National
Novel Writing Month is almost upon us! To help you prepare, I want to talk
about my favorite writing tool and the best ways to make it work for you this
November: Scrivener, the best word processing program out there.
Anyone
who has tried to write a novel using Microsoft Word knows that it’s not
designed for long projects. Moving a chunk of text from one part of the
document to another is a frustrating exercise in copy-and-paste. Looking at two
scenes side-by-side involves a lot of clicking between windows. Referencing
research materials means sorting through documents in other programs.
In
general, Word is a clunky, cumbersome program that just isn’t suited for big
projects like novels, or for writers who don’t work in a strictly linear
fashion. Microsoft Word assumes that everyone writes in chronological order,
from beginning to end; Scrivener makes no assumptions at all. It’s designed to
work around you, not the other way around.
Scrivener
has tons of features, and I certainly use many more than the five I detail
here, but these are the ones I think will be most useful during NaNoWriMo.
Note: I’m not
associated with Scrivener in any way, and I’m not getting any kickbacks or
anything of the kind. I’m just in love with this program. I even wrote this
blog post in Scrivener! It transformed the way I write, and I think everybody
should at least give it a try and see what it can do for them.
