Scrivener was one of the first dedicated long form writing environments, and is now available for Windows and iOS as well as the original Mac edition. As for Google Docs, it’s great for short works but grinds to a halt when you get above 10,000 words. It has an outline mode, but in my opinion it doesn’t scale to 100k works. Where’s Microsoft Word? I admire anyone who attempts to produce a novel-length work in Microsoft’s jack-of-all-trades word processor. You could dedicate a website to reviewing writing tools, but for this rewrite I’ve decided to focus on the five I know best. The range of tools available to writers has expanded enormously since I wrote the original version of this post for my 5×5 Medium blog. I’ve also discovered what happens without a plan (did I mention the unfinished novel?). I’ve tried a few tools and discovered some of their strengths and weaknesses for my process. On my way through five novels (one unfinished, one about to be self-published, one in beta, two in pre-planning), I’ve had plenty of opportunity to experiment. Wherever you are in the writing process, finding the right tool to produce your outline is more than a thought experiment. Wherever you stand, you’ll need an outline because agents want a synopsis of your whole novel if your 10,000-word taster gets their attention.Īs a taster, my MA in Creative Writing at St Mary’s University demanded a 3,000-word chapter-by-chapter breakdown of our WIPs to show that we could produce a full-length work. There are pantsers who claim the words flow naturally into a three-act story, planners who painstakingly detail every scene in advance, and plantsers like me in between. But I’m a bear of little brain, and a novel is a thousand times more complex. How do you turn a collection of story ideas into a coherent 100,000-word novel? Novel planning was one of the most daunting tasks I faced as a first-time novelist.Īs a journalist, I’d got used to writing a few hundred words without an outline, or jotting down a few ideas for a thousand-word article or blog post.
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