New ... brooms!

[silverr]

It's an old saying: "A new broom sweeps clean."

I've found that this can apply to writing as well. I don't just mean changing your methods or approach (e.g., writing out of sequence if you're usually linear, or freewriting if you're usually a detailed planner), I mean actually trying a new writing tool--or even switching to trusty paper and pen. Sometimes it's just the jolt you need to get things flowing--or at least save you some hair pulling.

So, what tools do you use? What do you use them for? Why do you love them? What do you wish they did better?

Comments

[hickumu]

I use good ol' Microsoft word - if it's a longer piece. If I'm just knocking off a drabble for my hundred drabble challenge, I'll find a word count tool and just type it in there. If it's something I'm writing for a kink meme, I'll type it up in the comment specifically so I don't spend too much time on it.

I realized early on in my writing that I just needed to use a keyboard, solely so I could get my ideas typed up in a reasonable length of time, before I got bored of them. If I've plotted out a story extensively, the motivation to actually write it is low. I type very quickly - provided inspiration and time is there, it's a good system for me.

However, on occasion, I use paper and pencil to "seed" a scene - write out something I've been musing over there, and type it out later and build the necessary bits around it. Overall, I'm happier with what I write on paper than I am with what I type, maybe just because I associate more effort being involved right off the bat. It just takes me a few days to cover a few pages, as opposed to a few hours, since I'm usually writing in between classes either way. I don't think I'll ever finish a story on paper.

I've found it strangely meditative, though - kind of peaceful. It's good to get something hashed out, or get something started, or just a good way to pass the time before class starts.

[actionreaction]

I usually use Google Docs, but sometimes opening it up and seeing blank white (or alternately mounds of text from where I left off) is intimidating. I recently jump-started myself on something I was floundering on by switching to pen and paper, so I wholly support this!!

I've tried changing methods too and found that's often helped as well. But when it's not enough, a bigger change, like a writing tool switch, can really be that needed kick.

[peaceful_sands]

On the whole I type, either in Word or WriteWay, depending on how long I think a project's going to be - I sometimes get it wrong and work in Word when something would be better in WriteWay because it takes on a life of its own and grows a lot more than I thought it would.

I always have a pad and pen in my handbag for those times when I'm out and ideas strike or for when I'm stuck waiting for something and can use the time to work on a scene or short fic (the hairdressers is quite often a good place to get some time for filling short prompts!)

To get me going when I'm stuck on one thing, I'll quite often use something like a prompt from fic_promptly to get the words flowing before returning to whatever I should be working on. It's normally short enough that I don't get too sidetracked and end up creating something else that ends up sitting in a 'to be finished' pile.

I'm not sure if it classes as a tool but sometimes doing a 'writing dash' with a friend where I've got to admit at the end of the set time how much I've written and feeling accountable gets the words going, even if I end up editing it into submission later.

[silverr]

I've been writing for a long time, but it was only within the last few years that I realized that most of my longer stories grow by ... accretion. Snips of dialogue float up; sometimes I'll get a very vivid vision of a scene. Very non-linear, and what complicates it is that I often get ideas for story B (and C, D, E) while I'm working on Story A. I don't want to lose the momentum on the current story, but I don't want to lose the juicy bit either. Sometimes I just leave Notepad open and take "Running Notes [for title]" but this winds up being a nightmare wall o text quite quickly.

Now, I used to use MS Word's outline format to keep track of all the bits (and to move them around once they started to coalesce into a story), but a lack of cash meant I started using OpenOffice a few years ago. OO is very nice in some ways (and free), but I missed my old outliner.

And then I discovered Scrivener. Click here for Scrivener fangirling.

P.S. For short comment fills I too use use http://www.wordcounter.net/

[credoimprobus]

Oh dear. That sound very like the extremely messy way my writingbrain works, too! (It can be a right pain, can't it?)

[silverr]

ayup. :p

I got all squeeful over Scrivener (whose interface I found less cluttered than some) because once I got into that habit of having it open, I began to love more and more the ability to toss down notes to myself about future chapters. And of course have little buckets to drop the bits in.

It did take a while to go through all my almost ten years of Word docs and scoop out all the useful bits and toss them into Scrivener, but once I did that it made tackling long plotty things about a hundred times less overwhelming and stressful. I don't have to waste time on file management now - I have one scrivener project for the entire doc, and one postable file for each chapter I write.

(Oi, chatty much? coffee for the first time in a week today :p)

[credoimprobus]

Considering how long it took me to feed just my one really major project to yWriter -- oof, I can imagine! It may be tedious as hell to get done, but yeah, it's absolutely worth every bit of the pain once you've got it organised. :D

(At least you're not the only one? *can't shut up this evening either, it seems, haha*)

[silverr]

*grins*

For the chaptered story I'm working on my, I had, oh, 5 or 6 20-30 page Word files, dating back 8 years, with various rambling drafts of various scenes and chapters, assorted copy-pasted chatlogs and email excerpts discussing various scenes .. and no clear scene sequence.) It was a freaking mess, and for a while I felt like I should just toss everything and start writing from scratch again (which certainly would have been a valid option), but I knew I had good stuff buried in all those pages (Sometimes several different re-writes of the good stuff :p)

Rather than do a line-by line comparison, I just set up an index card/heading virtual bucket for each piece, and then went through the files and everything I saw that related to "the scene where the old crush shows up" or "scenes where people threaten the villain" I just copy-pasted it out into Scrivener. After a while the underlying structure of the story started to merge, and as it did I started moving the "index cards" for the scenes around, adding notes, refining the scene title.

(I think a lot of this technique works for me because I approach writing stories as if I'm making a film. I like storyboard; I don't mind shooting/writing out of sequence; I'm willing to cut entire scenes for pacing ( but I still keep them "just in case" :p) and some of the story is built in the editing process.)

Whenever I've gone through this process I feel like I have a much clearer sense of the skeleton of the story, and having an "aerial view" also helps me articulate to myself "what is the purpose of this scene, what does it accomplish?"

All this probably sounds painful and boring, but I find this ordering and organizing activity very calming sometimes, especially when it seems that my enthusiastic concepting of a piece will outstrip my ability to follow through.

(It also makes me appreciate those very rare stories that blast out all in one sitting.)

[credoimprobus]

Heh, no, it's true -- the organising can be nicely zen! I mean, there's certainly a reason I can cheerfully spend hours messing around with plot spreadsheets or my writing journal. :D

I should probably do something like what you did with my massive old chatlog paste files -- sure, I may have everything relating to one project in one place, but it's not exactly easily parseable. (For one thing, everything is GIGANTICALLY out of order, since it's all chronological-by-chatlog-date. XD;) Actually, I'd probably do well to organise all my notes properly, and not just the actual ficbits...

(Admittedly, I think I did do that once -- it's just that it was in software I don't have anymore. *dramatic sigh*)

Aerial view! That's a really good term for it. :D I tend to get to it by making buttloads of nerdy spreadsheets, myself. I'd be ridiculously lost without them, to be honest, because, yep, non-linear. So, so non-linear, omg.

(End note: I sometimes wish I'd get those lovely blast-out-in-one-go pieces more often... and then I remember how they generally mean 2+ days of no sleep and terrible eating habits and coming out the other side a total physical wreck, and I'm kinda fine with them being so rare. XD)

[silverr]

I hope the take-away from this topic is that there are a lot of tools, lots of ways to wrangle one's words, and that different things work for different writers (and at different times).

I think the toughest part is figuring out how you work, what you need as a writer, and then poking around until you find a tool that feels right for how your creative flow works.

(I have to say, I ultimately gave up on yWriter because it felt too rigid to me - the version I used a few years ago was very persnickety about my identifying a main character for each scene. What I've come to appreciate about Scrivener is that it's more open ended ... and that it keeps a lot of its tools out of sight. I'm sure that there are other (probably free) outliners out there, but for now Scriv works for me.)

And yeah .. those pieces that just flow out like lava, I think they're only ... 1 in 20 or so? almost always one shots, under 5,000 words. I did write a novella once, in a 26 hour marathon but that was a looooong time ago. (it was written on a manual typewriter. :p)

[zoamh]

Chatlog paste files! It never even occurred to me to go through and reorganize those until you mentioned it. Oh man, I have about a months' worth of rambling chatlogs for a project my gf and I have been working on. I'll have to wrangle them into submission. This is gonna be great. :D

[credoimprobus]

I tend to favour plain text editors, because they're minimal fuss and mess and won't sneak in any weird non-ascii characters that get mangled on posting. In particular, lately, I've been all over fullscreen text editors, and have hoarded multiple ones that I switch between; they're a great, easy way to transform my writing environment, and make it fresh enough to be inviting again when it's feeling stale. \o/ (I also use this online variant sometimes. Minimalistic writing interfaces FTW!)

I've recently taken to using yWriter to organise longer pieces, although more often than not I do the actual writing elsewhere and paste it in after. I mostly only type straight into the edit window when I get inspired enough that the writing environment's appearance doesn't matter. *snicker*

(I also have multiple devices to switch around between by this point -- my old all-purpose laptop, the new preemptive replacement laptop that I partly bought to act as my new writing machine, the barebones netbook that I used to use for travel and as my main writing machine, and a full-qwerty-keypad smartphone. Note: I don't even have a sim card in the smartphone; I just use it as an electronic notebook, haha.)

...in case it wasn't obvious, yeah, I have a problem with getting bored with using the same thing to write in/on for very long. XD;


PS: If anybody's curious for software links -- everything I use is freeware -- just hit me up! :)

[silverr]

I used yWriter for a while too. It's certainly got some amazing bells and whistles! (I remember the "timeline" seemed perfect for plotting a mystery novel.)

Heh, speaking of alternate devices - have you ever looked into using an Alphasmart/Neo? It'd be somewhere between your smartphone and your bare-bones laptop. :p

[credoimprobus]

have you ever looked into using an Alphasmart/Neo?

That is a thing I haven't (knowingly) heard of before! But it sounds like something I should definitely investigate. :D

[silverr]

Yeah - full size keyboard, very light, 700 hours of battery time. Kinda like an electronic notebook (with 8 separate "pages"). You upload and download the files between it and the computer using a USB cable or wireless connection.

I used one when I was commuting a lot on trains and buses. The screen is big enough to be usable yet people sitting next to you can't as easily eavesdrop on what you're writing. (Eyes-drop?) Weighs almost nothing, shove-able into a backpack. Files save automatically so no "crash and lose your work" either. I don't have the latest oe, but they always have good trade-in deals too.

http://www.neo-direct.com/

[credoimprobus]

Oooh, yiss, that looks awesomely practical! (I'd really have to be sure which files I want before I leave the house, though, heh.)

[silverr]

I had one of the original ones--called an AlphaSmart---that was pure 4 lines x 70 character display. The newer ones like the Neo let you adjust font size (and I think do quasi-RTF formatting with bold and italics and such). ~ Most I used mine to pound out rough drafts - it's a lot easier to just freewrite and generate raw verbiage when you're not as distracted by fiddling with formatting and going back to do nit-picky wordsmithng (which can certainly come later). Great for taking to the doctor's office or any other waiting room. (I used mine to take notes at conferences and meetings, too.)

Yah, having to DL the files is the drawback.

[mistressofmuses]

I pretty much only ever use Word, plus occasional scraps of paper for when I don't have access to my computer, or a brief notation in my phone. The comments here are kind of a revelation... I had no idea there were so many options out there!

I have word files of my various plot bunnies, with notes on whether they're in progress or completed or yet to be started... they're numbered chronologically in the order the ideas occurred to me and were written down. This helps me assign numbers to the stories so that I can keep track of them.

I tend to just use a word file for each story itself, with individual chapters copy-pasted into documents of their own if they're getting posted. I also generally have another word doc open to write down notes that don't fit into the narrative yet. (Things like worldbuilding, names for other characters, ideas for future scenes...) Periodically I'll reorganize that document so that the notes are organized more by topic.

Sometimes I switch to pencil and paper if I want to organize things in a way that doesn't work on a line-by-line format. Webs or things circled or arrows from one idea to another... sometimes that kind of visual organization works better than a list, for me.

I also use my folders and subfolders so that I can organize the documents together; original fic and fanfic are separate, long stories get folders of their own, and each story has a number and an acronym that I start the filenames with so that I can find all the relevant files quickly.

This doesn't seem to be the most efficient way to organize things... everything is in one spot, but sometimes I'll make an edit to one file and forget to edit the others, having files with redundant information can be cluttered, etc.

It sounds like there are some really useful programs out there that streamline everything. I had no idea there were so many choices!

[zoamh]

I got in the habit of using Google Docs for nearly everything back when I spent a lot of time writing on campus and work computers. I'm not currently a student and work is too busy now, but the habit stuck. It's a fairly inoffensive text editor, and it's easy to just send the link when it needs a beta read.

I used to use Bean (Mac only) as my lightweight text editor with full-screen mode of choice, but now when I write directly on my hard drive I tend to use Scrivener, which I see someone already mentioned! It's too clunky for one-offs unless I want to keep them together as part of a series, but it's excellent for keeping longer works organized. I can also sync txt files from a project to a folder in my Dropbox and use Plaintext to access them on my phone, so I can jot down notes when I don't have my computer handy.

When I know I just need to write to get my thoughts down for a scene but don't really want to commit to having it in my draft, I tend to dump it in 750 Words. I can easily copy it over if it turns to have merit and if not, well, it's saved (and out of my way) just in case.

I also keep a notebook and a few pens in my purse at all times. Usually when writing I need to type to keep up with the pace of my thoughts, but if it's just not flowing then the slower pace of hand writing tends to give me more time to think, which frees up my writer's block tremendously. (I usually just end up doodling after a while though.)

[silverr]

*nods* The advantage of using GoogleDocs even on a home computer is the constant/instant backup.

oo, that 750 words thing is nifty - I may have to give it a try!

(And yay another Scriv user! I second the collection of short works thing - I've been using it for bingo cards -- the 5x5 display on the corkboard! -- and I found it a great way to collect brainstorming ideas for each prompt.

[zoamh]

Oh, yes, the instant backups on GDocs are a big plus. I try to have a backup copy of everything I really care about on either GDocs or Dropbox in case my hard drive goes south. I mean, I back up to an external hard drive every now and then, but not frequently enough to save my current writing project.

Scrivener is excellent for bingos! My favorite part of getting my bingo card is transferring it over to Scrivener and brainstorming until I've figured out which bingo I'm going for. (You didn't happen to come by Scrivener via NaNoWriMo, did you? That's where I first found it.)

[silverr]

I actually came across Scrivener while looking for something that would give me the same functionality as the old "Outline Mode" in MS Word (which I could no longer afford to buy/update). I really liked Word's ability to expand/collapse headings, move chunks of a doc around by dragging headings, etc. and missed not having such features in OpenOffice. ~ I tried using OO's Outline Function, but it just wasn't what I needed. ~ I tried a few other programs (the only one I remember was yWriter) before a friend seconded the recommendation of Scrivener. Once I started playing with Scriv I stopped looking. ~ I still write my actual drafts in OO or GD, but I use Scriv to keep track of plot, brainstorms (and braindrizzles :p), notes / questions / research bits, running author's notes, URLs, and bits of story I'm probably not going to use (but that I can't quite delete forever. :p) It's like this ... helpful left-brain personal assistant who takes all the chaotic bits and files them away neatly til needed. (And I suppose it's NLP or something, but ironically I always feel "ready" when Scriv is on the right half of my screen and I'm composing in a window on the left half. :p)

Teal deer: It slices, it dices, it's two mints in one!