NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by masukomi » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

eslaught wrote: post #235

spicybright wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A table of contents you don't have to manually maintain. Built-in interface to insert special characters you can't type with the keyboard. Automatic grammar checks. Auto-corrections. Macros. All of the above in one program instead of a hodge-podge of programs. Being able to send and receive documents from people with no conversion needed. No offense but you don't sound like someone who writes a lot?

* Table of contents: solved by Pandoc. * Inserting special characters: personally I don't find those "character choosing" windows to be very convenient. Hunt and peck is a slow way to type! Anyway, you can do this in Markdown with either Unicode (if you have the right keyboard) or you can write HTML escape codes (&tm; etc.) * Automatic (grammar/spelling). I don't like check as I type, but sure. Anyway, Emacs provides…

pandoc, emacs, and scripting are _not_ a realistic option for most writers. They're writers, not programming geeks.

I'm a Markdown fan, but really there _are_ better solutions for book writing that maintain the ease that Markdown brings. Things like ASCIIDoc.

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

#272

Post by bjoli » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

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…

My favourite talk on this topic is "Emacs for writers": https://youtu.be/FtieBc3KptU

If you are working with plain text, use something that excels at working with text. I saw another of his talks, and how he works in Emacs is amazing.

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

#273

Post by vidarh » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

spicybright wrote: post #231

socialdemocrat wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just sold everyone on markdown. This is the whole point. All the crap MS Word adds to support formatting and visual styles is in the way. With markdown you focus on the actual text. Exactly what an author should want to. What exactly does MS Word add over markdown which matters to an author? I am talking about the writing experience. You could always export to docx.

A table of contents you don't have to manually maintain. Built-in interface to insert special characters you can't type with the keyboard. Automatic grammar checks. Auto-corrections. Macros. All of the above in one program instead of a hodge-podge of programs. Being able to send and receive documents from people with no conversion needed. No offense but you don't sound like someone who writes a lot?

Writing a table of contents is my formatters job, not mine. It takes place after both my editor and my proofreader have completed their jobs, at which point I don't touch the file any more. If you format your own, then you're already in an small niche.

Some people may need "special characters" they can't type, but I have keybindings for the characters I use.

Grammar checking and corrections is my proofreaders job, not mine. It happens after I've converted my document and sent it off.

Macros are supported in pretty much every editor I've ever used for plain-text. I use lots of macros, but exactly zero of them for my novels.

I don't need to send and receive documents with no conversion needed. I do one export when I'm done with my first draft, and then I edit and do one more export before handing it over to my proofreader. Then, sure, I review those changes in Librewriter. The proportion of my time that takes is tiny. It'd be nice not to have to, but I'd take that over having to work in a word processor during writing any day.

> No offense but you don't sound like someone who writes a lot?

As someone who has written several novels, that's how your comment came across to me. At the same time I know novelists range from the pen and paper type (e.g. Gaiman, King to give two examples discussed in this thread) up to wanting word processors with all bells and whistles - it's very much down to taste.

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

#274

Post by vidarh » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

citizenkeen wrote: post #225

socialdemocrat wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just sold everyone on markdown. This is the whole point. All the crap MS Word adds to support formatting and visual styles is in the way. With markdown you focus on the actual text. Exactly what an author should want to. What exactly does MS Word add over markdown which matters to an author? I am talking about the writing experience. You could always export to docx.

Why would I want to write my first draft in a different tool than my subsequent drafts? Nobody cares about visual styles, but my editor sends back their thoughts with inline edits and comments in Word. It's so much easier to edit in Word. I'm a huge Markdown fan, but it raises the question: What does Markdown get me that makes it worth switching to for the first draft only?

Many writers intentionally separate tooling to force workflows, even at the point of great inconvenience if it provides for an environment they feel is more conducive to writing. This is generally far more important than whether or not getting it into a format that editors can work with is extra effort or not.

Hemingway famously favoured pencils for his first draft and switched to typewriter for his second.

Gaiman and Stephen King uses pens for at least their first drafts. Gaiman expressly for the reason that he believes it force him to be more thoughtful and forces him to go back and rewrite the full book word for word rather than going back and forth to edit. King switched to pens after his car accident.

JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter with pen on loose sheaf paper.

Writing novels is intensely personal, to the point where writers will insist on specific brands of pens or specific models of typewriters. E.g. Danielle Steele has used 1946 Olympia's throughout her entire career.

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

#275

Post by dangoor » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #36

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.

how do you convert from markdown to standard manuscript format? starting to write in markdown or even plain text is fine, but once the first draft is submitted to the editor or sent to a publisher for consideration it usually needs to be a word or rtf document in standard manuscript format. once converted i am stuck using libreoffice to revise and edit the story. i found tools that convert from markdown to ODF (which…

Saw this comment a bit late. Ulysses has good conversion capabilities. It's easy to get whatever format I need.

FWIW, I've been using Vellum for formatting my indie published novels, and would happily use it again if this new work is indie.

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

#276

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

michaericalribo wrote: post #229

SamuelAdams wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider a book like The Lord of the Rings. It has gone through countless revisions and corrections. With markdown and git you could track those changes and corrections over time.

Yes, you or I could...but Tolkien was much busier writing and world-building, and I seriously doubt George Allen & Unwin (the publishers) would have acceded to conditions on how the manuscript was sent to them!

Also - doesn't MS Word have revision history?

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

#277

Post by BinaryAcid » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:16 PM UTC

This looks awesome! I'm super excited to take it for a spin I confused about how to actually run this on a Mac. I downloaded source and stepped through the 3 steps on the website: brew install enchant, pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt, pip3 install --user pyobjc

What do I do now? There is no dmg created or further instructions. Adding a dmg to the site would really open up your potential users.