Fiction vs. Nonfiction writing/software

Posted by JohnK
Sep 3, 2008 at 12:27 AM

Wearing my journalist hat, I find that the key piece of software for me is the one I use for data gathering and retrieval. Finding the perfect ‘data dump’ has been a never-ending search. For pulling it all together, a text editor will do me just fine.

For fiction, on the other hand, specialist software such as PageFour, or Movie Magic Screenwriter for scriptwriting, do help the writing and outlining process.

Although it’s risky turning this one example into a broad generalization, I think many fiction writers need more help from software later in the process. With non-fiction, the information-gathering phase is where most help is needed.