Back in November of 2009, I attempted to write 50,000 words along with other crazy people around the world. National Novel Writing Month is every November and it’s a mad rush to the finish.
The people at Ravenshead Software sent me a full version of Write It Now 4 (WrIN4) to use during that crazy month. I didn’t get to 50,000 words this year, but I gave the software a thorough 10,000-word thrashing. The software held up well.
There are more than a few software packages out there for writers. One could spend hundreds of underpaid and overworked writer dollars on these applications. Before I delve into my review of WrIN4, just know that none of these programs will write your novel or short story for you. They can help with organization, though.
The WrIN4 application, available for Mac and Windows, is deceivingly simple. The menus and tabs are easy to understand and use, but behind these screens are added drag-and-drop features that make editing almost fun. The Tools menu has helpful things in it like “Create Random Character,” which will create a character for you based on typical story archetypes. For example, the software created the character “Alexandre” for me, and gave me this description:
“Created with the Archetypes personality data using the Character type ‘Trickster’.Alexandre needs to make people happy. He loves surprises. Recently Alexandre worked as an entertainer.
Bart in ‘The Simpsons’ is a typical example of this.
Alexandre is fairly tall. He has a cheap coat. He has smooth skin and is extremely presentable. His hair is expensively cut. Alexandre looks strong and is extremely wiry. ”
That’s probably enough to put you over the top of your writer’s block wall right there.
I could play with the Tools section all day. I particularly like the built-in Thesaurus and reading level assessment (under “Story Readability”).
I kept in close contact with Ravenshead services throughout the month of November. Here were some of the finer points that I’d like to see addressed in the software:
*Can’t add images into the text. We are now in a multi-media age. Writing software needs to catch up. There are times we writers will want to place an image, for example, a picture of a molecule, within the text. You can’t do this with WrIN4, and I don’t know if competing software can do this either.
*The + and – buttons at the bottom of the left-hand column are teeny tiny and their function was a bit confusing. What was I adding? What was I subtracting?
*The program makes you save again to exit. This is ok for most folks, but I find it annoying to have to click through another menu when I’ve already saved the document 2 seconds earlier.
Ravenshead said that they’d look into these complaints and see if they could tweak things before their update release.
One last note: I don’t think the pricing is great. It’s more expensive than Scrivener, another popular writing program (mac only, though). I think they can lower the price a bit to be a bit more competitive.
UPDATE: Jan 23, 2010: Rob from Ravenshead wrote this in an email to me:
Hi Christine
Thank you for the review of WriteItnow 4.
For the next release we’ve changed the expand/collapse tree icons so
they are less confusing.
For the release after that we’ll add an option to add photos to most tabs.
I’ll also look into smarter save options on exit. The program keeps a
constant checksum for the story which can be used to show if it has
changed (and a save is needed). We used to use this to optionally show
the ’save now?’ dialog on exit. It may be time to re-introduce this.
Regards
WOW, are the Nanowrimo.org forums are already ablaze with posts. I can’t keep up (especially since it loads so slowly).
For the uninitiated, National Novel Writing Month is November of every year. We have an on-line community at nanowrimo.org., but the community is spilling out all over in interesting ways.
Firstly, let’s talk forums. My favorite discussion thread forums at nanowrimo are Character and Plot Realism Q & A and Plot Doctoring. I like to scan and respond; I don’t post many questions myself. The level of expertise in some of the reply threads is astounding, e.g. I took two years of Latin but I couldn’t have conjugated the fictitious term “New Catholics,” as writer dingospleen did in response to writer Kateness’s question.
Secondly, I have a TON of work to do on my plot in the next few days before Nano begins. Unfortunately, I don’t have long periods of time to work, especially not in quiet. But the plot will come; I really wish I had time to make Nanowrimo videos.
Yes, a process that once depended soley on whether or not a writer had enough ink, paper and ideas is now being expanded by next generation media. Viddler has a Nanowrimo group that anyone can join, where writers talk about their projects and vent about the stress, but what is really interesting on the Nanowrimo video front is that amateur book videos are showing up on YouTube. Mostly, the videos are mashup trailers of still images, music and text, but they are great examples (here and here too) of how social media is becoming integrated in the creative process. Some of the young Nanowrimo participants on YouTube are especially attuned to Web 2.0 applications and their use in stirring interest in their projects and inspiration in themselves. Check ‘em out if you have time.
Do you NanoWriMo? Got a video? Comment and link. And don’t forget to tell us your username and your fave forums!
I’m teaching myself the art of fiction, so I expect a learning curve. Plotting BEFORE one writes is probably easier than what I’m doing, which is trying to fit a commercial plot onto what I have already written. This month I’m determined to outline the plot I’ve been working on for my novel.
My plan is to have a solid and very detailed outline of the novel before November 1st, then I can spend National Novel Writing Month writing the needed scenes. Officially, I think NANO encourages working on a new piece of work, but they mean that you must start the month with zero words and then [hopefully] finish with 50,000.
I have more than 100,000 words written for the novel, but most of them are not usable toward a finished product. Character and setting development came out of those words, so they aren’t “a waste.” A very tight, forward-moving commercial plot is what I’m after, not a long, drawn out, stream-of-consciousness mess that a lot of my 100,000+ word work currently is.
Novel writers usually fall into one of these two categories: outliners and typers. Some don’t write a word of their novel until they have an outline of the plot. Other writers concentrate on just getting some words and characters on the page and letting that stream of consciousness develop. I started this novel at NANO in 2004. I reached my first 50,000 words then, but as I kept adding to that pile, I realized my story and my plot weren’t coherent nor forward-moving. Taking part in NANO again without a detailed plot line will give more more disjointed writing. Some interesting developments may come out of it, but stream-of-consciousness gives diminishing returns after 100,000 words. If I keep writing, the story will veer so far away from my original plan that I will have to scrap it all. Already the story has to be reigned in. Hence, my need for a solid outline.
I’m running into two major problems: Being self-taught, I really don’t know how to plot, and being a full-time parent is my current occupation; it lends few opportunities for chunks of hours that I need. Changing the way I work, almost changing my whole personality, is proving to be my major roadblock. Writer’s block I don’t have, discipline-block I do. I must write in 5-minute snippets, have a palm pilot or paper handy for those small strikes of inspiration, keep the characters and their lives in my head at all times, etc. etc. A published novel and a writing career is my dream, and all of this is the tough personal work dreams require. It’s like running a marathon alone, without having trained and without even a single cheering fan. I ask myself if it is worth it everyday. There might not even be a finish line for me; publication isn’t guaranteed. But I’ll forge on. This isn’t a dream that I’m willing to give up.
"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one."
Book descriptions on alibris are a great help with getting together a logline and a book description for your own (not written or not finished) novel. A solid logline and short book description are the key starting points to effective novel-length storytelling. Once you have these in place, you can constantly refer back to them if you find yourself blocked.
Timothy Hallihan has a fantastic website about finishing your novel. Here is how he sums up the logline:
A good way to start it is with the formula, ‘this is a story about someone who . . .’ Two examples: “Hamlet” is the story (okay, okay, on one level) of a prince who comes to suspect that his father, the King, was murdered by his uncle. “Oedipus Rex” is the story of a man who tries to sidestep his destiny.
Do that with your idea and then spin it out to a hundred words or so and see (a) what it looks like, and (b) how much you actually know or don’t know about it. And don’t worry if you don’t know how it’s going to come out. It’s much more important to understand the central characters and the basic situation than it is to have the whole story plotted out. (Much more about this later.)
This month, I’ll be preparing for November’s National Novel Writing Month. For some reason, NANO gets me writing with abandon like nothing else. I started my novel at NANO in 2004, and have been working on it when time permits since. This November, I’ll be using NANO time to fill in needed scenes in the story. I found this group on Viddler, and this young lady mentioned the Snowflake method of novel-writing. Here is how the Snowflake method guy, Randy Ingermanson, talks about starting your novel-writing adventures with the creation of a logline:
Step 1) Take an hour and write a one-sentence summary of your novel. Something like this: “A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul.” (This is the summary for my first novel, Transgression.) The sentence will serve you forever as a ten-second selling tool. This is the big picture, the analog of that big starting triangle in the snowflake picture.
When you later write your book proposal, this sentence should appear very early in the proposal. It’s the hook that will sell your book to your editor, to your committee, to the sales force, to bookstore owners, and ultimately to readers. So make the best one you can!
Some hints on what makes a good sentence:
Shorter is better. Try for fewer than 15 words.
No character names, please! Better to say “a handicapped trapeze artist” than “Jane Doe”.
Tie together the big picture and the personal picture. Which character has the most to lose in this story? Now tell me what he or she wants to win.
Read the one-line blurbs on the New York Times Bestseller list to learn how to do this. Writing a one-sentence description is an art form.
Like many earnest plotters, I’ve started this process a few times. Collecting all of the descriptions and loglines that I’ve written and decidedly merging them into one solid, unchanging descriptor is my next step. I spent most of my day consolidating documents and rogue paragraphs. I hope to have this little gem of a plot-information super-highway paved and completed by the end of the month (an hour, as Mr. Ingermanson mentions, is woefully understated). Then I’ll be ready for NANO, prepared and focussed on only the scenes I need to write to finally enter the homestretch of finishing my novel.
The people at Ravenshead Software sent me a full version of Write It Now 4 (WrIN4) to use during that crazy month. I didn’t get to 50,000 words this year, but I gave the software a thorough 10,000-word thrashing. The software held up well.
The WrIN4 application, available for Mac and Windows, is deceivingly simple. The menus and tabs are easy to understand and use, but behind these screens are added drag-and-drop features that make editing almost fun. The Tools menu has helpful things in it like “Create Random Character,” which will create a character for you based on typical story archetypes. For example, the software created the character “Alexandre” for me, and gave me this description:
Tags: applications, cost, national novel writing month, novel, novel writing, programs, Right-in, software, what software should I use to write my novel, Write It Now, writer, writers 
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