yWriter - a word processor for writers

[rhoenix]

This is a freeware word processor, written and targeted specifically to make writers' lives (and projects) easier.

http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

The ability to track characters, items, and places with different scenes and/or chapters really is awesome.

[Josh]

Interesting. Giving it a download now.

We generally use Google docs for our rough work, since that gives us the ability to collaborate in realtime, then paste over to an MS Word doc.

...and god knows, I'm sick of Word.

[frigidmagi]

I've been trying to understand it for the last 20 minutes. Look man I just want to write I'm not gonna want to fill out a fucking menu before hand and since the damn program won't let me enter any text and just keeps chiming at me when I dare touch a letter key... I'm not finding it helpful at all!

Okay! I got to the point where I can enter text... I'm going to try it but frankly any program that makes me jump through so many hoops before I can start writing has high marks against it. The program should just shut up, get out of the way and let me type. I'll add all the other stuff in there later if I need it.

[Batman]

'Create empty project', 'create new chapter', select the created chapter, 'create new scene' and viola! But yeah, not particularly userfriendly.
And the damned thing apparently is too stupid to store several projects in the same folder too.

[Josh]

It was a bit fiddly for my tastes. But then I prefer to just vomit my thoughts onto a blank page without all that fussy sissy organizational stuff. If only Gdocs wasn't so damned obtuse about simple shit like cutting and pasting and transferring formatting and suchlike, it'd be perfect for me.

[rhoenix]

I haven't used it much yet, since I'm still in the pre-writing and conceptual stages of what I'm writing. The features and ways in which yWriter handles variables (characters, places, etc.) in a written work appear very handy for my purposes. I just have to get the concepts concrete and fleshed-out enough to fit being organized in such a way.

I use Notepad++ (since it handles tabs and syntax highlighting, which I used often when programming in the past) for organizing the conceptual stuff, and once the concepts, characters, plot, and such are ready, then I'll make this story's transition to yWriter.

Keep in mind, yWriter is written by a programmer who also writes, so it's basically optimized for that sort of mindset. It'll work great for me once I have all the background stuff done.

[Josh]

I'm not knocking it. Whatever works for anybody in this craft is their own personal alchemy. I'm just somewhat simpleminded, as many folks will testify.

[Batman]

I'm knocking it. It seems to be geared for projects that are already basically finished. You are assumed to already have organized your writing into chapters and scenes. Now I'm no writer so I may be completely wrong but but something tells me by the time you're that far in your writing, you no longer need a word processor to do your organizing for you.

[rhoenix]

I'm knocking it. It seems to be geared for projects that are already basically finished. You are assumed to already have organized your writing into chapters and scenes. Now I'm no writer so I may be completely wrong but but something tells me by the time you're that far in your writing, you no longer need a word processor to do your organizing for you.

That has certainly not been true in my experience. My writing takes on a life of its own, and only rarely in ways I can specifically predict beforehand. Having the basic guidelines of structure in place of places and characters helps to guide the chaotically creative flow for me, and for many other writers as well.

If it's not for you Bats, it's not for you - but for me, it looks like a winner - more so because it's freeware.

[Batman]

It's not for me by default because I don't write to begin with. But having to structure my writing this thing forces me to, from the word go, would seriously piss me off. Yeah, starts out chaotically, needs structure eventually, I get that. This thing doesn't let you do that.
Until and unless you establish a structure up front yWriter won't let you type so much as a single character.

[rhoenix]

It's not for me by default because I don't write to begin with. But having to structure my writing this thing forces me to, from the word go, would seriously piss me off. Yeah, starts out chaotically, needs structure eventually, I get that. This thing doesn't let you do that.
Until and unless you establish a structure up front yWriter won't let you type so much as a single character.

True - but, I don't create in a logical fashion. I'm using this as a "final stage" for writing, with the pre-writing creativity stuff left to notepad++. So, it works just fine for me in that regard, since the two processes for me are very different.

[Batman]

Um-this is essentially what I have been saying all along? Great for finalizing the product, not so hot for starting to create one?

[rhoenix]

Um-this is essentially what I have been saying all along? Great for finalizing the product, not so hot for starting to create one?

Perhaps you were - that point was not clear before if it was. For me though, it really does symbolize just how different the conceptualization and writing phases really are.

[Batman]

It can symbolize all it wants. The problem is it won't let you do the 'let's just start writing and see where we go from there' phase. You have to create a project, and then you have to start a chapter, and then you have to start a scene before you ever get to write a single word.

[rhoenix]

It can symbolize all it wants. The problem is it won't let you do the 'let's just start writing and see where we go from there' phase. You have to create a project, and then you have to start a chapter, and then you have to start a scene before you ever get to write a single word.

Well... yes. It's not intended for essays, it's intended for those who want to keep important details of a written work consistent. I'm not really seeing your objection here, given the program under discussion.

I mean, if all you're looking for is a proper word processor, check out LibreOffice. But for a word processor intended specifically for story writers, yWriter fits the bill nicely - it requires the user to have an idea of some of the pieces to their tale before starting.

[Batman]

It can symbolize all it wants. The problem is it won't let you do the 'let's just start writing and see where we go from there' phase. You have to create a project, and then you have to start a chapter, and then you have to start a scene before you ever get to write a single word.

Well... yes. It's not intended for essays, it's intended for those who want to keep important details of a written work consistent. I'm not really seeing your objection here, given the program under discussion.

That'd be the part where it's moderately useless to people who haven't gotten half the work done already anyway? I reiterate-the thing won't let you type a single letter before you create a project, a chapter, a scene. Does that sound like a setup somebody starting a story would have in place?

[rhoenix]

Well... yes. It's intended for you to either begin writing chronologically, or to just write out an important scene to get started, and fill in the blanks either way afterward.

The project name is the title of one's story, the chapters are very mutable, and scenes transition from one chapter to another as needed.

[Batman]

Must be a me not being a writer thing then. Personally, I'd prefer to be able to just put down the first draft then start organizing things.

[rhoenix]

Must be a me not being a writer thing then. Personally, I'd prefer to be able to just put down the first draft then start organizing things.

That approach can work with an essay or short story, true.

For me, since there are so many moving pieces (in many different layers), a great deal of pre-writing is necessary before I get to the writing stage. The good news is that once I do, the way yWriter is organized will allow me to do so, and very mutably with regard to chapters, scenes, and such.

I've become a fan of outlining recently - and this program fits the results of outlining very nicely. Your mileage may vary.

[General Havoc]

... and will indeed vary. I am not about to use a system that places further barriers between me and actually getting the story down on the paper. If I have to march through twenty minutes of setup before the program will actually let me write anything in the story, then I don't think this thing and I are destined to work together. At all.

I'm 700,000 words into a story that I started on a cocktail napkin. "You shall outline your story before you are permitted to write it" may work for some, but I refuse to employ such a tool.

[Josh]

I'm 700,000 words into a story that I started on a cocktail napkin. "You shall outline your story before you are permitted to write it" may work for some, but I refuse to employ such a tool.

Everybody has a different process. Some people outline so thoroughly that by the time they write something they're just filling in a few blanks and adding some dialogue.

For my own part, I'll plot ahead mentally but I'm not fond of outline because I'm so heavily character-based. Outlining gives me a logical progression but proper characters aren't logical, they're people and they do all sorts of irrational people stuff when presented with a moment. So the way I go is to create situations and present them to my characters. I'll usually have some idea of how they'll react, but sometimes once I'm in their shoes they'll take off in a totally different direction on me which is part of the fun.

Something like this I could see using if I was edit-heavy, but that's more my co-writer's thing than mine.

[rhoenix]

At this point, I'm pretty much running with the idea of outlining, since it's already bearing fruit.

Prior to this, the reason I only finished one story out of... at least ten (I lost count) was because I never planned things out beforehand, and just dove in. Because of this, there are plot holes due to details I forgot, and many times I basically ran into a brick wall, from which I wasn't able to move around. Most often, the only real way to recover (or to properly decide how to move forward from there) was to start over from scratch.

This is really the first time I've tried outlining a story first - and I'm still kind of in awe of how much it's helping me. I certainly grant it won't help other people with better memories than mine, at least not as much. It helps show me problems with story flow before the actual writing even starts, it helps me see how events might unfold (and the different ways in which they might) - for me, outlining makes for an excellent roadmap to see how things will unfold.

So yeah - your mileage may vary. However, it has already shown its value to me. And as for yWriter, it functions very well to me for the purpose for which it will be used.

[Josh]

Said it before and I'll say it again and again and again. If you wanna do the writing stuff, check out deanwesleysmith.com

As he says, the only rule is that there are no rules. A lot of the formulas of writing came from the shift in the publishing industry in the seventies and onward, when they moved to deliberately slow production down from writers. Reason? A lot of pros can bang out six to eight or even more quality manuscripts a year. For a publisher, each manuscript is a substantial investment that they won't see any return on for at least a couple of years. Given that they have little foreknowledge of what'll sell and what won't (nobody can predict that, and if you can you'll be a millionaire in a week) buying eight books off a single author per year would amount to plowing a ton of cash into a coin flip. So the concept got out that real writers outline and meticulously plot and revise revise revise and don't crank out more than two to four books a year, tops, making sure that each manuscript is TOP QUALITY.

Some points on that: quality is important. Yes. Have your essential grasp of mechanics. BUT. The key quality of a story is always the story. The prose can be lovely. The word play can be beautiful. The way it all fits together can just flow across the page like a river. But if your plot is turgid and your characters cardboard, nobody'll give a fuck.

Shakespeare's been translated into every functional language going, and for that matter the modern reader has to do some translating just to understand him in our version of english. So whatever scrupulousness he put into word choice, that whole 'weigh every sentence' thing that some people will throw at you, that's all pretty much a loss by now. Nevertheless, he still sells. Why? People like the stories.

"Beautiful words, Josh, but what's the point of the fucking story?" Don't let anybody force a formula on you. Understand that a lot of what gets sold as 'the one true way to do business' comes from folks who aren't published or are barely published, from that whole 'those who can't, teach' sort of mindset.

All y'all got your ways and means to get at getting the story out of your head and onto some form of media. Shine on. And for fuck's sake, when you feel like taking a swing at it, throw it out on Smashwords and Kindle and whatever and see if you can make a buck off of it, too. The field's never been this wide open before, take advantage of it before it gets back to being all hierarchical and shit.