News and Reviews > Mini-Reviews by Members
Comparative Review of Writers' Tools (INITIAL DRAFT)
wraith808:
There are many advantages of integrated.
And many advantages of separate.
-Dormouse (May 20, 2018, 11:34 AM)
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It would be nice to state these. I apparently stepped on some toes stating it in such a plain way, and such was not my intent. I've just never seen where other than writing in a dedicated fashion as a text editor that a separate one is useful in doing serious writing on a project.
I personally haven't experienced any advantages of a separate project manager to keep track of your work and have it in front of you. And I've tried, so I'd like to see that use case set forth to truly evaluate it. I've noticed that in most cases where it's not there, there is a separate add on or advancement (like writemonkey's) to add in project management. I use notepad++ without, but then again, I don't open projects in it.
dr_andus:
Perhaps I should have expanded, but I think that the rest of that statement puts into perspective what I mean by 'editing tool'. Not like something like smartedit or prowritingaid, but a text editor, so I don't find it an unusual characterization, because that's what it is.
-wraith808 (May 20, 2018, 09:21 AM)
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OK, it was a terminological misunderstanding then on my part. I get what happened now. You were comparing WriteMonkey to the 'text editor' category of software, with which people on this forum would be more familiar with.
I was reading it as a "non-programmer" (and as an academic writer), so to me 'editing' in the context of writing software meant 'changing and improving the content' of a piece of writing (e.g. what a journal editor does) or formatting and typesetting a manuscript, rather than manipulation of text as data.
Dormouse:
I apparently stepped on some toes ... I've just never seen where other than writing in a dedicated fashion as a text editor that a separate one is useful in doing serious writing on a project.
I personally haven't experienced any advantages of a separate project manager to keep track of your work and have it in front of you. -wraith808 (May 20, 2018, 02:38 PM)
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Not my toes.
The usual argument is that separate means that you can have best of class in every role and integrated means that everything should work well together.
Most writers it seems use Word (SmartEdit sales are predominantly for the Word plug-in rather than Atomic Scribbler). When I was looking for comments on one of the bits of software, I found some comments on a writers' site saying that their ideal is Word and a pile of (paper) notepads and that anything else is unnecessary. And when I had to do reports where all the base material was in (very large) paper files, I could actually do the writing in any program with text. And I suspect that doing NaNoWriMo or NiaD genuinely from scratch is probably easier in WriteMonkey than Scrivener.
Equally, most writers looking for programs for writing want something comprehensive. They want research, versions etc incorporated. They don't want to be switching environments all the time. And it is a huge advantage to have everything you need immediately available every time you open the program up.
But what do we mean by comprehensive or integrated? Many of the programs we are looking at here are project centred. The research etc is all about a single project. That's fine for a novelist with one (or two) novels on the go, but that starts to become restrictive for someone who has five different writing streams. And if a single project is sufficient, can the programs do what is needed? Screen capture, contain PDFs and documents, OCR (all things which have given me problems on occasion)? And are they suitable for editing and final publishing (I notice that a lot of Mac Scrivener users say they have switched to Vellum for this because Scrivener isn't as good)?
I don't know that I can comment on the advantages of a separate project manager without knowing the precise use you have in mind. If there is an integrated program that does it well for you, then it seems unlikely that a separate program will have any advantages.
For myself, I'm not sure where I am. I can see that I could happily write a book in Scrivener (or equivalent). But then what about everything else? Maybe have multiple instances open. But are there things Scrivener doesn't do so well? I do know that using fewer programs than I do would probably be more productive. I could probably write a short story most effectively in WriteMonkey (apart from the keyboard orientation) or a text editor.
I also know that most writers benefit from having a relatively stable routine which includes the programs they use. This makes it much easier to focus on the work. Actually true for most people, whatever they do.
wraith808:
I don't know that I can comment on the advantages of a separate project manager without knowing the precise use you have in mind. If there is an integrated program that does it well for you, then it seems unlikely that a separate program will have any advantages.
-Dormouse (May 20, 2018, 06:30 PM)
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When I say project manager, I mean something that manages the files in a document, if you don't want to have a monolithic document. It also makes it easier for proofing. I did a 1500 word submission for one project, and still broke it up into multiple files- one for each scene in the document. Having to have one long document is very hard to work with in my experience. Not sure if most feel the same way. And having to deal with each of those documents separately is a pain also. I'd rather have one interface where I can go from document to document in the same session. It's the reason that I don't use vanilla word. After my add-in stopped working in the latest version of Word (http://writingoutliner.com/), I tried to manage the documents in there, and Word lost a lot of work. If I'd been more patient, perhaps it would have come back. But I waited for 30 minutes, and it was still hung. And it did it several times. I found more lift in editing in chunks in Markdown, outputting to one HTML or PDF document, then pasting it into Word for the final formatting. And then there's the problem of formats... my client decided to have us submit over google docs, and google docs added in extra spaces, and completely messed up Word formatting, when it states that it imports Word documents. Now I'm just rambling.
But yeah, having something that has references to all of the documents that make up a larger document that can be opened and edited independently has become key to me, since I started writing semi-professionally.
Dormouse:
I did a 1500 word submission for one project, and still broke it up into multiple files- one for each scene in the document. Having to have one long document is very hard to work with in my experience.
I'd rather have one interface where I can go from document to document in the same session.
And then there's the problem of formats... my client decided to have us submit over google docs, and google docs added in extra spaces, and completely messed up Word formatting, when it states that it imports Word documents.
But yeah, having something that has references to all of the documents that make up a larger document that can be opened and edited independently has become key to me, since I started writing semi-professionally.
-wraith808 (May 20, 2018, 09:39 PM)
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OneNote
Available in nearly all corporates that use Word.
I would definitely advise separating writing from formatting/publishing.
Know how the word counts work, and tweak at the end if necessary.
Always seems more intuitive to do it as you go through, but there's acres of pain when there's a glitch. I do feel for you. Been there many times.
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