Writing is a craft that have evolved over the years, from chiseling image on stone, typewriters, pen to paper and computers. Six authors talk about what’s in their writer’s tool box.
Welcome to part two of author collaboration. In case you missed it; in part one, we discussed writer’s block. Click here to read the article and get to know these authors.
Do you use any special writing software? If so what do you use and why?
Carolyn Howard-Johnson – Author of The Frugal Book Promoter |Imperfect Echos
Word is powerful and works fine for me. It translates well into .pdf and e-book publishing usually converts it well. I do know some who like certain of Scrivener’s features, but I keep learning new, powerful things that Word can do and I know I’m not going to run into snags using it for the needs of all publishers and agents. I have an iMac (Brand New!) but it runs Windows using a program called Parallels, so I can benefit from all the nifty perks that both offer.
Kelsey Ketch – Author of the Descendants of Isis Series
I use good, old Office Word. You don’t need a special writing software.
Karen -Anne Stewart – Author of The Rain Trilogies | Ash to Steele
I use Word, mostly because I’m comfortable with it.
MS Word is all I need! Keep it simple silly. A clean document is the easiest to format for Kindle, Smashwords, and Createspace.
Marilyn Brand – USA Today & NY Times Best Selling Author
I use Word, and that’s it. No other special software. I actually do quite a bit of my pre-writing and first-drafting by hand, on lined notebook paper. (Very old school, LOL.) So, by the time I start typing, it’s more like my second or third draft of the story.
I like handwriting pages because it’s messy — purposely so. It keeps my mind fluid and in a state of being completely open to change, especially when I’m doing the very first draft. I love being able to scratch out sentences that don’t work or add in tons of little arrows for new ideas that come up later. The sheer chaos of those pages is a constant reminder that nothing has been set in stone…that *everything* is subject to revision. It also keeps me from being afraid to make a mistake because the page already looks so disorderly and imperfect. What’s one more deleted phrase? Or another set of notes in the margin? It ends of being a bit of a game I play with myself — how nearly illegible I can make my draft pages — but creativity can be very messy, and this is one way to help me remember that.
I use Word 2016 from the 360 Office series. I love this version because it makes creating a table of contents so very easy. It is great if you don’t write in sequence. You can use Headers and open it on the left pane, that way you can jump to different parts of your manuscript.
For script writing, I use Celtix, it is free and compatible with Final Draft.
1 thought on “The Writer’s Tool Box”
Comments are closed.