)O( Tea Witch’s Musings )O(

I just read a bit of writing advice that advised me that walked, turned and crossed are dead verbs.  I’ll admit it.  I’ve used these common verbs in my own writing.  I probably will again.  It’s hard to write a 100,000 manuscript without anyone walking, turning or crossing a room.  But minutes after reading this article, I read a bit of a fantasy story submitted to a critique group.   My congratulations to the writer.  No one walked, turned or crossed.  No, they slithered, slipped and scrambled.  And that was in the first fifty words.  After wading through a few paragraphs of these “living” verbs, I longed for a simple walked, turned or crossed.  Simple words serve a purpose.  They allow the other words to stand out against the background.   Without them the story can feel over-written. 

Read the advice.  But tell the story.

Lulu.com has come up with a titlescorer that predicts if your book will be a bestseller.  They offer statistical evidence that a book is judged by its title, if not its cover, but I’m a bit leery.  I tested “Tea and Witchery” and came up in the 35% range.  Which is right where “Lord of the Rings” scored when I ran it through the tool. Does this mean Orlando Bloom is going to play the part of Patrick in the movie version?  Anyway to test your title go to:

Love this one.  It has two part.  Writer’s Cafe which has lots of fun tools like a notebook, a journal, a scrapbook area,  and even a solitaire game (40 Thieves).  You know it had to be created by a writer if it includes a solitaire game.  The other part is Storylines.  Storylines is an electronic corkboard that lets me break my novel into scenes then arrange those scenes in columns (chapters) and rows (lines). 

The corkboard feature has already helped me move forward on one of the fantasy novels.  I broke down all the scenes and started arranging them.  I can color code the cards, which I do for different POVs.  I can view word count for a card, a column, line or the entire novel.  I can generate a report that pulls the book into one document, but I can also preview it as a text or web page if I just want to see how it’s flowing. 

As usual, this one has a free preview.  But I loved it so much, I had to buy it.  It’s a third the price of Writer’s Blocks with many more features. 

What it won’t do.  It won’t ask you lots of questions to lead you through the development of a novel.  It won’t make you break things down into plot points or three act plays.  It does come with an online book about novel writing.  Hey, be adventurous and write without training wheels.

Writer’s Blocks lets me put my scenes in separate blocks (think electronic 3X5 cards) and rearrange them on the screen.  Then with a couple clicks, I all my blocks turn into one document.  I can color code blocks and print just certain columns.  I can even turn my word documents into blocks by triple spacing between sections.  All very neat and it works the way I write. 

The problem?  Well, for the hefty price tag (over $100), I’d like more features.  There is no place to track characters or locations,  no image storing ability.  For many of my stories, I have pictures that I use for reference or just inspiration and I’d love to be able to keep them handy. 

For shuffling scenes around, Writer’s Blocks is a great, but pricey, tool.  But I suspected I could do better, and I did. 

Hmm, just saw an email for a writing group were someone recommends a software called Write Rite which “checks your manuscript as you go.”  I’m not sure what it checks the manuscript for because I can’t find Write Rite on any writing software listing.  The name bothers me.  Oh, no, it’s not incorrect.  If you write liturgical rites for a church, then you write rite.  Otherwise, you probably don’t write rite. 

I have a few more software choice to blog, but I’ve found the one I want. 

You can vote for Tea and Witchery on the 2005 Preditors and Editors poll here:
VOTE.

Power Structure or StoryMind on steriods.  Of course the price reflects that.  This one is a bit pricy but it comes with all sort of  tabs and selections.  I can create characters and all sorts of details for each character.  It even has a drop down where I’m supposed to input education level for my characters.  Not really useful for fantasy writers since it doesn’t include selections for wizard school or apprenticed out to craft guild.

If you write from an outline, this is probably a dream program.   It even has something called Gestalt View.  Gestalt view shows me the story in three acts with chapters in each act and plot points in each chapter, all leading to the plot.  Of course to make this work, I have to input my story into Power Structure plot point by plot point.  Ain’t gonna happen. 

The free trial limits you to twenty plot points.  If you create more than twenty plot points, this is probably the software for you. 

Today is Liquid Story Binder day.  I like the name, sort of a fluid quality.  Liquid Story Binder (LSB) is very different from Story Mind.  LSB doesn’t lead you through the process of writing a story, it just gives you a space to write one.  This is a combination of a word processing program and a file management system.  It lets you build a story chapter by chapter and helps merge and format those chapters into a single book. 

LSB has some nice features.  I can keep a list of reference notes, an outline and even images for each chapter.  I can open the things I like and arrange them on my desktop and save that layout.  It backs up frequently and automatically and will even give my statistics on writing. 

But LSB has some downsides.  I can’t open more than one chapter at a time.  This isn’t good since frequently work with more than one chapter open  in my word processor.  It would let me create subcategories with reference notes and associate them with the book instead of the chapters.  So I can’t create category called Characters for my book and put notes on all my characters under that.  It won’t open more than one reference note, outline or other item at a time. 

Overall, the file management systems helps organize multiple books and all the associated chapters better than Microsoft.  The note and images are a nice feature.  The chapter builder feature has potential.  The word processing features should help a writer put a basic manuscript together for submission to a publisher. 

This one is great for those who need help organizing their chapters and stories and want to spend about $50 for a good system.  Probably not worth the expense for a new author who doesn’t have at least three of four works-in-progress.  Since it has a 30 day free trial, it’s worth checking out if it sounds right for you.  But alas, I haven’t yet found my ideal writing software.  The search continues. 

I’m struggling to keep all my writing projects straight so I’ve decided to test some of the writing programs out there.  Most provide free downloads, so I’ll provide free opinions.  Tonight is Storymind.  Storymind asks you lots of questions which it feels will let you write a story.  If you’ve never written a story before, this might be the software for you.  If you like to plan your book down to the most finite details before writing the actual story, you’ll love it.  It was developed by the same people who did the Dramatica software, and it shows in the three act structure layout.  It’s relatively inexpensive and comes with lots of bonuses.  But it doesn’t do a thing for me.  I’m giving this one a pass.