yWriter Question

[eph612]

Hello,

I'm new to the forum and I have just recently downloaded yWriter5.

I was curious if anyone else was using it, and what they thought of it.

Thanks

[Kessie]

I just use a basic word processor. :-)

[yoda47]

Yeah, I just use Word and the iOS version of Pages.

What do you like about ywriter? I've been curios about the advantages of some of those custom programs, but I'm wondering if the way my brain works if I'd be better off just sticking to a nice linear word processor...

[eph612]

So far I've just been tinkering with it. I put the first chapter of my story in it just to see what it would do. It breaks the story into chapters and scenes, so you can jump around and reorganize as you see fit. It also has you create characters, locations, and 'items' and assign them to chapters and scenes. I suppose all that data entry could be viewed as a downside. I prefer to write and draw my ideas out in my journal, but I can't say the program isn't an easy way to do world generation.

[Kessie]

My brother's busy writing a wiki to do all of his worldbuilding, and it does pretty much the same thing (and it's free!)

I've always just kept a file with all my notes and my rough outline (more of guidelines than an actual outline, hee hee) and write the story proper in chapters usually limited to about 10 pages each. Helps me to break it down into bits and jump quickly to sections that I want to work on.

[yoda47]

Kessie: that's what I do too!

I've posted before about my "wiki":

aarondemott.com/encyg/index.shtm

[eph612]

yoda47

Cool wiki. Now you've got me wondering if starting a wiki for myself would be easier. I have spent the better part of the last six years creating my universe. My problem now is making the transfer from journals and sketchbooks to digital media.
I'm also concerned that if I build a 'project' in yWriter I will have to rebuild the same information for the next one. I admit though that I haven't explored that aspect yet.

[j2starshine]

Hey! I've been curious about those writer's programs, especially the snowflake one. I've used Excel and Word, but now I've got Microsoft Office OneNote to keep my notes organized on my current WIP as well as future book ideas and anything else I keep notes of. I love it. I'm still playing with it. Let us know how it goes, eph612

[Kessie]

Admittedly, the yWriter and other software does sound fun. It'd be a fun way to do worldbuilding. I'd love a way to tag my scenes and sequels during editing.

[eph612]

Kessie,

The program does allow you to tag scenes, and break your chapters down by scene. It also lets you type a scene description that it will add to other scene descriptions and create a synopsis for you. So far I have been typing the story itself into word, and copying it to yWriter for organizing and editing. And it does have import and export abilities.

Here's the link if anyone is interested:
www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

[fluke]

I have uses yWriter for about 3 years now. It really helps with some things. Having the character list allows it to highlight character names as you go (and then you can tell at a glance that you misspelled something). The breakup into chapters and scenes is fantastic for rearranging and jumping right to the correct place when you decide to work on a different part of the story. I don't know if you can export characters into another project or if you have to reenter them. I hope it's the first, but I've got all my short stories in one project right now called simple "Prequels." For characters, I have barebones sketches of them in there. Names, nicknames, and a short description. Everything else is in my dossier files.

It will also track how many words you've added today and has a daily work log that automatically logs the number of words you added on each day since you started the project. Each chapter and scene has a word count that updates each time you save the current scene. You can see a report of how many scenes each character appears in and how many they are POV characters. I also like that you can be as detailed as you want in the scene description. There is even a place for "scene goals." You can set this as a reaction/action scene and make it a conflict or dilemma.

Yes, I like yWriter. I looked over several of theses programs, and yWriter was the best I checked.