Hi, everybody. A while back, I was googling free writing software, because I didn't have the money for those expensive programs on Amazon. I came across this program called Y-Writer, developed by a man who has written science fiction, so he made this program for novelists. It's a very nice, simple program, which I used for quite a while. But, I'm not really organized enough to use it much, and I generally prefer just a page to write on. However, I thought y'all might enjoy it. Here's the link to the page where you can download it. I'm pretty sure there's a version for Mac-users as well
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

I've never heard of it Laura, but I'll have a look at it tomorrow.

Thanks for letting us know about it!

That looks neat! I've never had much success with writing programs beyond Word, but it might be very helpful for my style to have scenes separated. Thanks for sharing!

I've been using this now for about 6 months. I really like it. However, it's a bit difficult to look at the scenes together.

I may have to use this.

Ooooh! I've heard of this! I'm not in the middle of a novel now, so I'm not using it, but I want to try!

I found it a long time ago, and have used it off and on. It is very good. I don't write in it, but I use it to help me keep track of things during revisions or outlining sometimes.

I've used it before...I might try it again. I'm thinking it could be useful for world-building too...so I might get it for the mac and try it again! Has he been updating it?

I just downloaded it! It's a smallish program; but looks very helpful. And especially since Word isn't working for me right now, I'm going to look forward to trying this out! Thanks, Laura!

I've been using it for a while now. I use yWriter5, the updated version.
I find it very helpful as it separates chapters from each-other and scenes from each-other.
Like, when you create a new project, you click on chapters and click create new chapter and then edit the name from "Chapter 1" to "Outline" or whatever and then click "OK" and then you click on "scene" and create new scene and same for Characters and locations. It even allows you to have a picture of what your character looks like!
It's fun. I hope that gives a little help for the new users of it because I was really confused about it at first.

Wow, this is neat! Thanks so much for sharing!

I finally decided to try this today and am loving it Really helpful in getting me to buckle down and outline the specifics of my story (decide what scenes I need and helping clear out some general wishy-washy areas in my story -- which was trying to do just the other day). I doubt I'll be writing in it, but it'll be to compile everything into while I'm working (a nice place to keep things together and yet cleanly organized) Plus! Now I know what exactly I need to write!

*never realized I was such an outlining nerd *


I'm also thinking of using it to organize an encyclopedia for my world. Each chapter will be a letter and each scene will be an entry (with little summaries to go along with them )

I think that may be the reason I don't use it even though it's such an awesome idea--I a non outlining nerd.



Now that is a good idea. *might have to give ywriter a chance at worldbuilding.