Software for Authors

Posted by Graham Rhind
May 23, 2011 at 08:50 AM

It must seem rather weird that some of us old fuddy duddies prefer old-fashioned writing implements, but there’s a little method in our madness.

I don’t use outliners (possibly the only person on this forum who doesn’t!) - I usually can’t get the framework that I have in my head out without messing up the one I have in my head, and if I do manage it, I then ignore the outline and write as I would have done anyway. My writing has always evolved. At university I wrote essays first by pen and then re-wrote them on a typewriter (the only computer we had then required punch cards ...). Although the implements I use now are different, the pattern is the same. Writing and rewriting a work gives me better results than trying to plan it first.

Apart from the tactile satisfaction of using pens and typewriters, I don’t like reading from a computer screen, so having a version on paper works better for me. That said, I am preparing my new book in WritingOutliner for Word. I don’t have to learn any new software, I can add footnotes, endnotes and graphics as I go, and it produces an output format my publishers like. Already being known and published I’m possibly given more leeway on such matters than most :-)

Graham