I use Microsoft Word just as much as the next person, but when it comes to writing a novel it couldn’t keep up with me.
I’m a planner. I pre-write like a movie star pops pills. It’s a messy business, but fun. I could have eight documents each containing one chapter. But five alternate chapters or three of those eight would have a character’s name spelled a different way. I’d spend more time opening and closing documents trying to figure out what’d I exactly I’d previously written instead of writing new words.
That’s when I found this amazing word program called yWriter. It’s written by an Australian software programmer who is also a writer. That right there was enough motivation for me to give it a try, and let me tell you I love it. No more searching around in my documents trying to find some reference or what I said in that throw-away descriptive detail of that one character.
If you’re like me and MS Word just isn’t keeping up with you, I’d highly recommend you give this a try. It’s free, and even includes a short, introductory video that shows you how to use it.