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Comparative Review of Writers' Tools (INITIAL DRAFT)
KodeZwerg:
I admit i havent read all :(
but as my 2 Cents when it belongs to Writing "Help and Manual" is great authoring Software to write ..... Help and Manuals :D
Surely not limited to that. Has many advanced features. My #1 when i write something that needs to be beauty.
Dormouse:
I've been thinking about whther there are alternative workflows that don't include spreadsheets. The programs with storylines can use those instead, but I've not thought of another working alternative other than word processor tables, which are really a cutdown version.
The reason is keeping track of what I think of as the 'pulses'. Stuff that is there in the background, but may not often impact the narrative.
In LotR there are unsen actions by the protagonists - the party members, Sauron, Saruman - going on all the time. But there's also the ticking away of the Third Age with the Elves leaving and Sauron and ordinary men rising with the Fourth Age depending on who won - but the Elves would have left either way.
And in the Siege of Malta I mentioned in the book tread, there weere the threads of the direct actors (the commanders on both sides; different locations) and the events, but there were also other beats - the Spanish commander weighing up the possibility of reinforcements, the overall political position of the Templars, the Sultan in Constantinople, the machinations of the French, Venetians and others; and then slower beats around the Turk's thrust into Europe; and even slower with the development of oceanic trade/travel unravelling the importance of the Mediterranean and the entrepot of Venice and the Turks. The last is only mentioned a little in passing but is a fundamental part of the context. And mentioned frequently in the narrative, but without a beat, is the extensive practice of raids, piracy and enslavement which was still increasing: and because there is no beat the references consitute a source of incoherent noise and detract from rather than add to understanding.A further beat is the impact of the reformation and counter-reformation, but this is ignored and has no imapct on the narrative, although it could be argued to be an important consituent of the context.
It is easy to see how this is important in any work that proceeds with time, from the past, through the present and into the future. But it is just as important in other works that have many intertwined threads. Even if only a few are being examined then the others are part of the context for that. The only types of work where it has no use is where there is no narrative, and the work will be read in sections (eg reference books).
Ideally, it would be a corkboard, with storylines/timelines fixed below, but I don't know of anything like that.
Dormouse:
my 2 Cents when it belongs to Writing "Help and Manual" is great authoring Software -KodeZwerg (June 24, 2018, 07:24 AM)
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I don't know it at all, but looking at its features, I can see that you might be right.
But the price! ... is .. er.. very corporate; a lot of writers think it too much of a stretch to pay $40 for Scrivener.
wraith808:
my 2 Cents when it belongs to Writing "Help and Manual" is great authoring Software -KodeZwerg (June 24, 2018, 07:24 AM)
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I don't know it at all, but looking at its features, I can see that you might be right.
But the price! ... is .. er.. very corporate; a lot of writers think it too much of a stretch to pay $40 for Scrivener.
-Dormouse (June 24, 2018, 09:17 AM)
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It depends on what you're buying it for and what your writing brings in. If you're doing it for pay, then the equation changes. I know that's the reason I invested in ProWritingAid - it helped me make money, so the outlay was small in comparison to the rewards.
Dormouse:
True. But it's aimed at online help or user manuals (small market, corporate bias). May well be very competitive in that field (that's why I didn't say it was expensive). But for more general use, where it has a good range of normal features, it's feature list looks OK but nothing special. Better value in $ than € or £, but $598 is still way above most general writing programs. So may be a good choice if you already have it, but hardly enticing otherwise. Of course I don't write user manuals.
PS I have a lifetime subscription to ProWritingAid, and it was very cheap in comparison.
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