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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

#191

Post by socialdemocrat »

lhorie wrote: post #168
vikingcaffiene wrote: post #88

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…

> markdown is a superior way to write Is it though? I don't have any experience with book authoring but I would expect stuff like Geronimo Stilton to be hard to produce with markdown: it is peppered with creative text highlighting (e.g. words written in a custom cheese-pattern font) and this is common in primary school geared books. Even decidedly grown-up books like GEB might have illustrations and diagrams, and it'…

Coming up with the text and doing the visual layout later are often separate step. And author does not do all the visual layout.

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

#192

Post by vikingcaffiene »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #187
michaericalribo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add here, the question is not “is markdown (or tex or binary strings or...) better”, but “can the person who determines whether I get paid open the file?” The fiction publishing world is cutthroat competitive. Trying to use nonstandard tools / “breaking the mold” adds even more friction to success.

Geez 99.99% of a Nobel is just plain text. MS Word adds no value. Getting plain text into MS Word is not rocket science. The point of using markdown is that you got many tools which are superior is aiding in you writing process and organizing your text. The final format is much less important than whatever aids your writing process. I have tried using traditional word processors for writing novels and I cannot say th…

I'll tell her to let her editor know that. Lol.

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #183
barkingcat wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with her - markdown is totally not a superior way to write. It's a good way to mark up text, but writing isn't just marking up text.

When writing you want a tool focused specifically on writing an organizing text. Programs like word is too focused on formatting and visual aspects. Markdown would be much better for authors. Just because they have become accustomed to something else doesn’t mean that something else is better. Just watching the mess my dad makes when writing books in Word makes me convinced that anybody who claims Word is superior fo…

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by michaericalribo »

em-bee wrote: post #186
michaericalribo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's ideas and sitting down in front of the keyboard and actually typing This is the crux of the challenge for every writer. At least for me, I use "finding the right tool" as a way to procrastinate from actually writing...

i wrote my story in plain text in vim. when i was forced to convert to libre office in order to produce the format required for submission, editing became a pain, and i felt blocked from working on the story any further, since i no longer was able to just take any break i had to work on it. not being able to use my preferred editor, i too ended up searching for a better solution...

What a pain! And there don't seem to be any good + easy answers...

I'm addicted to my emacs bindings, and not using them trips me up—I might as well draft in plaintext, like you said preferred editor minimizes friction.

But then there's the cost of switching tools at different stages of the writing process. Arguably, that's even more difficult!

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

#195

Post by boplicity »

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #88

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…

You also need a way to import changes from edits. Word's track changes feature is vital in professional contexts, even though it is not always intuitive. Once a manuscript gets to the editing stage, tracking revisions, comments, suggestions, etc is extremely important. I suppose at that stage, you could just move away from a tool like this, and just use Word, or Google Docs.

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

#196

Post by WorldMaker »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #187
michaericalribo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add here, the question is not “is markdown (or tex or binary strings or...) better”, but “can the person who determines whether I get paid open the file?” The fiction publishing world is cutthroat competitive. Trying to use nonstandard tools / “breaking the mold” adds even more friction to success.

Geez 99.99% of a Nobel is just plain text. MS Word adds no value. Getting plain text into MS Word is not rocket science. The point of using markdown is that you got many tools which are superior is aiding in you writing process and organizing your text. The final format is much less important than whatever aids your writing process. I have tried using traditional word processors for writing novels and I cannot say th…

> MS Word adds no value.

Word automates a lot of things in the editing cycle of a novel. Word's "Track Changes"/"Accept Changes" tools and the workflows they enable are by far the most common in a number of industries, but especially in edit workflows of most major publishers. That's why the Word format specifically is often requested/required, because people know and understand those tools and already have processes/workflows built around them.

The closest equivalent tools for plain text are source control systems and text diff/patch. Those tools are great (and arguably fit some definitions of "superior", especially in capturing history earlier in the process and keeping history longer after the process). They are also nowhere as ubiquitously installed as Word, and nowhere near as easily taught (or already known/understood) as Word in today's world.

Those "edit cycle" needs maybe aren't a huge reason to do the initial writing in Word, but they are certainly many steps above "no value", and thus the noted restriction that no matter what tool you use for the initial writing, if it doesn't have an easy Word export to get it started down the edit cycle path then it doesn't have an easy fit in today's publishing world.

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

#197

Post by wyclif »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #161
michaericalribo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add here, the question is not “is markdown (or tex or binary strings or...) better”, but “can the person who determines whether I get paid open the file?” The fiction publishing world is cutthroat competitive. Trying to use nonstandard tools / “breaking the mold” adds even more friction to success.

I'm an author and an software engineer. I can see why Markdown could be slightly better for a writer - but not much better - and honestly it seems like a step down for an editor. Primarily, all a writer does is write plain text. Probably less than 1% of sentences are anything other than plain text. There's not a lot of headings or titles. There's not a lot of italics or bold text. What else is there? What am I missin…

I write books in Vim. The way I work is that I do it all in plaintext until the final edit. Only after that do I add formatting (could be .docx or Markdown or whatever the editor expects).

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

#198

Post by michaericalribo »

eslaught wrote: post #181
michaericalribo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add here, the question is not “is markdown (or tex or binary strings or...) better”, but “can the person who determines whether I get paid open the file?” The fiction publishing world is cutthroat competitive. Trying to use nonstandard tools / “breaking the mold” adds even more friction to success.

I will find out the answer to this question hopefully later this year. :-) But anyway, I do use Markdown and I have submitted to contests etc. that require Word formatted files. For the most part it's an nonissue. I can use Pandoc to export to Word, provide the reference file with the correct format, and boom, I'm done. None of the judges of my works so far have ever had any issues opening my files. I agree the publi…

I agree, and I draft my own fiction in emacs. The cost is lower to use my preferred editor, then do the post-hoc formatting adjustments once in Word.

For a novelist, though, the editing process is quite iterative: make changes, send them to your editor, they send it back with comments and inline track changes and so on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an advocate for using tools you're most comfortable with...whatever gets you writing! But these small things can throw a wrench in the process. It sure sucks to have to do edits in Word!

Good luck with the publishing project, though, it sounds like you're pretty far along!

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

#199

Post by ElBookleyTruth »

I'll learn you why formats doesn't matter. If your book is good we'll pirate it. And if your book is good it doesn't matter how you write it. The publishers will be willing to dig through your shit to get to the grains of it. Trust me. If you worry about formats you need to write better. Let that shit sink in. It really doesn't at all matter. And if you're popular you'll both earn a million and have a million pirates dude. Just write a good book. Bad books is nothing anyone cares about.

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

#200

Post by cgriswald »

thangalin wrote: post #126
cgriswald wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing a novel is definitely a 'to each, his own' practice. 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 u…

> quick-and-dirty character family tree for my own reference KeenWrite supports inline TeX, Mermaid (via Kroki), R for calculations, and interpolated string variables: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite#screenshots This allows me to create a family tree and, when I change a character's name, the diagram---along with every other reference to their name---is updated automatically. Here's a video showing how it wor…

Thanks for the recommendation! This looks powerful and useful. I will definitely check it out.
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