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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

#21
post #8

It would be amazing if it fixed your grammar, removed cliches, fixed wordiness, activated passive language, swapped repeated words, fixed my run on sentences, overall just fixed my englitch. #featurerequest

You're looking for proselint. https://github.com/amperser/proselint

Scrivener should integrate this.

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

#22
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.

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

#23
post #22
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 would be interested to know why you choose "Ulysses" and not "Odysseus"?

ps. I followed a conversation about James Joyce novel which was hinted that there is a difference between the two names and Joyce didn't pick "Ulysses" randomly. I'd like to know if you went through the same process.

UPDATE: Ok, I mis-read the comment, I though the name of the Novel was Ulysses, apparently it is an app.

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

#24
It's true that with ideas, if you wait long enough, someone will do the work for you. I was toying with an idea of "novel markup", something that could let you track characters over scenes, geographical locations and interpersonal relationships.

Things got hairy quickly so it died on pages of my notebook. Glad someone gave it a go. A header tagging is probably better than inline I wanted to have.

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

#25
post #23
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.

I would be interested to know why you choose "Ulysses" and not "Odysseus"? ps. I followed a conversation about James Joyce novel which was hinted that there is a difference between the two names and Joyce didn't pick "Ulysses" randomly. I'd like to know if you went through the same process. UPDATE: Ok, I mis-read the comment, I though the name of the Novel was Ulysses, apparently it is an app.

It's a writing-focused word processor for MacOS and iOS.

https://ulysses.app/

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

#26
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking for proselint. https://github.com/amperser/proselint

Scrivener should integrate this.

ProWritingAid integrates with Scrivener and provides grammar checking, repeated words, and much more to help you improve whatever you're writing. http://prowritingaid.com/

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

#27
Interesting. Does that make it kinda midway between "pure" MarkDown and reStructuredText? As in, it's a bit more powerful than pure MarkDown, but still lighter to use than reStructuredText?

I mean, if you don't mind summoning the awesome power of something like Visual Studio Code, you could also write reStructureText with live preview (there's a VSCode extension for that, IIRC).

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

#28
post #8

It would be amazing if it fixed your grammar, removed cliches, fixed wordiness, activated passive language, swapped repeated words, fixed my run on sentences, overall just fixed my englitch. #featurerequest

You're looking for proselint. https://github.com/amperser/proselint

Looks very interesting, but the example given ("John is very unique") and the warning given by proselint for it illustrates why this is a veritable mine-field, and why what sleepysysadmin asks for isn't really possible (but that's ok - having a tool flag possible issues is still great)

The example warning is certainly worth giving, but conversely Merriam-Webster points out that "very unique" is a common construction when "unique" is used in the sense "unusual", though most frequently used in less formal contexts. And so it may or may not be justified depending on what you're writing...

Having gone back and forth with a real editor for a novel, half the effort was a conversation with the editor based on questions about intent and preferred tone and style, in order to come to agreement on things she had flagged as possible issues where it was not clear whether or not a change ought to be made or not.

I'm absolutely going to take a closer look at proselint, though.

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

#29
post #25
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested to know why you choose "Ulysses" and not "Odysseus"? ps. I followed a conversation about James Joyce novel which was hinted that there is a difference between the two names and Joyce didn't pick "Ulysses" randomly. I'd like to know if you went through the same process. UPDATE: Ok, I mis-read the comment, I though the name of the Novel was Ulysses, apparently it is an app.

It's a writing-focused word processor for MacOS and iOS. https://ulysses.app/

Thanks for pointing that out!

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

#30
post #13

It would be amazing if it fixed your grammar, removed cliches, fixed wordiness, activated passive language, swapped repeated words, fixed my run on sentences, overall just fixed my englitch. #featurerequest

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.

I tried using Grammarly when writing a novel, and just had to turn it off. It gets things wrong so often that it just turned out to be a distraction. I still like using it for e-mails etc. but for anything that will pass through a professional editor anyway it's just not worth the hassle to me.
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