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NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

novelwriter.io

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Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#51

Post by sleepysysadmin »

vidarh wrote: post #43
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You'd need a human editor to do all that. Automatically fixing run-on sentences and removing repeated words is possible. Activating passive sentences is challenging; Grammarly gets it wrong all the time, in my experience. Replacing cliches and fixing wordiness would be very challenging without deep linguistic and cultural knowledge. Well I don't know why I was downvoted so heavily. I dont disagree. My goal isn't so…

For that use, I think "proselint", as zx321 recommended, is probably a perfect start, as it references the source of the recommendation. (in terms of cost, though, you can get a decent editor for closer to the ~$300 mark for up ~60k-70k words, but of course if you're not intending on putting in a lot of effort - and more money - to market and sell it, that may well be too much too)

>For that use, I think "proselint", as zx321 recommended, is probably a perfect start, as it references the source of the recommendation.

I see that, I will give it a try. Cant hurt.

>(in terms of cost, though, you can get a decent editor for closer to the ~$300 mark for up ~60k-70k words, but of course if you're not intending on putting in a lot of effort - and more money - to market and sell it, that may well be too much too)

Lets say there was a magical machine learning perfect editor for free. I input my trash and I get an amazing copy out.

I might try marketing and selling it. I have put lots of effort into the book. Afterall just getting 75,000 words down is good effort by itself.

The problem is that I put this in grammarly or prowriting aid it finds thousands of problems. You fix them. Then put it in another grammar thing and it finds thousands more.

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#52

Post by app4soft »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #39
chank wrote: post #17

Outside of the more technically inclined; Does anyone who is a long-form (novel) writer actually use markdown? Outside of blogging, which it was invented for and makes total sense for syntax conversion of free formed text to html is there any real use for it? Obviously you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but it sort of feels odd to me that all these developers making writing/notes apps that neglect rich te…

I'm using Papyrus Autor because I write in German [1,2]. It's expensive but superior to everything else for the German language. They're expanding to English users, but only offer a super-expensive subscription model for them [3]. If I wrote novels in English, I'd probably use Scrivener [4]. I'm very familiar with markdown, pandoc, and LaTeX, but none of these are relevant or important for writing novels. As a noveli…

> I'm using Papyrus Autor because...

Proprietary?!

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#53

Post by prionassembly »

klunger wrote: post #7

I am currently making my way through "The Fantasy Fiction Formula" by Deborah Chester. It's my first stab at this kind of thing, so it has been really eye opening. When I read any kind of fiction now, I can't help but map out all the elements of plot and scene described by Chester. (This has had the unpleasant side effect of making reading fiction less pleasurable. ah well) So, I can see this kind of tool being very…

I bought "Save the cat!" (I'd read some parts of Vogler's "Writer's journey" in film school) hoping to adapt the formula to writing a bad novel. Then I never did.

The weird thing about hobby projects is that they don't have an actual audience. So I write a lot about philosophy and social theory and such, but it's ultimately a lot of self-dialog. This doesn't work for fiction, even short stories. (I did write a handful of poems in the 2010s)

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#54

Post by vidarh »

chank wrote: post #20
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most authors don't write in richer text format than markdown.

I think you're assuming and probably wrong.

I think you are assuming. I also think there's a confusion here and that you're talking specifically about RTF while the people responding to you are talking about the capabilities provided when they use "rich". The point being that Markdown has far more formatting features than most people who write novels need, and so it is "rich enough" as a format.

I've written two novels and I'm writing my third, and as others have also pointed out, there's rarely a need for more than headlines, bold and italics, all of which are trivial in Markdown.

Whether or not the editors are capable enough depends on peoples preferences and tools. But there's nothing about writing a novel that requires a format more complex while writing (if you send it off to an editor, they'll almost certainly insist on something they can import easily into word, though some accept Google Docs or ODT these days)

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#55

Post by chank »

cheph wrote: post #31

The proliferation of markdown forks is a mess. Can't you just use something better to begin with, like asciidoc? I think you can likely just use existing asciidoc mechanisms to support the same thing and then existing editors will still be usable.

The proliferation of markdown itself is also a mess IMO. Outside of web writing it seems really more effort than it's worth. Seems like everyone making a writing tool of any kind is ditching rich text in favor of it for no good reason.

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#56

Post by app4soft »

premek wrote: post #12

is author here? - Is it suitable for non-technical writers? is there any feedback on them baing able to use markdown, @pov tags etc? - did you try some commercial competitors? How would you compare? I understand scrivener is one popular option

UPD: Dev just answered[0] to your qestions:

Q: Is it suitable for non-technical writers? is there any feedback on them baing able to use markdown, @pov tags etc?

A: "non-technical" as in the person or the writing itself? I deliberately chose not to write a WYSIWYG editor in order to keep the files plain text and as simple as possible. I've written a WYSIWYG editor before, and didn't like the result. I guess having to use some markup makes it slightly technical in use, but I've also added menu entries and keyboard shortcuts for all the features, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get started.

Q: Did you try some commercial competitors? How would you compare? I understand scrivener is one popular option

A: I've used it, yes. It's excellent, and perfect if you want a full WYSIWYG editor with a lot of features. I went in a different direction exactly because I wanted something simpler. Also, as a Linux user, the lack of decent options was a factor.

[0] https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/discussions/567#discussi...

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#57

Post by vidarh »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #51
vidarh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that use, I think "proselint", as zx321 recommended, is probably a perfect start, as it references the source of the recommendation. (in terms of cost, though, you can get a decent editor for closer to the ~$300 mark for up ~60k-70k words, but of course if you're not intending on putting in a lot of effort - and more money - to market and sell it, that may well be too much too)

>For that use, I think "proselint", as zx321 recommended, is probably a perfect start, as it references the source of the recommendation. I see that, I will give it a try. Cant hurt. >(in terms of cost, though, you can get a decent editor for closer to the ~$300 mark for up ~60k-70k words, but of course if you're not intending on putting in a lot of effort - and more money - to market and sell it, that may well be to…

Yeah, Grammarly etc. is great for short things like e-mails and the like, but it's a massive pain for anything of any complexity...

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#58

Post by WesleyLivesay »

Looks pretty cool!

I have ended up settling on a similar setup for my writing in VS Code. I am a heavy outliner so instead of [FileTree][Markdown][Preview] I use [FileTree][Outline][Markdown].

I'm not sure I would find the various bits of stats useful, although I am sure there are some who do. I think it would probably just cause me anxiety or cause me to put too much focus on numbers.

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#59

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

chank wrote: post #33
dangoor wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm close to 60,000 words into my latest novel and I'm writing in Ulysses using Markdown. Novels, in particular, rarely need more than headings and occasional italics or boldface.

That's the kind of need for text manipulation I would expect of a typical writer. Hence why bother with markdown at all (unless it's the only thing available). Rich text is a much cleaner solution for that. Markdown really shines when it comes to text that has to be formatted just so for web layout. e.g. tables, bullets, multi-headings and linking.

Markdown absolutely does not shine when it comes to tables, at the very least. Unless you're using a variation of the 'standard', of course.

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#60

Post by lelag »

dangoor wrote: post #22
chank wrote: post #17

Outside of the more technically inclined; Does anyone who is a long-form (novel) writer actually use markdown? Outside of blogging, which it was invented for and makes total sense for syntax conversion of free formed text to html is there any real use for it? Obviously you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but it sort of feels odd to me that all these developers making writing/notes apps that neglect rich te…

I'm close to 60,000 words into my latest novel and I'm writing in Ulysses using Markdown. Novels, in particular, rarely need more than headings and occasional italics or boldface.

I also use Ulysses and very happy with it (except for it being a subscription based product).

The feature that I would miss the most by switching to novelWriter or another open source solution would be the following:

- auto cloud sync across all devices (I can even write on my phone if I think of something while waiting for the bus)

- print quality output in PDF and epub with a single click (and many available themes to choose from).

- nice eye pleasing UI that put me in the right mood for writing

- good integration with my third party writing assistance software (Antidote).

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