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Hilda

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on: May 22, 2022, 07:19:07 AM
In another topic there was a discussion about ways of stripping line breaks from Kristen Archive stories.

https://www.kristensboard.com/forums/index.php?topic=76322

That got me thinking about the tools I use in my own work, and how they’ve changed over time.

My first word processor was WordStar on an IBM clone + MS-DOS. Next came WordPerfect, then Microsoft Word on an Apple computer. (I made the move to Mac OS because in those days it was the only system with multilingual support.)

Since then I’ve tried and discarded at least a dozen applications—too many to list.

Currently I’m using Nisus Writer Pro, Mellel, and Pages.

All three support exporting files to .pdf, .epub, and .docx format, but for more control over book formats I use an application called Vellum.

However, these days I find myself using the heavy-duty word processors less and less.

I used to be obsessive about having total control over typography, but that’s changed. I can’t anticipate what other people will use to read my files. It could be a giant 27” monitor, or a tablet, or a smartphone.

So I now rely on a fully-featured text editor called BBEdit to generate Text or Markdown content, and then leave it to a content management system to convert the files to .html.

If I need to output as .docx or .epub or some other format, I use an  command-line tool called Pandoc.

I’d love to hear what software other KB members use when writing stories.



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Reply #1 on: May 22, 2022, 07:57:14 AM
I have become sensitive to input lag, that always has been a thing with more complex text editors, and being a coder too, not just a writer, I already have a text editor I enjoy called notepad++ where I do most of my writing, it has syntax highlighting and spell checking, if I want that, but for writing and reading stories I prefer as plain text as I can get, so I just write in notepad++, if I want to do anything fancy I can do that later in libreoffice, or other programs that can read .txt files, and if any editor can't handle .txt files it is not worth installing it anyway.

Notepad++ is also nice since it runs just fine on my potato (read ancient) computer, so that is also a reason why I want something light. It also does tabs and handles even large text files for me just fine, a few of my stories have gotten larger than megabytes of plaintext in a single file. Putting that into word or other clumsy heavy programs would just murder the potato computer right away, from past experiences :)

I also sometimes put things into google docs, but mostly when I want to share it with multiple people not belonging to a site in particular, and usually I still write in notepad++ before putting it in google docs.

I am not sure how many people feel like getting that low down with no formatting or anything, I mean markdown files are sort of that way too if you don't have a fancy editor for them.

I also tend to write html and php and javascript and other code in notepad++ not fancy ide programs, again due to how much lag all the bells and whistles cause, I mean yes it is cool to get an api reference while typing code, but not if it takes half a second for each word written to finish.

For that reason when I am writing fast I also sometimes turn off spell checking, to not slow down the experience.

In ancient times with even more ancient computers I even sometimes typed so fast that the computers would end up beeping due to too much input at once, at least my potato does not do that, I may have gotten a bit slower with age though :)



Offline LtBroccoli

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Reply #2 on: May 22, 2022, 08:19:35 AM
Though all my stuff is over at RavishU, I use Word for Mac for all my narrative and final editing.  I've thought about Notepad++ for a while but my workflow is okay right now.

When I write a screenplay, I now do it in Final Draft 12.  I treated myself a year or so ago to a dedicated screenplay software. I've written quite a few screenplays over at RU, that is the kind of writing I grew up on.  I used to use a MS Word template for the screenplays but when I was getting to full feature length and tv series length stuff, I bought myself a birthday present and went with Final Draft.  Not to brag, but I can bust out a TV episode's equivalent in a day or two with Final Draft when I'm in the mood.  I did an entire TV series equivalent with Lake Hiawatha in less than 2 months of active writing.  600 pages in Final Draft.  That comes out to an entire TV series for one story.

I bring everything back to Word for final editing, then do a read through and final readthrough once it's ready to post.

If there's any typos, I'm currently 7 drinks into the night.  Sorry about that.

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Hilda

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Reply #3 on: May 25, 2022, 09:05:24 AM
I am not sure how many people feel like getting that low down with no formatting or anything, I mean markdown files are sort of that way too if you don't have a fancy editor for them.

When John Gruber published his Markdown specifications, my reaction was lukewarm. I didn't see the need to use something like *italics* when <i>italics</i> would do. I've been proved very, very wrong and am now a Markdown evangelist. Perhaps I should say 'purist' because I'm not too enthusiastic about the numerous flavors of Markdown that have been created to deal with some of the limitations in plain-vanilla Markdown.

For me, the biggest weakness of md is using two spaces to force a line break. You can't see them on the screen, which kind of defeats the idea of markup with visual feedback.



Hilda

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Reply #4 on: May 25, 2022, 09:13:28 AM
When I write a screenplay, I now do it in Final Draft 12.  I treated myself a year or so ago to a dedicated screenplay software. I've written quite a few screenplays over at RU, that is the kind of writing I grew up on.

I’ve never attempted to write a traditionally formatted screenplay. Consequently I'm seriously impressed that you're using a heavy-duty tool like Final Draft.

Does it help you keep track of characters and timelines?




Offline LtBroccoli

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Reply #5 on: May 25, 2022, 07:02:29 PM
When I write a screenplay, I now do it in Final Draft 12.  I treated myself a year or so ago to a dedicated screenplay software. I've written quite a few screenplays over at RU, that is the kind of writing I grew up on.

I’ve never attempted to write a traditionally formatted screenplay. Consequently I'm seriously impressed that you're using a heavy-duty tool like Final Draft.

Does it help you keep track of characters and timelines?

Thanks.  The hardest part about doing a screenplay is formatting it to look like a screenplay on these forums.  I'm a much more visually focused and dialog centric writer so showing emotions and witty banter is much easier in a screenplay.  My most recent one is VETO: A Club of Chester County Story (MF, M+F, oral, anal, rape, bond, drug, cons, viol).  When doing a screenplay I spend much more time formatting and editing but it is much faster for me to write that way.  I wrote VETO in less than 8 hours and it's 15k words.  Using Final Draft makes it even faster because a lot of the formatting is automated or mouse-free inputs, like pressing enter to change from dialog to character to action to slug line.

I barely scratch the surface with what it can do and it makes tracking characters and timelines so much easier.  There's a feature in it where you can generate reports on pretty much anything and dive deep into the details.  For characters, I can pull up each a report of each character name, assign attributes like gender, description, locations, relationships, etc., then run reports on those.  Need to know how many women are in the story?  Need to know if you've used a name already?  How many times did you misspell a name or location? Do you have enough minorities in your screenplay?  Who said they're afraid of midgets? Who talks the most?  Who needs a line of dialog to get paid as an actor and not an extra?  Who is in what scene?  When do two characters interact?  You can search for all of it and more.  Same with locations, props, production schedules, everything. 

And timelines, there are a few ways of doing them.  My personal favorite for a couple of the screenplays I wrote (Purity and Lake Hiawatha) was the notecard method.  Old school screenplay writers would list each scene on a notecard with the slug line like "INT. JOE'S OFFICE - DAY", a description of what happens and who's there.  Then we'd lay them out, stare at it for minutes, hours, days until things made sense, lose our shit when the cat comes in and kicks everything around, and start over but put them in the wrong order and see that it works better that way.  In Final Draft, I can drag the notecards around, moving entire scenes around to make them fit better.  Think the reveal of the villain should take place earlier in Act 2 instead of Act 3?  Drag and drop.  Wrote the final fight before the car chase to get there?  Drag and drop.  Noticing that the plot point to get to Act 3 happens at 45 minutes in instead of 58 minutes?  You can work things around to make it feel better.  Wrote a scene with a character that was based off a friend that pissed you off and now you need to kill them early on?  Drag them to to their death scene.

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Hilda

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Reply #6 on: May 26, 2022, 01:35:22 AM
Old school screenplay writers would list each scene on a notecard with the slug line like "INT. JOE'S OFFICE - DAY", a description of what happens and who's there.  Then we'd lay them out, stare at it for minutes, hours, days until things made sense, lose our shit when the cat comes in and kicks everything around, and start over but put them in the wrong order and see that it works better that way.  In Final Draft, I can drag the notecards around, moving entire scenes around to make them fit better.

There's an interesting application called Scrivener, originally for Mac, but now also for Windows. One of the views imitates the old-school notecard method of organization. It also handles screenplay formatting, but almost certainly not as well as a dedicated app such as Final Draft.

A long time ago I invested in a word-processor called Mellel, optimized for academic and non-fiction writing. I used it for several years, then drifted away. Recently the developers brought out a paid upgrade, so I dug it out of storage to see if it was worth going with the upgrade. I was surprised how many features had been added in the interim. Timelines, outlines, character tagging, and lots of other stuff aimed at fiction writers.



Offline EnabranTain

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Reply #7 on: November 17, 2022, 07:33:32 PM
I just wanted to say thank you for the information on some of the more robust writing software. Once in a while I feel like I could use something that would facilitate keeping track of characters and plot outlines better, but I've not been able to get a clear idea of what software suit would be best for me.

So far I've been doing fine with google docs and just keeping a separate document for notes if a story gets larg enough to warrant it. However, there are days I wish I had someting more specifically designed to help with fiction writing.  That said, one of the other big reasons I've stuck with google docs is that I end up writing in different places on different devices frequently. Depending on my circumstances, I may be writing on a small Android tablet, my desktop windows PC, or an iphone. Having a way to easily pick up my story where I left off regardless of what I was last using has been essential.
Do these other writing tools allow for that kind of flexibility?

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Offline LtBroccoli

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Reply #8 on: November 17, 2022, 10:53:27 PM
Tain,

For Final Draft, it also has a version for tablets and phones.  I use a copy on my phone for times when I feel like busting out a few pages here or there, or I'm working on a quick scene on the go.  For narrative stuff, I usually just use Notes on the iPhone but Pages can work, too.  I recently left the MS world for the Apple programs because I was getting sick and tired of the constant warnings to upgrade my software but it was several years past upgradeability.  Also, I found the upper limits of MS Word to be 200k words.  Pharma reached that level around Chapter 57, so I had to split the story into smaller sections just to write.  And when I upgraded to a new MBA a few months back, I left the MS programs behind.

I've recently noticed I'm taking longer to write, but that's just likely me getting worn out with my keyboard.  That's an experiment and upgrade for another day.  Ordered a DVORAK keyboard for shits and giggles, I'll see how that works.  I've seriously been contemplating new things like dictation, new keyboards, and the like.  Writing on my current keyboard is still fun, but there is only so much I can do now before my arms and shoulders start to hurt.  One of the things about getting old.

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Offline Colin Piper

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Reply #9 on: November 17, 2022, 11:24:58 PM

[...]

That got me thinking about the tools I use in my own work, and how they’ve changed over time.

My first word processor was WordStar on an IBM clone + MS-DOS. Next came WordPerfect, then Microsoft Word on an Apple computer. (I made the move to Mac OS because in those days it was the only system with multilingual support.)

[...]

I’d love to hear what software other KB members use when writing stories.

Ah, Wordperfect - my very first "real" job - making typo, spelling and formatting corrections to other people's Business System Design (BSD) documents on a multi-user minicomputer system (VAX/VMS) using a VT220 terminal. How clunky.

For my stories I write them in MS Word and just copy/paste, and lately, increase the font size. Problem is, increasing the font size restricts what I can do - e.g., I lose the bigger size font if I put an underline in - but not bold.

I'll replace the square brackets with curly ones so you see what I mean:

{size=16pt}{font=calibri}
{b}Love in the Time of Pandemic

Part 1 - Out of the City and Into the Hot Tub (MFFf){/b}

(Story copy/pasted from MS Word here)

{b}(To be continued in Part 2.){/b}

{/font}{/size}




Offline Pornhubby

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Reply #10 on: November 18, 2022, 02:30:57 AM
I started out with Wordstar on an Epson 286. Then went to WordPerfect 2.0 DOS. Those old CRT screens with orange letters on a black background. Then around 1994, I got a Compaq computer with a color monitor and WordPerfect 5.0 for Windows!  Heady times.

In 2005 I went to work with a firm that required MS Word. I have used it ever since. I am pretty good at it too. The little newbies at my office have no idea how to do ANYTHING.

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Offline MintJulie

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Reply #11 on: November 18, 2022, 03:46:39 PM
I started out with Wordstar on an Epson 286. Then went to WordPerfect 2.0 DOS. Those old CRT screens with orange letters on a black background. Then around 1994, I got a Compaq computer with a color monitor and WordPerfect 5.0 for Windows!  Heady times.

In 2005 I went to work with a firm that required MS Word. I have used it ever since. I am pretty good at it too. The little newbies at my office have no idea how to do ANYTHING.

Pretty much the same.  But when I quit working, I gave up my subscription to MS.  I use Google DOCS now.  Not the same, I know, but I don't need anything fancy.  I use SHEETS (Google spreadsheets) a lot.  Easier on the laptop than on the iPad.   Not as user-friendly as MS, but I can get by.

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Reply #12 on: November 18, 2022, 04:31:47 PM
I spent eight hours this week, cleaning up and correcting an Excel spreadsheet for a client closing statement. Then I cut and paste the Excel spreadsheet into a Word document, so it would have the firm letterhead on that. Then I saved that as an Adobe file, and emailed it to the client for signature. Everything was signed last night. Happy times. I am the highest paid secretary in the firm.

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Offline EnabranTain

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Reply #13 on: November 18, 2022, 07:13:08 PM
Tain,

... Ordered a DVORAK keyboard for shits and giggles, I'll see how that works. ...

Oh good lord, I wonder how long it would take me to get used to that!

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Offline LtBroccoli

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Reply #14 on: November 19, 2022, 03:13:01 AM
Tain,

... Ordered a DVORAK keyboard for shits and giggles, I'll see how that works. ...

Oh good lord, I wonder how long it would take me to get used to that!

Well, after about 2 hours last night I was up to about 10 words per minute.  I only spent $20 on the keyboard, so it'll go in my collection.  I'm in IT so I have a couple containers full of keyboards.  This is the first DVORAK.  If I didn't have over 35 years of muscle memory to overcome, this would be a great setup to learn.  All of the vowels are the left home row and the consonants are the right home side with a focus on the most used ones being on the home row.  I may try it again if I ever go to some crazy setup like a split ortholinear concave thing, but as long as I have a traditional layout my fingers want to go in the same places they've gone for 35 years.  It also doesn't help that I have to remember which computer in my setup is set up for which keyboard layout.

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Offline EnabranTain

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Reply #15 on: November 19, 2022, 06:18:51 AM
I could see making the effort to change if it was really that much better AND I was changing all the keyboards I use to that, but going back and forth between that and standard keyboards, no way!

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Offline LtBroccoli

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Reply #16 on: November 22, 2022, 02:57:08 AM
I could see making the effort to change if it was really that much better AND I was changing all the keyboards I use to that, but going back and forth between that and standard keyboards, no way!

Agreed, but I'm now on my third keyboard in the past two weeks.  I was making a lot of mistakes with my previous mechanical keyboard (Razer Black Widow) recently and also noticed some stuck keys.  I've tried dictating but not the best idea when writing porn.  I went back to an old ergonomic keyboard but remembered why I retired it after 3 years.  The space bar is soft on the right hand side.  I'm using this one until I figure out my next move, but to be honest my hands hurt if I type too much.  A big reason I haven't written much in the past few months.  I can't keep up a 3k wpd pace when 500 causes stiffness.  I'm going to try something new, as soon as I can find a keyboard I want to try that will deliver some time before 2024. 

I know at some point I'm going to build one of my own, just because I can.  But I'm putting that off for at least a little while.

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Offline EnabranTain

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Reply #17 on: November 29, 2022, 05:33:52 PM
I've tried dictating but not the best idea when writing porn.

I think that’s hard to do for any writing. I’m fairly disjointed and non-linear in how I put the words together. It would be impossible for me to just dictate it all out in one stream of coherent speech, let alone dealing with the awkwardness if someone were to overhear it.

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Offline LtBroccoli

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Reply #18 on: December 17, 2022, 04:51:42 AM
I've tried dictating but not the best idea when writing porn.

I think that’s hard to do for any writing. I’m fairly disjointed and non-linear in how I put the words together. It would be impossible for me to just dictate it all out in one stream of coherent speech, let alone dealing with the awkwardness if someone were to overhear it.

My problem is I "edit" while writing. Not anything related to content, just things like spelling and grammar.  That makes dictating a little harder.

On the keyboard side I dove into the deep end and got a new one which arrived earlier than I expected. The ZSA Moonlander.  It is a split ergonomic ortholinear mechanical keyboard with removable caps and hotswappable switches.  It is insane with a hefty learning curve.  I'm a week and a half in and I'm just getting my speed back up to acceptable but it still needs a lot of thought, mostly because of bad habits and I accidentally hit the backspace key with the thumb instead of the space which is right next to it.  I might adjust the positions shortly to tent it a little to make it easier if I think it would be more comfortable.

Let's see how that goes.

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Online Vela Nanashi

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Reply #19 on: December 17, 2022, 05:54:09 AM
The moonlander is amazing, I have mine mounted to my arm rests on my chair, so it is a bit of a writing throne, feels nice to be able to lean back fully relaxed and write :) it takes a while to find key mappings that work for oneself and I still find myself tweaking them every so often when something feels clunky and I feel the need to adjust something, but it is very convenient :) I hope it will work great for you too :) I recently replaced the keycaps on the thumb cluster to same size profile keys as the rest of the keyboard and I like it better than the larger keys, stole the caps off an old corsair keyboard that also has mechanical switches with the same style keycaps as the kailh coppers I chose for the moonlander, have yet to get into the fancier key switches that are available though, not felt the need yet, coppers are for me better than cherry red and brown though :) It saved me from a lot of wrist, neck and shoulder pain, so for that alone it is worth it and I type pretty much at the same speed now as I ever did on the other mechanical keyboards, except I no longer can do one handed typing and dance my hand over the whole keyboard while using the mouse, in a game or such, so that is still not as convenient as it could be, of course for non speed non detail related mouse work you can configure mouse keys on the keyboard so you don't have to reach for one of them :)

I do find it nice to put one shot toggles for shift etc, though they don't work perfectly for hotkey use, but I can just type shift then the letter I want to make big rather than needing to hold the key down, also works for other single modifier hotkeys, but enough of me gushing over the moonlander, it is stupidly expensive, again though, the pain reduction is worth it for me, there are options to make one yourself if you solder and stuff, that will be mostly the same or even better than the moonlander is, but for me that don't solder this was a win :)