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brainstorming

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What Writing Tools and Software Do You Use?

Richard Bransone

by Wendy Tokunaga

I’ve written all of my novels using Microsoft Word. Before and during my writing I do extensive research on the Internet and print out articles and keep them in file folders. Occasionally I like to get away from the confines of my computer and desk. So, instead of heading out with a laptop, I print out my work-in-progress drafts and bring them and my research to a café. While sipping on a green tea matcha latte and trying to avoid purchasing that oversized chocolate chip cookie in the display case with my name on it, I’ll make corrections and notes on my drafts, brainstorm further, re-read articles, ponder and daydream. It’s important for my writing well being to sometimes get away from my home office and computer screen, my working-from-home husband and my demanding Siamese cat.

But lately I’ve been feeling stuck with a revision of a finished novel as well as the beginnings of two novels-in-progress (yes, I am a Gemini). Colleagues and students alike have been raving about Scrivener for years now and the questions come to mind, “What am I missing out on?” and “Is there something I could do differently with the help of tools that will enhance my creativity in ways I haven’t considered?”

It’s not that I haven’t tried a few programs before. But I’m famous for downloading them and then letting them rot on my desktop, saying I don’t have time to learn them and I’ll get to it once I start my next novel. Or I simply use them once, throw my hands up in the air and then forget all about them.

I finally did recently purchase and download Scrivener (very reasonably priced) as well as the Scrivener for Dummies book. Fellow writers told me that I may not need the book—that the online documentation was quite well done, but trust me, I do usually need how-to books as well. I’ve only just begun to explore Scrivener and I find that it seems best for help with becoming better organized and having research all in one place (though not easy to print out, which I guess isn’t the point). It also has a virtual corkboard and index cards for storyboarding, which was fun to play around with, but I couldn’t seem to print that out either or copy and paste the text and take it to the café unless I wanted to print it on actual Avery 3x5 cards.

Organization is not usually a challenge for me. I guess I’m looking also for help with plotting and brainstorming—something that will help me get the ball rolling. I know how to do this intellectually, but I feel that it’s good to have a jump-start and a way to bounce ideas around that will stimulate my creativity. There are other software packages designed with this in mind (The Marshall Plan, Dramatica,etc.) but I have heard these are difficult to learn and perhaps more complex than they need to be. So I guess it’s good to know up front what you want in a writing software and how it is actually meant to help.

Researching on the Internet I see that some writers like to use a variety of tools instead of one dedicated software package. There’s Pro Writing Aid, which is a writing improvement and editing software; Visual Thesaurus; and Evernote, which you can use for clipping scene ideas, notes, photos, etc. And there are many more.

I also see that Scrivener has a way to set a draft and session “target”—a total word count goal that plugs into a deadline. I think this could be useful, if I do indeed end up using Scrivener but it’s also something I could easily set up for myself.

So, girlfriends, what software and tools do you use, if any? Do you utilize any kind of plotting or story development software? What works for you? What doesn’t? And if you do use and like Scrivener, what are the features that you find the most helpful?

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Brainstorming: Good for Creative Writing, Not for 24/7 Cable News

Admin 5:23 PM airplanes am writing brainstorming CNN Malaysian Flight 370 MH370 novel writing searches unsolved mysteries Writing Add Comment

Richard Bransone

by Wendy Tokunaga

Like most people I’ve been fascinated (and saddened) by the mystery of the Malaysian airliner that went missing on March 8. And I’ve also been intrigued by the speculation on exactly what might have happened. Because of the extraordinary situation and the fact that so much is unknown, 24/7 cable news outlets like CNN have been piling on the theories with little or no hard information to back them up. Suppositions and assumptions are the name of the game and ratings only increase as tantalizing new scenarios are pulled out of a hat.

Did the jet turn into a “ghost” or “zombie” plane? Was it struck by a meteor? Or what if it were sabotage by the pilot? After all, he had a flight simulator at home. Had he rehearsed this scenario weeks or months before? Was he in cahoots with terrorists who wanted to use the plane for nefarious purposes at a later time? Did he land the jet at a hidden airstrip in a top-secret location? What if the passengers were still alive but unable to contact loved ones?

And what about that mysterious phone call the pilot made right before the plane took off? He also had close ties with an opposition leader in Malaysia who had recently been arrested on a sodomy charge that could have been a frame-up by those currently in power. And what about the fact that his family moved out of their house the day before the incident? Did he have serious personal problems that led him to commit suicide and cause an intentional crash?

Or was he a hero? Did he divert that plane off course because of smoke or some other problem in the cockpit to get closer to where he could make an emergency landing? Did he fly at a lower altitude, not to avoid detection, but to try and save the lives of the passengers?

These theories and unanswered questions remind me of what I do when I’m brainstorming plot points, character motivations, conflicts and complications for a novel. I open up a document and write a series of “what if” and “why” questions. Then I’ll put it away and read it another day and add to the list. At this point nothing is too outlandish to delete; I just let my imagination run wild. Eventually I pare it down to something more focused and throw out what I don’t need. While it might not work for every writer, it’s what works for me.

I’m not so sure it works well for the news. And, of course, I’m dealing with fiction.

Girlfriends, do you use brainstorming techniques when you write your novels? Do you think there’s a place for theorizing on the news?