Having seen much praise for Scrivener, and since I own a compatible computer, I thought I’d give it a spin. After a trial period it seemed to offer quite a bit that I would find valuable and I bought a licence. Subsequently I began to find it over-complicated. The PDF manual is huge and not always easy to navigate; the settings and menu system are likewise something of a maze. In the end, I realised that Scrivener is not for me. In so doing I finally crystallised what I want from a computer as far as writing fiction is concerned, and am listing my desiderata here in case you find them helpful.
1. A distraction-free editor with easy export of text to other software.
2. Complete control over the font, line spacing, line width, text colour and background colour.
3. Cross-platform compatibility.
4. Word count.
5. Spellchecker.
6. An outliner or some other means of organising notes in a tree system, with the option of collapsing branches to make the whole structure easier to comprehend.
7. A spreadsheet to calculate and keep track of dates as they appear in the narrative, so that I won’t make mistakes with characters’ ages, etc.; and to be sure that a certain date is a Sunday, or whatever. For one book I even used a spreadsheet to plot phases of the moon.
Scrivener covers all these except 3 (it is no longer available for Linux) and 7, of course. Whatever else it has to offer I do not need. Others’ requirements may be different and I am by no means knocking Scrivener here: it is a powerful, well-supported piece of software and many writers love it.
I migrated from a typewriter to a computer in 1984, using the BASIC editor that came with the Acorn Electron! Each line of text was a numbered line in a ‘BASIC’ program; pressing the Return key generated a new line. Having perfected the text, I would type the whole thing out. This was marginally better than typing directly on paper because I could correct mistakes as I went and was no longer subjected to the perfectionist typist’s mounting fear as the end of the page approaches.
As you might imagine, the process was laborious and I was pleased when Acorn released a word-processor for that machine. It was called VIEW and was rudimentary by today’s standards. In editing mode it offered a screen blank except for two lines at the top. It almost qualified as a distraction-free editor.
From Acorn machines I went to DOS. There my preferred editor was XyWrite III Plus. This was a full featured word-processor using a command line and, once you had learned the keystrokes, macros and commands your use-case required, it too gave you, much like VIEW, a transparent and mostly distraction-free environment.
I never got on with Windows and bought my first Macintosh in 2003. Microsoft Word was the best option at the time; subsequently I tried other word processors and wasn’t really happy with them either.
That changed for me in 2014 with my discovery of FocusWriter, which then ran on Mac OS X as well as Windows and Linux. (Version 1.7.6 still runs on Apple Silicon, but not for much longer; I am using it now under Tahoe 26.5.1. The next update of macOS will render it unusable). Later releases are for Linux and Windows only, which is all right by me because my principal writing machine is a Linux laptop running Mint. FocusWriter is in the repository and easy to install.
I have already raved about FocusWriter here and here, so largely speaking this is a rehash of those two posts, updated for anyone thinking of converting to Scrivener.
FocusWriter ticks boxes 1 to 5 above, except for Mac compatibility. Number 6 is taken care of by the CherryTree outliner. This again is Open Source and in the repository. Downloads are available for Windows and Mac. It is easy to use but feature-rich, and is an ideal adjunct to FocusWriter. With it one can create a collapsible synopsis, keep notes on characters and locations, etc., and store chunks of text deleted from one’s draft which might contain material of use later. These functions are true of almost any outliner: I don’t know whether CherryTree runs on Apple Silicon. If not, some alternatives are described here. In this place I ought to mention Obsidian and other Zettelkasten-like software, but that is a rabbit-hole you may not want to go down.
The spreadsheet I use is LibreOffice Calc, also Open Source and free to use. This is available for Linux, Windows and Mac and is hands-down the best spreadsheet for, as it were, lay use. Microsoft Excel probably has more functions, but I understand that Calc is very close behind.
So there you have it. A free and Open Source, potential alternative to Scrivener for some writers, which, with the possible exception of the outliner, works without a hitch on Windows, Linux and Intel-based Macs (and, for FocusWriter, those modern Macs running Tahoe 26.5.1 or below).
4 comments:
Hi Mr Herley, I’ve been reading through your library for some time now, in between hectic life, and I’m always hooked! I’m approaching the end of Adrian’s Wall (100 or so pages to go), and have loved it. It’s strange, because some of your novels are so far removed from what I would normally enjoy, which would typically be more along the lines of The Penal Colony or The Talisman, but their sense of place and character always just sucks me in. So just wanted to say thank you for that.
I’ll be going on holiday soon, travelling down from Scotland to Caister-on-Sea for the second time with my wife and daughter and look forward to seeing, what I now refer to mentally, as your neck of the woods again.
Anyway, in reference to your article above, I wanted to tell you I’ve written my first novel, and part of it was inspired by the way you approach your work, eschewing the traditional publishing route and just continuing on regardless. My skills over English and grammar are only what I have from high school, or my enjoyment of reading, so if I could actually get a literary agent, and thus an editor interested, it would likely turn their hair white, but I’m trying not to worry about that too much, I care more about whether I was actually able to tell a story, so will see what comes of that.
And how does this relate to your article above you ask? I wrote the entire thing in Notes on my phone!
Needs must, and some days I felt like I’d be lucky to have thirty minutes to myself, but over the course of a year, I somehow managed to create a 290k monstrosity of a vampire novel, inspired by my love of 80’s movies, video games, Stephen King and all the other things that make it so unlikely I would have been as enthralled by Adrian’s Wall as I have been. I then copy and pasted them over to Reedsy, which has proven quite useful if writing on a smartphone is to be the way I wish to continue for writing my intended sequel. Only one person has read my book, a good friend, who helped me correct some typo’s etc as he read through it (I absolutely refuse to let AI anywhere near it and would rather have mistakes).
Anyway, I hope you are keeping well, I just woke up this morning and felt compelled to share with you, in the only way I can, since my attempts to have you sign up to social media on one of your other blog posts quite some time ago, received the refusal they deserved. They really are a toxic cesspool, I allow myself a glance at the ones I have on my phone once a day, and then never look at them again.
I look forward to finishing your library, I have three to go, and also whatever is next!
Kind regards, Adam (AJ Williams is my intended author name).
Apologies, just realised I referred to Refuge as The Talisman! The front cover image was etched in my mind, and it’s been a while.
Thanks for your very kind words, much appreciated. The world of agents and publishing has been transformed since I was last in it (mid 90s), and not for the better. Even then it was pretty ghastly for a writer who wasn’t churning out best-sellers. For a newcomer to get published today requires either some sort of personal recommendation or phenomenal luck: agents are overwhelmed with submissions. Then if one’s book largely satisfies the orthodoxy du jour, it might even be favourably enough regarded by a publisher that he stumps up a miserable sum of money as an advance. The book is then subjected to a ‘sensitivity reader’ (probably with blue hair and a nose-ring) who combs through it for anything likely to offend anyone, anywhere, with predictable results. Either the author submits to this humiliation and makes the changes demanded or he has to send the money back.
Since most working writers make less than anybody else, really, who is in a job, it seems to me pointless to subject oneself to agents and publishers. There are far more remunerative ways to sell one’s soul. Any serious writer writes essentially for himself, anyway, while hoping that others find his work entertaining or instructive, or of some value at least. The advent of easy self-publishing on the internet lets me do this; I am no good at self-promotion, but even if I were, a proportion of the fruits of that effort would go to Rachel Reeves to be spaffed up the wall, so why bother?
‘If you enjoy writing, go ahead and do it’ is my motto, and forget about fame and fortune. So good luck with your monster (see what I did there) novel, which, at 290K words, wouldn’t even be considered from a new author by an agent.
And yes indeed, Notes is a much underestimated app.
Enjoy the holiday!
You made me smile with your response, a sensitivity reader would have a field day with me, I imagine, or like to hope, that I would cause more than a few dizzy spells, if they didn’t outright fall from their chair. As you said in an earlier blog, the world is knee deep in filth, and while I imagine my novel does add to it, I like to think it has much more of a scathing social commentary, than mere exploitation for the sake of it.
Your fury with the banks and corporations, are probably what draw me in to your books so much, as I share those feelings, but I also aim some of my vitriol at the fact you walk through some of the wealthiest parts of Edinburgh, and see the forgotten homeless on the street, and also towards the woefully inadequate justice system, that sees perpetrators of monstrous crimes not even see a day in a prison cell.
My main character is jaded, emotionally broken and at times completely insane, but offered me a sort of therapy, which I couldn’t quite believe. I’ve wanted to try to write a story for years, and when I just went for it, I couldn’t believe how much of an outlet it offered. A place to pour my anguish at the world, characters I could hand over some of the things I’ve been through to, and also a way to make myself smile when I thought, ‘that’s maybe a step too far, let’s just go for it anyway!’ And the way time passed! I think my record was writing for 13 hours, stopping only to eat and drink, and it went by as if I was in a dream. It was incredible. But by the time I finished my 2nd draft in January, I was mentally exhausted, and haven’t written since. I told myself I’d give myself until 2027, and may still, as the time goes so fast anyway.
Anyway, I have rambled on because it made me very happy to receive your reply, and to be able to sit and chat with someone who has brought me hours upon hours of pleasure, is quite something. I believe I shall self publish, I should do it sooner rather than later, but I just feel like I’ll know when the time is right. Maybe when I start writing the sequel, regardless of if anyone wants it or not, I want to see where it goes next.
I fully intend to enjoy the holiday, although I don’t handle the heat too well, and we have a lovely band of drizzle constantly passing over and keeping things tolerable up here for now!
Kind regards,
Adam
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