The easy ability to check the word count has also kept me motivated. It’s allowed me to really get all the details for my new novel together in one place. Overall, yWriter5 is a great program for writers everywhere. The only downside is the minimal formatting options, but it allows you to export your book to Word when you’re done so that you can format to your heart’s content. This just scratches the surface on yWriter’s features.

There are also special tools for writers, like a storyboarder, text-to-speech reader, and a tool that allows you to program word-count goals for yourself with completion bar and timer. Chapters can be sliced from the story, rearranged, or stuck right in the middle of the story, and it’s the same way for scenes. And of course, there’s the word processor for writing chapters, divided into scenes. There are similar ways of adding locations and items. Click save to add the character to your cast.

You can add new characters by clicking, which brings up a window in which you can fill in info about the character, such as their name, alternate name(s), description, importance, biography, story notes, goals, and even upload a picture of how you envision them (it doesn’t have to be perfect I just draw stick figures in Paint.NET). Here you see a list of characters in your story. The main window has tabs running along the top, with labels like Scenes, Characters, Locations, Items, and so on. It goes like this: novels are referred to as “projects”, and within yWriter you can catalog notes and details in a computer assisted manner. So a friend and fellow writer introduced me to yWriter5, a word-processor specially devoted to writing novels (see screen shot).

“No more,” I said, “This time I’m gonna do it right”.īeing a computer geek, the best way I know how to get myself organized is software. I don’t spend time plotting and writing outlines, I just dive in, and sometimes make notes here and there. I recently realized that my real problem is disorganization. I’ve written the beginnings of around three, all abandoned before completion. For years, I’ve been trying to write a full-length novel.

Ywriter5