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Fiction vs. Nonfiction writing/software
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Posted by Hugh
Sep 3, 2008 at 06:50 PM
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
Posted by Franz Grieser
Sep 3, 2008 at 07:50 PM
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)
Posted by Matty
Sep 3, 2008 at 09:07 PM
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
Posted by Bob Mackreth
Sep 3, 2008 at 10:52 PM
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.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 4, 2008 at 08:28 AM
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