So so far WriteItNow4 has all that and more nifty stuff. It does cost 59 bucks though. So I wonder whether there is something very much alike but opensource out there?
I am looking into writing software, as I've got to the stage where it is either occupying a wall with reference cards or some other structuring method. The one I so far like most is WriteItNow4. I've tried and discarded StoryBook and YWriter5 (and really disliked I had to install add-ons on my computer due that).
It seems that either software is geared towards helping those who write disjointedly (scenes at the end before scenes at the start) or those who need an ascetic environment to concentrate. And then there is software which forces you to think in preconceived plots or artificially round out your characters.
All of that is not my problem, I tend to write strictly from page 1 to where you put "The End", because I need to know what takes place to write the reactions. I also tend to always have rounded lively characters, that's because I can only write about such characters intriguing me, my stories are character-driven, not plot-driven. I usually do have plot somewhere at the back of my brain and for some reason it simply slots together. I would love to put some of that down somewhere though, especially where I have "ideas" and flashes of small genius. :-) Well, and I can concentrate myself, thank you. I tend to prefer the help of music for that, no need of a working surface.
WHAT I would like are small things, like visualizing the story aids (cards), like a good thesaurus, something which finds doubles (the same words too close together), maybe common writing mistakes or at least a search for adverbs and adjectives, a filing system which allows me to put down notes about characters and places, like for instance webpages I found which relate to what I write. Such stuff.
So so far WriteItNow4 has all that and more nifty stuff. It does cost 59 bucks though. So I wonder whether there is something very much alike but opensource out there?