Do Writing App.s Help the Writing Process?

Writer Pro and Scrivener are two word processing apps that take different routes to the same destination: are well written, expertly punctuated and edited manuscript. They both recognise that good writing involves a process starting with an idea and ending up with a reader.

Being a bit of a gadget man, I decided to road test both programmes to see which one is the most helpful. I tried Scrivener first: Scrivener boasts that it was produced by writers for writers and, though a little complex to understand straight out of the box, does follow the stages that most writers use. There is a cork board to pin your ideas on; a word processing mode to get those words down on paper; and finally, a manuscripting tool to put the whole thing together in a professional package, ready to submit to your eager publisher.

The cork-board idea is pretty straightforward: a digital version of the wall above your writing desk where you stick your Post-It notes. Just like a “real” board, you can edit and reorder the notes as you wish, a pretty useful gadget for plotting and drafting scenes, particularly is you are like me, you use and iPad as your writing notebook. I am banned from sticking anything to the wall after that incident with the ripped wallpaper.

Now to get that idea into words while avoiding distractions. The word processing mode goes much further those provided by either Microsoft or Apple. It includes some useful features that probably exist in Word or Apple's Pages, such as breaking your story into sections and chapters, but I have never bothered to find out how to do them. They are usually tucked away in hidden menus accessible only to the geeks that wrote the program. Whereas, Scrivener provides ready formatted chapters, scenes and sub-scenes for you to structure the work at the touch of the easy to find button. And, if you decide that that middle chapter should now smite your reader in the face as soon as they turned the first page, you can easily drag and drop each any element elements of your book into a new position, as you edit and reformulate. The real beauty is that you can visually keep track of the changes that you have made and you never lose anything.

If you prefer to just write until you drop without thinking about chapters, Scrivener allow you to block-select text later and make the selection into a separate chapter.

In addition to all this help with your actual composing, there is a place for your research: a sort of box file into which you can shove cutting, extracts and even web pages.

Finally, when your masterpiece is ready to go, press compile and all those sections and chapters are neatly assembled into the finished manuscript along with a cover page showing your important contact details, even your agents number and email (I should be so lucky). The really clever bit in this last stage is that Scrivener allows you to choose the format of your finished MS, such as Paperback, EBook or straightforward PDF.

Now, let’s take a look at Writer Pro: Writer Pro has many of the features boasted by Scrivener but goes for the stripped back, uncluttered approach. If like me and have a somewhat compromised attention span, then it does what I wants it to do: keeps me focussed on the my writing. In fact, when in Writing mode, there is nothing else on the screen but the gleaming evidence of your literary genius. No banner or menus to draw your attention away from the page, just a box on the right-hand side marked, “Workflow” showing which mode; Note, Write, Edit, or Read.

But how does it deal with the other writing stages? Well, very well I think. The most recent incarnation has moved away from what they referred to as a River mode to a Note-Write-Edit-Read schema.

The idea being that you rattle your notes out before going onto to write the piece in detail. Once you have your words down on the screen, you press the button for edit and can go through each sentence one at time. Again, the idea is to keep you focussed with only the sentence you are working on highlighted. In this modes you can check your syntax, verbs, nouns, prepositions and so on simply by clicking the appropriate button. More straight forward editing such as spell checking is taken care of by automated check-as-you-go system. Ever red line appears underneath the word, simply right clicking provides you with usually, the appropriate correction. Personally, I have found this ok to use, provided that you check the edit carefully, recent email to my solicitor assured him that I had circumcised his original instructions.

The final mode with Writer Pro is “Read”. This locks the document so that you are unable to edit any further. Don’t worry, you can simply push the slider back to unlock it to view need to. What they are trying to achieve here is that, “put it in the draw for 48 hours before you look at it again” part of the writing process, so that you are simply experiencing your manuscript as close to the way your reader will see it as possible.

My overall opinion? It depends on how you prefer to write. If you need to steer clear distractions, get stuff down on the screen, Writer Pro wins. If you take a more systematic method and like to plan and plot carefully before putting pen to paper or, more accurately, fingers to keyboard, then Scrivener is probably for you.

I suspect Writer Pro has the advantage as well if you need a little assistance with your style. I do find the way it can pick out my excessive adverbs really helpful, others might find this simply a rotating and “style cramping”.

An added point for those of you who move across multiple platforms is that WordPro has a fully functioning version for iPad and iPhone that updates all you devizes to the most recent version of your work enabling you work more or less anywhere. Scrivener prefers to sit on just one device, but there again it is more powerful.

Have you tried either both or any other programme, and do they help of hinder your writing process?