Seeing Hugh's note about Writer's Cafe on the previous thread got me wondering why it is that there are more applications geared toward fiction writing than toward nonfiction. There are far more nonfiction books published each year (at least in the U.S., but I assume it is the same elsewhere) than books of fiction. Additionally, journalists and scholars are all writing nonfiction. So it would seem that software for nonfiction would have a broader market potential.

On the Mac side you have the following applications geared for fiction:

StoryMill
Storyist
Jer's Novel Software
Scrivener (which can be used effectively for nonfiction, but which is definitely aimed at novelists)
Writer's Cafe

On the PC side:

Liquid Story Binder
Writer's Blocks
Story Master
Writer's Cafe

(I am doing this from memory, so I know I'm forgetting some.)

There are applications that have a foot in either genre:

SuperNoteCard (PC or Mac)
Page Four (PC)
BookWriter

And, of course, there are the basic word processors.

But I can't think of one Mac-based application that is designed specifically for nonfiction. On the PC, there are IdeaMason, Nota Bene, and ndxCards.

Is the issue that fiction writing requires more specialized tools than nonfiction? Are there more "wannabe" fiction writers than nonfiction writers? Are the demands of nonfiction writing more complex and therefore harder to code (i.e. support for tables, formulas, footnotes, indices, etc...)? Or am I just not aware of or remembing the scads of software for nonfiction?

Anyway, this is just an observation and I'm curious to see what others think.

Steve

I think you're right, Steve.

Personally, I blame JK Rowling. ;-)

Fiction is an "aspirational" market, or wannabe as you say. If the market for fiction-writing software is growing, so is the market for "how-to" books. Everyone seems to think they can drop down to the local Starbucks for a few hours a week with their laptop and special software, having read Vogler, McKee or Field, and churn out a well-turned tale. But as a wise man once said: "Everybody thinks they haves a book inside them - and that's where it should stay." I am sure that the market for non-fiction writing is "real" (or whatever the opposite of "aspirational" is). And of course as you point out, non-fiction may have functionality demands that fiction does not.

Incidentally there are several more pieces of fiction software than you mention: apart from the WriteItNows, Power Structures and Power Writes, there are New Novelist, Bookwriter, MyNovel and this new one (which you may have seen elsewhere): http://code.google.com/p/bookwrite/ For factualists there are as you say only the apps you mention and in addition perhaps Tinderbox.

H

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

There are far more nonfiction books published each year (at least in the
U.S., but I assume it is the same elsewhere) than books of fiction. Additionally,
journalists and scholars are all writing nonfiction. So it would seem that software
for nonfiction would have a broader market potential.

I wonder about the distribution, if you limit it to Mac users. Screenwriters, for example, have standardized, I think, on a Mac program.

Also, fiction writing has particular demands, to which ordinary tools are poorly adapted. MindManager, for example, has a special pricey module for screenwriting. Freemind, on the other hand, advertises its suitability for writing a philosophical treatise, using only Freemind's native capacity.

Wearing my journalist hat, I find that the key piece of software for me is the one I use for data gathering and retrieval. Finding the perfect 'data dump' has been a never-ending search. For pulling it all together, a text editor will do me just fine.

For fiction, on the other hand, specialist software such as PageFour, or Movie Magic Screenwriter for scriptwriting, do help the writing and outlining process.

Although it's risky turning this one example into a broad generalization, I think many fiction writers need more help from software later in the process. With non-fiction, the information-gathering phase is where most help is needed.

Well, I suppose it is true that nonfiction is often -- though not always (think of the great true crime accounts) -- more linear than fiction, so might need less emphasis on structuring tools... so an information manager and a word processor would certainly serve one's purpose. However, there are many tasks in nonfiction that could be made much more quick and painless with the right software. I can't imagine how difficult it must be in a long history to track all the footnotes and sources. It seems to me that this in and of itself is crying out for a software... IdeaMason is built to do this arduous work, but seems too unweildy. The question is, is it the developer's lack of skill, the coding environment (I think IM uses .NET technology - notoriously clunky), or the complexity of the function that is to blame.

Perhaps, as is the case with Scrivener, Page Four and Liquid Story Binder, most of the people behind these projects are themselves aspiring novelists, and they are building the software they wish to use. (Oh, and I've thought of another application specifically for fiction writing: yWriter.)

I still find this an intriguing topic -- and one that's a little frustrating for those of us, like me, whose focus is on nonfiction writing.

Steve Z.

Mellel (on the Mac) is a programme that's often quoted as being highly suitable for non-fiction, though I haven't used it. And then there are the citation and reference managers, such as Sente and Bookends.

H

Hi.

Maybe a lot of wannabe fiction writers prefer to play around with a new writer's tool instead of write - so there is a market for this kind of procrastinator's tools. ;-)

Franz (who owns licences to Scrivener, Ulysses, IdeaMason and PageFour but uses only Scrivener on a regular basis)

I think one application that should definitely be mentioned more in these types of conversations is biblioscape, which is similar to ideamason (if perhaps not quite as finished) but is not nearly so clunky. Version 7 really is pretty impressive, and the addition of the "composition" panel means that it may be close to becoming the kind of integrated writing/research platform that so many of us have dreamed about. I also think that many users of this forum would be impressed with use of hierarchically sorted categories to tag data, including references and notes.

I actually think that the writing tools for fiction writers are equally useful for nonfiction, with one caveat: they don't do footnotes. This is the sticking point for me with all these applications with the exception of Scrivener. For all the problems with MS Word, at least it deals with footnotes smoothly. All the applications that I know of for the PC which would give better outlining capabilities don't do footnotes. There are work arounds for this when in the drafting stage, but once I produce an actual draft in MS Word, there is no way to import it back to the outliner, without losing footnotes. Since I am constantly producing drafts, which I then need to reorganize, this makes all these products useless as writing environments. Page Four and Whizfolders would be awesome writing programs for me if they allowed me to produce a draft with footnotes and/or export and import seamlessly to Word with footnotes.

So, I use word 2007, biblioscape to organize and format references, and my notes are spread among Onenote, Zoot, and Biblioscape. (Not an ideal solution!) If I were starting over from scratch, I would buy a Mac. I would write in Scrivener, keep my references in Zotero, and keep my research notes in Devonthink, and output final drafts in Word.

One of the draws for Devonthink is that it seems to deal with pdf files more powerfully than PC programs, but this might just be a case of the grass seeming greener on the other operating system.

Matt

Matty wrote:

Page Four and Whizfolders would
be awesome writing programs for me if they allowed me to produce a draft with footnotes
and/or export and import seamlessly to Word with footnotes.

After sadly giving up on Notemap (long after Casesoft did, it seems) and deciding that MyInfo just wasn't quite set up to be a writing tool, I've been working seriously with PageFour for about the last month.

There's a lot to like about it-- I prefer its simplicity to the complexity of Liquid Story Binder or Idea Mason- but like Matty, I'm also frustrated by several weaknesses.

Navigation in the outline pane is clumsy and non-intuitive. I'm constantly rearranging blocks of text as I write, and the process is needlessly cumbersome. What's worse, there seems to be no way of merging or splitting pages.

Several important tools are missing from the command set- global search and replace, change case, and a few others that will come to me after I post. The password function may or may not work- I have not been able to get it working.

There's no ability to insert graphics into a page (at least, I have not found one) - and when I'm writing an illustrated piece, that can be helpful.

Given some improvements, I think I could be happy with Page Four. It's close to what I want... just not quite there.

Add StoryView ( http://www.screenplay.com/p-32-storyview.aspx ) to the list of fiction-oriented writing software. I find it quite overpriced ($180 for the download-only version) and the academic license only saves you 20 bucks. It also hasn't been updated in a few years --perhaps it's a 'dog' product for its company like Notemap is for Casesoft.

That said, it does offer a unique and powerful feature, viewing/editing either in timeline (horizontal) or outline (vertical) mode, which I would propably find indispensable if I wrote fiction. As it is, I have actually managed to surpass my CRIMP tendencies in this case; I installed its (non-expiring) demo version two years ago and still haven't bought the software!

Alexander

Matty wrote:

One of the
draws for Devonthink is that it seems to deal with pdf files more powerfully than PC
programs, but this might just be a case of the grass seeming greener on the other
operating system.

In my experience you are right -- Devonthink does handle PDFs better than PC programs. In fact, most all of the information managers for Mac do. In most cases you can "print" any page of material as a PDF to DT or any other information manager. This is inherent in the Mac OS, I think. And it is really handy.

Steve

In my experience you are right --
Devonthink does handle PDFs better than PC programs. In fact, most all of the
information managers for Mac do. In most cases you can "print" any page of material as a
PDF to DT or any other information manager. This is inherent in the Mac OS, I think. And
it is really handy.

Steve

With academic publishing largely adopting the pdf format as standard, for me, this goes beyond handy. The ability to read, comment on, and copy sections of pdf files and save them as notes seems utterly crucial for modern research. I am really excited to use Skim (when someone hires me and I can justify buying a new computer.)

Another Mac program that some people use for fiction writing is Journler http://journler.com/ It has many devoted users and a responsive developer. I think it was originally designed with keeping a journal and writing in mind, but has developed into one of the top-rated information management programs for the Mac. (See for example: http://danieljomphe.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/8-web-information-collectors-reviewed/ )

I have relied more on Scrivener, but purchased Journler because I can already see its usefulness for gathering information and making notes. It has smart folders and smart folder families, and is really set up well for tagging.

Randall