Best writing software for first drafts?

[Colin Mulhern]

I've asked about this before and spent the past year or so playing. Now I've got the answer... well, I've my own personal take on things.

For those who want to skip the vid, it's basically why I prefer Google Docs to Scrivener, and how Docs can imitate (and improve upon) some of the cool features of Scrivener.


Colin M

 

[Amber]

....a pencil with an eraser?

Hahahaha ... having so much fun today.

 

[Amber]

To be SERIOUS. I've used Scrivener and Word. I like using both. In Word I use templates and you can use the template to navigate around the document. It works really well. I like Scrivener too but I agree ... sometimes ... so many bells and whistles ... if you're someone like me who likes to see what things do ... a lot of time is spent just pushing buttons. Also, I don't like how it exports sometimes. That's sort of a pain.

In Scrivener you don't HAVE to make a separate file or scene for each chapter or whatever.

Most everything you described Google Docs capable of Word does just as easily.

 

[Colin Mulhern]

Word is a better, more powerful and faster program than Docs, no doubt about that, but I got so sick of losing stuff, and I really like the cross platform/mobile aspect of Docs.

Then again, perhaps part of the reason my Word crashes is because it's from 2007, but there's no way I'm going to pay a subscription when all I'll use of Office is a Word processor. I've never quite warmed to Libre Office, but I know a lot of you in here love it.

 

[Emily]

I use Word. I used Google Docs and then went to stay at a monastery in order to write, but the internet access was APPALLING and I couldn't access docs at all. But I keep everything on a usb key now after losing stuff over and over (waaaaah)

 

[Matnov]

Horse for courses I guess. Looked at Scrivener but not for me.

I tend to write first and second drafts in Google Docs or until I have a story with a beginning, middle and end I am happy(ish) with. Then I switch to Word for a variety of reasons but primarily because I can then start sending drafts to my kindle, read and make notes, then edit on Word before repeating the process again, multiple times. A little longwinded but works for me.

 

[Amber]

Word is a better, more powerful and faster program than Docs, no doubt about that, but I got so sick of losing stuff, and I really like the cross platform/mobile aspect of Docs.

Then again, perhaps part of the reason my Word crashes is because it's from 2007, but there's no way I'm going to pay a subscription when all I'll use of Office is a Word processor. I've never quite warmed to Libre Office, but I know a lot of you in here love it.

I can understand that. I was guilty of confusing myself because I liked to network all the computers in my house ... all the devices in my house ... and then make sure I could access what I was writing on every single one of them. I also often switched from my mac to my windows pc. Since I've started sticking to one computer and keeping it in one spot ... things have gone better. I don't get confused and forget which cloud I put things on.

I'm not sure the clouds live up to their promise of ease and smooth access everywhere anywhen as advertised.

Oh ... and yeah ... Word doesn't make it easy for people with old versions. Isn't that subscription thing an expensive development? I wouldn't pay the subscription but I'm lucky and was given MSOffice by an anonymous donor (sort of tongue in cheek).

 

[Tim James]

Word for me, but only after I have written it all out longhand in spiral bound notebooks with a pencil (remember them?). I just can't do first drafts straight to the computer, I end up correcting, changing, editing all the time instead of getting it all down which breaks the flow of thoughts.
But once I have the first draft written out then typing in is done on Word and probably always will be. Whether I will go "to the cloud" eventually remains to be seen, I'm quite sceptical about that development. The small print on all of these cloud storage services say a lot of rather worrying things like they don't guarantee that it will be there the next time you try to access it and they take no responsibility for it being corrupted or plagiarised.

 

[David Weller]

I'm the complete opposite to @Tim James. I can't create a draft of anything using just pen and paper.

My first draft of Truthseeker was completed as a Word document. After months of painful editing by eye, I invested in a programme called Master Edit. This enabled me to select text (anything from a single page to a whole chapter or several) and check it for a number of different things. These include highlighting examples of weak words/phrases, repeated words/phrases, conjunctions, WH words, words ending in -ing etc. Whilst it isn't capable of telling you when something needs changing it does save a lot of time and effort, not to mention your eyesight.

These days I tend to have 2 versions of each manuscript. The first is a Word document formatted as it would be for submission to a literary agent. The other is in a book template downloaded from Createspace. Here the text appears as it would in a completed 5 x 8 paperback. The beauty of this is that when you can no longer see the wood for the trees in one format, you can switch to the other. You do, however, need to highlight any changes you make and transfer them over to the other draft.

 

[Webbwalker]

Pages, on my laptop. Back it up on Dropbox. Anything else is way too complicated for me.

 

[Andrew Marsh]

I use Word. This with a good notebook and a spreadsheet of the characters details, plot lines and so on is all I need. I have looked at software packages but to be honest they just confuse me and try to force me down a route I don't want to take.
Just be organised and take notes and Word will work fine for you.