The Software Tools I Use to Write
I discovered Scrivener and Vellum (discussed below) through Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing Formula. If you are a writer, or an aspiring writer, and you don’t know about the SPF community . . . I highly encourage you to check it out! But I found my way to these other tools on my own. So I thought I would share the bounty with anyone checking out my blog!
The first piece of software I use is called "Plottr". I only started using it recently, for my forthcoming third (and final) book in the trilogy that began with The Crafter's Son. But I'm already in love with it! It is a very visual program that lets me build out multiple plot lines, assign characters and locations to the scenes I place on those timelines, and then drag and drop the scenes around, as needed. I can filter the view so it only shows me the scenes with a given character present, or scenes in a given location. Etc. In short, it's a highly flexible--if fairly simple--tool for managing a story that has multiple plot lines with an epic scope like The Ranger King! And I very much look forward to using it for future books down the road!
Next up is Scrivener. Scrivener is a word processor that is designed to give an author the multi-chapter support they need to easily "chunk up" their writing in a way that is both self-contained within a single project file, and also separate enough that it lets you visually jump from chapter to chapter and scene to scene as needed. (Contrast with MS Word, for example, which requires you to either split up your work into multiple documents or deal with a single monstrosity of a document that can become unwieldy at novel lengths.) On its own, Scrivener can do it all, and has many of the basic functions that Plottr gives you, albeit in somewhat less elegant and functional ways. And it can even output your document to an ePub or print format, too (like Vellum below)! If you are just getting started with writing novels or other long-form works (e.g., non-fiction), Scrivener is a great place to start.
There are many, many editing tools out there, from Grammarly to ProWritingAid--to the integrated grammar and spellchecking functions of MS Word. I've evaluated a number of them. And my new streamlined process for performing ongoing editing during the drafting process is to use MS Word's built-in checker and ProWritingAid. Ultimately, from my evaluations, the main area where ProWritingAid distinguishes itself from Grammarly is that it caters to authors in a way that Grammarly does not. Grammarly is great for everyday writing and business writing, but it lacks some of the nuance or targeted feedback ProWritingAid provides that is especially helpful to novel writers.
Before we move on to document formatting, I should also mention that my final edit, before I publish, is always performed by a human being! I found my editor (who has, thus far, edited both of my full-length novels as well as my two novellas) on Reedsy--an online author's marketplace--where you could also find someone to produce cover art for you, perform translations, help you with marketing, etc.! But, as for my editor, she is fantastic (send me a note if you want her name/info). And I would never trust myself, or any automated tool or software program, to provide the level of feedback about my writing that an experienced editor like mine can provide!
Finally, there is Vellum. Vellum is a program that specializes in helping you to create beautiful books. It won't help you create the cover art. But it will help you do everything else you need to format your book with beautiful, readable fonts, chapter headings, tables of contents, etc. Again, Scrivener can do most of this too. But Vellum just takes it to the next level--and has some very nice features that Scrivener lacks. One caveat, however: Vellum is only available for Mac--not Windows PCs!
For the active writers among you, I hope you found this list helpful. If you have discovered other tools that you love, or find invaluable, I encourage you to reach out and tell me about them! And, for everyone else, I hope you enjoyed a little visibility into my process!
That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!