101–110 of 277 posts
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how do you convert from markdown to standard manuscript format which is often required for submissions?
pandoc is pretty handy. It's pretty much plain text anyway, whatever format is used.
Great idea, great design! As I think markdown is good only for write simple texts (AND NOT FOR ADVANCED BLOGGING), a novel writing software would to be a choice; because authors don't use richer text format than markdown, as Nick mentioned.
I have the complete opposite view as you. Markdown is for advanced blogging and since novel writers don't need advanced html formatting they don't need markdown.
Especially since things like tables can actually be useful, depending on what you're writing.
This has no word export option (unless I missed it) which makes it infeasible for a lot of writers. Like it or not, docx is the format a lot of folks in mainstream publishing expect. Context: My partner is a published author and I've pitched stuff like this at her on multiple occasions as an alternative to Scrivener. In addition to her laughing at my insistence that markdown is a superior way to write, she cites the…
This has no word export option (unless I missed it) which makes it infeasible for a lot of writers. Like it or not, docx is the format a lot of folks in mainstream publishing expect. Context: My partner is a published author and I've pitched stuff like this at her on multiple occasions as an alternative to Scrivener. In addition to her laughing at my insistence that markdown is a superior way to write, she cites the…
In general, I think we should strive for non-proprietary, standard file formats.
Isn't docx far too one-sided and controlled in that regard? I wonder if anyone has some info on the "state of affairs" for the "document format race".
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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.
Funnily enough, a lot of the work I've interacted with has been in the Lit RPG genre - which needs a lot more, since they're often including tables of "character data", not to mention "system" fonts. It's surprisingly challenging to typeset and make it broadly readable across devices.
This has no word export option (unless I missed it) which makes it infeasible for a lot of writers. Like it or not, docx is the format a lot of folks in mainstream publishing expect. Context: My partner is a published author and I've pitched stuff like this at her on multiple occasions as an alternative to Scrivener. In addition to her laughing at my insistence that markdown is a superior way to write, she cites the…
I think the bigger issue if she already likes Scrivener is that if that is the functionality she wants, then unless she wants the flexibility of being able to customise a tool or process Markdown files with code or switch to Linux etc. is something she wants, then it's not likely the tools you've pitched, or this one, will be an improvement.
I write in Markdown myself, so I absolutely sympathise with your POV on that, but I think the "rock solid word export" is more of a way to get you off her back because it works.
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It's not rtf, but it is rich text as opposed to plain text.
The point I am getting at is that if an editor wants to use markdown in place of rtf, fine. But it should hide the syntax just like rtf editors do (unless you want to see it). No editor that supports markdown to date has been able to achieve the quality of editing that rtf editors already have. So in essence outside of markdowns original use case of web publishing, why bother using it?
I can format text all day. It's a huge distraction that allows me to also feel 'productive'; which gets in the way of actually writing. Using a markdown editor lets me do the formatting that is necessary for the work (e.g., italics) without being hugely distracted.
> But it should hide the syntax just like rtf editors do (unless you want to see it).
I'm using Obsidian and wouldn't mind seeing this feature. However, it currently offers the option of toggling quickly between edit and preview modes, or opening up a second view for preview, which can optionally be scroll-locked with the editing window. That works great for me.
I use copious amounts of notes in my fiction writing, that sometimes include mathematical/physical formulas, data, and code. Obsidian supports (various amounts of) inline LaTeX, syntax-highlighting, and mermaid. (I'm also not above abusing these things for my own purposes: I've used mermaid graph to create a quick-and-dirty character family tree for my own reference, for instance.) And, of course, I use markdown to tie all these notes together and to the novel.
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It's interesting to see differences in desired features here, because I'm currently writing my third novel, and ditched my previous editors because I realised I needed basically no features - I need a clean canvas without distractions, and ability to do some basic tagging for cross-references. That's it. So now I'm writing in my own editor, in windows with nothing but the text - not even a menu or title bar - and lit…
You can use zettlr.
This has no word export option (unless I missed it) which makes it infeasible for a lot of writers. Like it or not, docx is the format a lot of folks in mainstream publishing expect. Context: My partner is a published author and I've pitched stuff like this at her on multiple occasions as an alternative to Scrivener. In addition to her laughing at my insistence that markdown is a superior way to write, she cites the…
I applaud the author for keeping everything text file based. In general, I think we should strive for non-proprietary, standard file formats. Isn't docx far too one-sided and controlled in that regard? I wonder if anyone has some info on the "state of affairs" for the "document format race".
A minimum for a novel writing tool is that one can actually send the novel out in a format where your agent and editor will read it. Otherwise you're not getting that novel published.