[HN Gopher] NovelWriter 1.0 - A markdown-like editor for writing... ___________________________________________________________________ NovelWriter 1.0 - A markdown-like editor for writing novels Author : app4soft Score : 281 points Date : 2021-01-19 13:43 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (novelwriter.io) (TXT) w3m dump (novelwriter.io) | impalallama wrote: | Very cool, I've always wanted a tool like this that uses Vim | macros. This doesn't quite meet that need but looks very useful | nonetheless. | BenFeldman1930 wrote: | Missing any reference to the one and only editor, every | commentator was actually having in mind: Emacs. | Cyber_squad wrote: | Very very interesting reads, thanks for sharing! | Merg wrote: | It is certainly interesting. If you want to check out some free | alternative, that are pretty neat for longer writing, I really | like Quoll Writer. | | It does have few more useful features like password protected | writing, pretty ergonomic, but less standard interface and few UI | translations. | underdeserver wrote: | Screenshots: | https://novelwriter.readthedocs.io/en/stable/int_introductio... | | From the main page (https://novelwriter.io): | | novelWriter is a Markdown-like text editor designed for writing | novels and larger projects of many smaller plain text documents. | It uses its own flavour of Markdown that supports a meta data | syntax for comments, synopsis, and cross-referencing between | files. It's designed to be a simple text editor that allows for | easy organisation of text files and notes, built on plain text | files for robustness. | app4soft wrote: | Homepage: https://novelwriter.io | | Message to HN Mods: _Please, replace actual topic link to news | article link_ [0] | | [0] https://novelwriter.io/2021/01/03/release-1-0/ | dang wrote: | In cases where a project hasn't been discussed on HN before, | which it appears this one hasn't, we change the link to the | project home page. I've changed it to that from | https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/releases/tag/v1.0 now. | ConfusedDog wrote: | Looks really good. Like a simplified version of Scrivener, | which is awesome. Would be awesome if I can import it to | Scrivener and the other way around. | unixhero wrote: | Scrivener is the novelist standard now isn't it? | andrewflnr wrote: | Depends what you mean by "standard". It is very widely | used, but the closest thing to a standard in the sense of | something needed for interoperation is docx. | falcolas wrote: | > standard in the sense of something needed for | interoperation is docx | | 100% this. Word, or docx more specifically, is used for | exchanging documents all over the place. It's readable | (and writable) by Google Docs, Word, Pages, Open Office, | and more I'm not aware of. | | I do some proofreading, and I have done typesetting for a | novel, and if the inputs I get are not in a Google Doc, | it's in docx file. | marvindanig wrote: | Somewhat. However, their manuscript - markdown export has | issues. I have seen people struggling with the flavor of | its markdown a bit as well. | | OP has a great solution that focuses on markdown alone. And | that's a welcome change! | greenie_beans wrote: | awesome, gonna give this a try. i've tried making something like | this but got to a point where it was becoming more sophisticated | and difficult, so i shelved the project. i've decided that my | time is better spent working on writing projects, so thanks for | sharing. | vikingcaffiene wrote: | This has no word export option (unless I missed it) which makes | it infeasible for a lot of writers. Like it or not, docx is the | format a lot of folks in mainstream publishing expect. | | Context: My partner is a published author and I've pitched stuff | like this at her on multiple occasions as an alternative to | Scrivener. In addition to her laughing at my insistence that | markdown is a superior way to write, she cites the need for a | rock solid word export option that "just works" as a requirement | for any tool she uses. | notjustanymike wrote: | Trying to unseat Scrivener is like competing with IntelliJ. | TeaDrunk wrote: | Scrivener does in fact have competition. (Highland 2 for | screenwriting for example.) | mmastrac wrote: | Ok, we're going down the hole of analogies a little too far | but VS Code and the world of language services is a pretty | decent replacement for a lot of use cases outside of | IntelliJ's core Java strength. | | Every top dog eventually gets cut down by _someone_ over | time. | RandomWorker wrote: | should be easy to implement using pandoc since the underlying | code is python? | ziftface wrote: | Yeah I was surprised to see it didn't use pandoc for exports. | I'm not sure why, and all these issues about exporting to | word wouldn't exist. | RandomWorker wrote: | Might be due the GPL license of pandoc, this is a copyleft | type license, requiring any code that is built with pandoc | to be described, made available, and released under the | same license. | | https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/blob/master/COPYRIGHT | spijdar wrote: | Given that novelWriter itself is GPL licensed, I doubt | this is the problem. More likely it was a choice to avoid | needing pandoc as a dependency, either explicitly | (bundled or integrated in the code somehow) or implicitly | (calling to the system's pandoc install), as pandoc is | written in Haskell and kind of a PITA to build or | integrate in that way. | | Since you can already export to a single ODT/PDF/MD, the | benefits of additional pandoc integration are probably | diminished. | kadrian12 wrote: | I applaud the author for keeping everything text file based. | | In general, I think we should strive for non-proprietary, | standard file formats. | | Isn't docx far too one-sided and controlled in that regard? I | wonder if anyone has some info on the "state of affairs" for | the "document format race". | michaericalribo wrote: | To be fair, docx _is_ non-proprietary. And as an ISO | standard, it is a _very_ standard format. | ordinaryradical wrote: | None of this matters because the industry relies on docx (and | it's a crusty, oldschool industry so good luck changing | that). | | A minimum for a novel writing tool is that one can actually | send the novel out in a format where your agent and editor | will read it. Otherwise you're not getting that novel | published. | nix23 wrote: | I see you hate the Unix philosophy....for conversions use | pandoc. A Song of Ice and Fire was not written with Word. | chipotle_coyote wrote: | > A Song of Ice and Fire was not written with Word. | | When startups haven't even started up yet but are | worrying about how they can scale to billion-dollar | unicorn level, a common refrain on Hacker News has been | "you are not Google." | | Allow me to give you the fiction writers' equivalent: you | are not George R.R. Martin. | nix23 wrote: | The output is md....dont you think you can convert that | too let's say docx? You don't even have to be Google todo | that. | | And if you want to let it proof read by George R.R. | Martin you can even convert it to WordStar....magic eh? | Pandoc can do that...your MS Word too? | rusticpenn wrote: | How are you going to handle editor comments without | losing history? | chipotle_coyote wrote: | You're missing the point that people are trying to make | here. | | Yes, it's possible to convert Markdown to a Word file, | with a variety of tools. You can use Pandoc to do this | _if you are the sort of person who is comfortable using | tools like Pandoc._ I can do that, along with all sorts | of other things, because I am that sort of nerd. | | _However,_ most fiction writers and editors are _not_ | that sort of nerd. Most people don 't want to use | Markdown in the first place. Of the people who _do_ want | to use Markdown, not all of _them_ are that sort of nerd, | either. They want an "Export to > DOCX" command in their | editor, not "save the Markdown file, open your terminal | app, change to your documents directory, and type "pandoc | -o my-novel.docx my-novel.md". (And that's assuming | they're not doing something like, well, what NovelWriter | does, saving individual chapters and perhaps even | individual _scenes_ as independent files.) | | Look, I love Pandoc. It's great. But it's not a tool for | everyone. If someone is trying to embrace the plain text | lifestyle with a tool like NovelWriter but pointing out | not being able to export to a Word file is a problem for | them, asking "are you comfortable with Unix command line | tools" and then telling them about Pandoc if they say yes | might be a great idea -- but starting out with "obviously | you hate the Unix way", maybe not so much. | | > you can even convert it to WordStar....magic eh? Pandoc | can do that. | | No, in fact it cannot. :) | spijdar wrote: | > (And that's assuming they're not doing something like, | well, what NovelWriter does, saving individual chapters | and perhaps even individual scenes as independent files.) | | This is _totally_ unrelated to the gist of this thread, | but I just wanted to point out that novelWriter 's | project builder outputs to a single file, which can be | markdown, ODF, PDF, HTML, and others. Pandoc could then | make a single DOCX file out of that. | | Your point still stands that this is too complicated for | the average user, but I just wanted to mention this since | it might make a difference for technically minded writers | considering novelWriter. | chipotle_coyote wrote: | That makes sense (I figured novelWriter did that, since | it looks an _awful_ lot like an attempt at a Markdown- | based answer to Scrivener and that 's how Scrivener's | "Compile" function works), and I suspect it won't be too | difficult for novelWriter to add other file formats to | its exporter. So not being able to output DOCX is | probably not a long-term issue, unless the maintainers | have a philosophical objection to it. :) | nix23 wrote: | First, your probably right and i may/really have missed | the point. | | Second...it really cant. | | Shame on me, and sorry for my tone. | falcolas wrote: | When you too can afford to pay your editors, | proofreaders, and publishers to accommodate your unique | file formats and the associated changes to their | workflow, you too can write in WordStar. | nix23 wrote: | Since you obvious don't know what unix philosophy is, | it's a md writer..that's it, you want to convert it..take | a converter like pandoc. If you really think every | writing program should have it's own converters..well | then you end up with less interchangeable stuff. One tool | for Writing another one for conversion..is that so | complicated? | CJefferson wrote: | If you have an editor, you need two way communication -- | they are going to make changes in your word document, | using track changes, so you also need to be able to | convert back. | falcolas wrote: | For a layman, err, editor? Absolutely. It's a completely | different workflow than what they're used to. | | The Unix philosophy has nothing to do with this, since | we're not talking about programming, we're talking about | writing. | nix23 wrote: | >since we're not talking about programming | | Has nothing todo with programming, a real hammer is | better as the backside of an axe. A Specialized Knife is | better then a Swiss-Pocket Knife. One tool for one job | but make that job perfect. | youngtaff wrote: | Depends on what industry... O'Reilly relies on Asciidoc | falcolas wrote: | If we're being fair, docx (or rather, tools that write docx | files) offers a lot of tooling out of the box that is | useful for proofreaders, editors, and typesetters. Revision | history, suggestions, and non-printing comments are all | incredibly useful. | sigzero wrote: | Use pandoc to export or transform it (if you can). | spoiler wrote: | From the documentation: | | > The core export format of novelWriter is HTML5. You can also | export the entire project as a single novelWriter Markdown- | flavour document. In addition, other exports to Open Document, | PDF, and plain text is offered through the Qt library, although | with limitations to formatting. | | So it seems like it can export to Open Document, which seems to | be well-supported[1]; including Microsoft Office support. | | [1]: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument#Application_suppo... | madsbuch wrote: | Docx might be an appropriate format to communicate with a | publisher. But to my very limited knowledge Markdown is a good | choice for the initial authoring process. As it can easily be | converted. These days publishing happens on all sorts of | platforms and the end product needs to be prepared for the | press, ePub, Kindle, PDF, audiobooks, etc. | | Until the distribution is decided my intuition is that Markdown | provides this needed flexiblity. | michaericalribo wrote: | 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. | lhenk wrote: | This can be accomplished by exporting to PDF | TeaDrunk wrote: | How is a copyeditor supposed to manage a PDF? PDFs are | generally a huge no-no in submissions. (Source: I write | short fiction & my short fiction has been published.) | vidarh wrote: | Unless you're already a big-name author you rarely get to | choose. Docx will generally be an option, and if you're | lucky a few other formats. | barkingcat wrote: | exporting to pdf is exactly what you _don 't_ want as an | editor receiving files from a writer. | ASalazarMX wrote: | I guess their editor can just cut and paste to Word if he | really wants to make corrections. | socialdemocrat wrote: | Geez 99.99% of a Nobel is just plain text. MS Word adds no | value. Getting plain text into MS Word is not rocket science. | | The point of using markdown is that you got many tools which | are superior is aiding in you writing process and organizing | your text. | | The final format is much less important than whatever aids | your writing process. | | I have tried using traditional word processors for writing | novels and I cannot say they measure up to tools like | Ulysses. | WorldMaker wrote: | > MS Word adds no value. | | Word automates a lot of things in the editing cycle of a | novel. Word's "Track Changes"/"Accept Changes" tools and | the workflows they enable are by far the most common in a | number of industries, but especially in edit workflows of | most major publishers. That's why the Word format | specifically is often requested/required, because people | know and understand those tools and already have | processes/workflows built around them. | | The closest equivalent tools for plain text are source | control systems and text diff/patch. Those tools _are_ | great (and arguably fit some definitions of "superior", | especially in capturing history earlier in the process and | keeping history longer after the process). They are also | nowhere as ubiquitously installed as Word, and nowhere near | as easily taught (or already known/understood) as Word in | today's world. | | Those "edit cycle" needs maybe aren't a huge reason to do | the initial writing in Word, but they are certainly many | steps above "no value", and thus the noted restriction that | no matter what tool you use for the initial writing, if it | doesn't have an _easy_ Word export to get it started down | the edit cycle path then it doesn 't have an easy fit in | today's publishing world. | vikingcaffiene wrote: | I'll tell her to let her editor know that. Lol. | eslaught wrote: | I will find out the answer to this question hopefully later | this year. :-) | | But anyway, I do use Markdown and I have submitted to | contests etc. that require Word formatted files. For the most | part it's an nonissue. I can use Pandoc to export to Word, | provide the reference file with the correct format, and boom, | I'm done. None of the judges of my works so far have ever had | any issues opening my files. | | I agree the publishing industry will never accept Markdown. | That's ok. I can use the tools I like and still produce what | they need to do their part of the job. | michaericalribo wrote: | I agree, and I draft my own fiction in emacs. The cost is | lower to use my preferred editor, then do the post-hoc | formatting adjustments once in Word. | | For a novelist, though, the editing process is quite | iterative: make changes, send them to your editor, they | send it back with comments and inline track changes and so | on. | | Don't get me wrong, I'm an advocate for using tools you're | most comfortable with...whatever gets you writing! But | these small things can throw a wrench in the process. It | sure sucks to have to do edits in Word! | | Good luck with the publishing project, though, it sounds | like you're pretty far along! | [deleted] | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | 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 missing? What's the benefit? | TeaDrunk wrote: | This sounds silly but as an author myself it's extremely | important that I know what the story looks like to a final | reader while I write it. It's like dogfooding my own prose. | Too many short paragraphs, or too many long ones, or | strange gaps, etc. are much more evident to me in docx or | scrivener or any other text processor. | | I could never get over Markdown; Markdown doesn't show me | the user experience of my own code(writing), while word and | scrivener will show me _instantly_. | SamuelAdams wrote: | 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. | michaericalribo wrote: | 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! | wyclif wrote: | I write books in Vim. The way I work is that I do it all in | plaintext until the final edit. Only after that do I add | formatting (could be .docx or Markdown or whatever the | editor expects). | michaericalribo wrote: | What happens when your editor requests changes? How are | those edits communicated to you, and how do you integrate | them back into plaintext? | | (Serious question--a big pain point for me is the choice | between using my preferred tool to start, then switching | to a bad tool later; or, using a bad tool the entire | time) | socialdemocrat wrote: | 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. | citizenkeen wrote: | 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? | michaericalribo wrote: | Ha! This is a really interesting perspective--I think | you're saying, "it's all plain text, so there's no | advantage to using Markdown instead of docx". | | I think others have an opposite view, but on the same | grounds. The argument seems to be: it's all plain text, so | docx is overkill, so markdown is more technically | efficient! | | There's some benefit to using the tool I know best (emacs, | for me), so it's nice to use a "native" format that also | gives me my usual keybindings, macros, etc. | | But there's no doubt it just offloads the inefficiency to a | different step of the process. I'm more comfortable with | inputting text, but it requires post-hoc reformatting, and | I'd have to use a different word processor for post-editor | changes... | | The "markdown is a more efficient solution from a technical | perspective" argument doesn't hold a lot of weight with | me...the practical overhead of docx is minimal, so unless | you prize technical purity over all else, I don't think | there _is_ a benefit. | eslaught wrote: | The benefit is the rest of the pure text toolchain. Like | being able to use Git. I can confirm, for example, how | long a typo has existed in my book by looking at the Git | history. Maybe that's a bit academic, but you get the | point. I have the complete history of everything I've | ever written. | | Another example: because formatting is reified in | Markdown, I can grep for it. Did I misuse italics? With | one command I can find every single place where I used | italics in my entire book. I don't think you can even do | that in Word. Good luck reading a multi-hundred page | manuscript to find all of the places you may have made | the same mistake. | | Another example: Word provides styles, but honestly, who | has discipline to use them? Most people I know manually | insert page breaks, centered text, and X number blank | spaces at the top of a page to make a new chapter. In | Markdown, all of my markup gets converted into Word | styles automatically and then I can create a reference | doc to apply the style I want. I'm writing semantically | correct styles in my documents all the time with no | additional effort. | michaericalribo wrote: | Well, to be fair, MS Word maintains a full history of | every edit that was made. | | And, find-and-replace for specific formatting _is_ | supported out-of-the-box. | | Finally, cmd-i / cmd-u / cmd-b are pretty easy default | bindings, and setting up shortcuts for more intricate, | specific styles is straightforward in Word. | | I share your preference for using an efficient tool--I'm | a die-hard md+git practitioner. But the "most people I | know" argument is not a good basis for rejecting real, | rich features in software that works well for other | people. | | I am also curious: why do you care about semantic | correctness? It's OK if that's just your preference, but | it's not something that moves the needle for me....I'm | not sure why I should care! | | (edit to add: my comment sounds glib and a little sharper | that I intended. That wasn't my intent!) | aeroevan wrote: | > MS Word maintains a full history of every edit that was | made | | This is only true while track changes is on, correct? | Like can I see the state of a docx as I was writing it | last month/year? | michaericalribo wrote: | I don't use Word so I can't say! | | But if you cared about the history, why wouldn't you | always turn them on by default? "Full history" in git is | also an opt-in model for maintaining a history... | boplicity wrote: | You also need a way to import changes from edits. Word's track | changes feature is vital in professional contexts, even though | it is not always intuitive. Once a manuscript gets to the | editing stage, tracking revisions, comments, suggestions, etc | is extremely important. I suppose at that stage, you could just | move away from a tool like this, and just use Word, or Google | Docs. | vidarh wrote: | It can export to ODT or HTML, both of which can be imported | into word, or moved over by crudely cut and pasting into Word. | | I think the bigger issue if she already likes Scrivener is that | if that is the functionality she wants, then unless she wants | the flexibility of being able to customise a tool or process | Markdown files with code or switch to Linux etc. is something | she wants, then it's not likely the tools you've pitched, or | this one, will be an improvement. | | I write in Markdown myself, so I absolutely sympathise with | your POV on that, but I think the "rock solid word export" is | more of a way to get you off her back because it works. | barkingcat wrote: | I agree with her - markdown is totally not a superior way to | write. It's a good way to mark up text, but writing isn't just | marking up text. | socialdemocrat wrote: | When writing you want a tool focused specifically on writing | an organizing text. Programs like word is too focused on | formatting and visual aspects. | | Markdown would be much better for authors. Just because they | have become accustomed to something else doesn't mean that | something else is better. | | Just watching the mess my dad makes when writing books in | Word makes me convinced that anybody who claims Word is | superior for an author simply have never watched and author | in action. | [deleted] | em-bee wrote: | it says it can exporting to ODF, but without much formatting | requiring additional editing after conversion. instead it | recommends exporting to HTML, and then importing that into | writer or word for better results. | | but i could not tell from the docs how to get the end result | into something like standard manuscript format without manual | processing. | em-bee wrote: | found the answer: http://www.autodidacts.io/convert-markdown- | to-standard-manus... | coliveira wrote: | She's correct. Only a programmer may entertain the idea that | editing markdown is superior to any visual editor. | kevincox wrote: | Infeasible is maybe a stretch. However you will need to have a | multi-step "Export for Publish" workflow which is definitely a | hurdle. However assuming that 95% of the time is spent writing | it may be worth it if you like the tool. | lhorie wrote: | > markdown is a superior way to write | | Is it though? I don't have any experience with book authoring | but I would expect stuff like Geronimo Stilton to be hard to | produce with markdown: it is peppered with creative text | highlighting (e.g. words written in a custom cheese-pattern | font) and this is common in primary school geared books. | | Even decidedly grown-up books like GEB might have illustrations | and diagrams, and it's important to consider where said | illustrations go - they must fit in a physical page. | | There are also other small quality of life things that word | does automatically, e.g. replace ASCII 0x22 (keyboard quote) | with 0x201C / 0x201D (left and right double quotes, | respectively), etc. | | Don't get me wrong, I love to use markdown for programming | documentation and it's pretty good for that, especially when | you adopt flavors like GFM. But I'm legitimately curious what | makes one consider markdown superior for book writing. It just | seems like it would have a different set of priorities. | ajarmst wrote: | I think that _House of Leaves_ can be left as an unaddressed | edge-case for most novel-writing tools. | socialdemocrat wrote: | Coming up with the text and doing the visual layout later are | often separate step. And author does not do all the visual | layout. | edwinyzh wrote: | Yes, almost publishers accept Word documents only, and that's | why I've built DocxManager (https://docxmanager.com/) on top of | Microsoft Word. ;) | | Basically, it's an outliner/corkboard/project manager for all | kinds writers who uses Word. | falcolas wrote: | Windows only. Bummer. Completely understandable, but bummer. | A lot of tools can output .docx files. | evolve2k wrote: | Acknowledge having an inbuilt export would be preferable but | for what it's worth; If you're a dev it shouldn't be too hard | to leverage pandoc, especially coming from a clean text based | format. | | Something like: | | $ brew install pandoc (install on macOS) | | $ pandoc -t docx filename.md -o filename.docx | | Ref: https://opensource.com/article/19/5/convert-markdown-to- | word... | TeaDrunk wrote: | This is now significantly more steps than downloading | Scrivener. | codetrotter wrote: | However, since NovelWriter is GPLv3 licensed, they could in | theory incorporate code from Pandoc, which is GPLv2 | licensed, directly into NovelWriter. | gabereiser wrote: | I think you guys are missing the point. The point isn't | "how do we get from markdown to docx" but rather "why | doesn't this tool support the format my publisher | expects". Yes, pandoc is amazing, but the product needs | to support exporting to docx for the publisher so that | the _user_ of NovelWriter feels supported and empowered | to write. | | TeaDrunk said it best: it's now significantly more steps | the user shouldn't have to do. | youngtaff wrote: | Unless it's got better Scrivener is pretty awful though - | bought it for my first book and gave up, both books I've | written were written with other tools | sien wrote: | What did you use instead? | buildbuildbuild wrote: | Ulysses deciding to switch to a subscription model, locking all | of my works in progress after I purchased their app for $50, | pushed me back to vim for writing. It's remarkably unremarkable | and fine. | | I wish this project the best of luck. Down with Ulysses. | WesleyLivesay wrote: | Looks pretty cool! | | I have ended up settling on a similar setup for my writing in VS | Code. I am a heavy outliner so instead of | [FileTree][Markdown][Preview] I use | [FileTree][Outline][Markdown]. | | I'm not sure I would find the various bits of stats useful, | although I am sure there are some who do. I think it would | probably just cause me anxiety or cause me to put too much focus | on numbers. | ar-nelson wrote: | Tried installing via pip3 on Debian Buster, and it segfaults | immediately. I'm sure it's an issue with my system, but I can't | figure out what; there's no useful debug information, even though | it tries to open KDE's bug report dialog. | jdbiggs wrote: | So this is really good for what it is - an open source Scrivener. | If I didn't have the cash for Scrivener I'd use this until I | could afford it. | bronikowski wrote: | It's true that with ideas, if you wait long enough, someone will | do the work for you. I was toying with an idea of "novel markup", | something that could let you track characters over scenes, | geographical locations and interpersonal relationships. | | Things got hairy quickly so it died on pages of my notebook. Glad | someone gave it a go. A header tagging is probably better than | inline I wanted to have. | nahuel0x wrote: | Somebody feels we need to found a middle way between full WYSIYWG | and two pane source/preview for Markdown writing? | 5cents wrote: | You may have a look at Zettlr: https://zettlr.com/ (open- | source) | cecja wrote: | Joplin has both atm it's quite nice. | app4soft wrote: | Maybe _ghostwriter_ [0] is what you are looking for? | | [0] http://wereturtle.github.io/ghostwriter/ | nahuel0x wrote: | I just found typora[0] and Emacs "M-x markdown-toggle-markup- | hiding" :) | | [0] https://typora.io/ | app4soft wrote: | > https://support.typora.io/License-Agreement/ | | EULA?! Thanks, but NO. | | P.S. _ghtostwriter_ is fully free & open-source, instead | of _proprietary Typora_. | nahuel0x wrote: | Also found MarkText, MIT Licensed: https://marktext.app/ | klunger wrote: | I am currently making my way through "The Fantasy Fiction | Formula" by Deborah Chester. It's my first stab at this kind of | thing, so it has been really eye opening. When I read any kind of | fiction now, I can't help but map out all the elements of plot | and scene described by Chester. (This has had the unpleasant side | effect of making reading fiction less pleasurable. ah well) | | So, I can see this kind of tool being very useful in structuring | plots, sub-plots and scenes. I still haven't written that book | though, so I am wondering if any seasoned writers here have a | take on it. | vidarh wrote: | > This has had the unpleasant side effect of making reading | fiction less pleasurable. ah well | | If it helps, I think this side-effect is likely to fade for | good fiction. Bad-but-tolerable fiction gets ruined forever | when you get better at spotting what they do and what it gets | wrong... | | I haven't read the book you mention, but when I've read similar | type of books before it's definitively been annoying for a | while, but then it goes to the background and it seems to | usually just pop into my mind when I either spot particularly | good or bad examples. When I notice particularly _good_ uses of | techniques now, it tends to make me appreciate the work more, | if anything. | prionassembly wrote: | I bought "Save the cat!" (I'd read some parts of Vogler's | "Writer's journey" in film school) hoping to adapt the formula | to writing a bad novel. Then I never did. | | The weird thing about hobby projects is that they don't have an | actual audience. So I write a lot about philosophy and social | theory and such, but it's ultimately a lot of self-dialog. This | doesn't work for fiction, even short stories. (I did write a | handful of poems in the 2010s) | ajarmst wrote: | I don't get it. Why "markdown-like". Do people writing novels | have some need that is unmet by an existing flavour of markdown? | Because I have to say that the last thing that ecosystem needs is | yet another flavour. I thought the entire point to markdown was | that you _didn 't need a special editor_. Which of course has | done nothing to reduce their mushrooms-in-a-damp-cellar | proliferation. | ajarmst wrote: | NB: I'm an emacs/org-mode/pandoc toolchain devotee (aficionado? | cultmember?), so I should disclose that I don't get the point | of most editing tools. | omarhaneef wrote: | So I have been looking for something like this, and in fact the | closest thing might be Highland 2. What I have been using is | VScode with some scripts and other features. Really want an | alternative to scrivener that keeps everything in markdown. | | The key thing I miss in all the other versions is something that | will: | | 1. Count the words in a chapter/scene/section | | 2. Give me a total based on the "in work" | chapters/scenes/sections | | For example suppose I am writing Chapter 1-9. I don't like | Chapter 8 so I am rewriting an alternate. I want to know what the | old chapter 8 word count is, what the new one is, and what the | total word count is (and I can select which chapters or sections | to include in the "total"). | | Looks like this does something like that so long as I put all the | relevant chapters together in the same folder. (Good enough if I | get to use Markdown.) | | Only issue is, if I go into the folders, I don't see the Markdown | files. Isn't that the point? | Tallain wrote: | Have you heard of Manuskript[0]? It's an open source editor | with a lot of features similar to Scrivener, runs on | Linux/Windows/Mac, and has a few features that Scrivener | doesn't have that have helped me plan things more fully in the | past. It's not perfect, but it's a solid tool. Also, it's | backed by Markdown text files. | | [0]: https://www.theologeek.ch/manuskript/ | omarhaneef wrote: | I have used it, and I liked it but back when I used it: | | 1. It was only for linux (and I hope OS a lot) | | 2. I either didn't know, or didn't appreciate, that it uses | Markdown. | | Thanks for the tip. | | (I also think there was only an option to install it from a | site I did not know if I could trust, and I hate building | from source.) | k_sze wrote: | Interesting. Does that make it kinda midway between "pure" | MarkDown and reStructuredText? As in, it's a bit more powerful | than pure MarkDown, but still lighter to use than | reStructuredText? | | I mean, if you don't mind summoning the awesome power of | something like Visual Studio Code, you could also write | reStructureText with live preview (there's a VSCode extension for | that, IIRC). | lazrgatr wrote: | don't suppose you can make this, but aimed at thesis writing? | soferio wrote: | Looks great. I would be delighted to have the small task of | converting to docx when the big task of actually writing a novel | is made easier by this and finished! (Also python has docx | libraries so docx is unlikely to be too much trouble in due | course). Well done! | cheph wrote: | The proliferation of markdown forks is a mess. Can't you just use | something better to begin with, like asciidoc? I think you can | likely just use existing asciidoc mechanisms to support the same | thing and then existing editors will still be usable. | [deleted] | chank wrote: | The proliferation of markdown itself is also a mess IMO. | Outside of web writing it seems really more effort than it's | worth. Seems like everyone making a writing tool of any kind is | ditching rich text in favor of it for no good reason. | jotson wrote: | For me, plaintext (like Markdown) is a strength over | proprietary or binary formats and I've accepted the | tradeoffs. It's the primary "good reason" I use Markdown. I | have confidence that text will always be readable in the | future even if I don't have the app that made it. Secondarily | I find most word processors overkill with toolbars everywhere | and I do not like using them. | calebm wrote: | Oh man, I'm definitely gonna try this. I recently did a good bit | of research into how I could write a novel (or anything with | footnotes) in plain text, and it was surprisingly difficult - so | much so that I just decided to use Scrivener instead. But this | looks promising! | therealdrag0 wrote: | Are there any minimal editors like this that support vim-like | keybindings? | | I've been using Sublime-Text with a markdown plugin, but | interested in something more focused on prose writing. | | (I also use 1Writer on iOS which is a solid plaintext/markdown | editor.) | premek wrote: | is author here? | | - Is it suitable for non-technical writers? is there any feedback | on them baing able to use markdown, @pov tags etc? | | - did you try some commercial competitors? How would you compare? | I understand scrivener is one popular option | vidarh wrote: | I'm actually support for similar tagging to my own personal | editor (for my first two novels I used a mix of Google Docs | (yes, really) and Libre Office; using my own editor for my | third). I'm definitively going to steal ideas from this one... | | I don't think using those kind of features requires any | technical understanding at all. If anything, people are used to | doing "ad hoc" tagging with easily searchable strings. | [deleted] | app4soft wrote: | UPD: Dev just answered[0] to your qestions: | | Q: Is it suitable for non-technical writers? is there any | feedback on them baing able to use markdown, @pov tags etc? | | A: _" non-technical" as in the person or the writing itself? I | deliberately chose not to write a WYSIWYG editor in order to | keep the files plain text and as simple as possible. I've | written a WYSIWYG editor before, and didn't like the result. I | guess having to use some markup makes it slightly technical in | use, but I've also added menu entries and keyboard shortcuts | for all the features, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get | started._ | | Q: Did you try some commercial competitors? How would you | compare? I understand scrivener is one popular option | | A: _I 've used it, yes. It's excellent, and perfect if you want | a full WYSIWYG editor with a lot of features. I went in a | different direction exactly because I wanted something simpler. | Also, as a Linux user, the lack of decent options was a | factor._ | | [0] | https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/discussions/567#discussi... | nickelcitymario wrote: | As someone working on an alternative editor for novelists, I | appreciate what the creator(s) are going for here. | | Creating ebooks is a pain in the butt for a non-technical user. | But there's nothing to it if you've ever worked with HTML and | CSS. Because the ebook formats are basically all variants of XML. | | I'm of the opinion that there really is a place on the market for | editing software that is a) hyper-focused on the needs of | novelists (allowing the design and features to be focused as | well); and b) handles the technical aspects of ebooks for you. | | Most of the existing solutions require a certain amount of | technical expertise, or are so bloated with features that | managing the software becomes a project. | | But this is where NovelWriter falls short, in my opinion. It | solves the ebook-creation process, but from the eyes of a | developer. The thing is, developers don't have these problems, | because we're comfortable with the tech. 5 minutes of Googling | will solve the book writing problem for any developer. | | These problems persists for non-technical users. NovelWriter | doesn't appear to solve them. | | The interface here looks like a code editor, which isn't going to | be comforting to most writers. (Ever have someone walk up to your | desk and declare the code editor on your screen to be immediately | indecipherable? I think they're have the same gut reaction upon | seeing this editor.) | | And Markdown is terrifying to non-coders. It looks like | gobbledygook. _We_ love it, but every time I 've tried to show a | non-developer what Markdown looked like, their eyes glazed over. | | So those are my critiques. But things that I think are awesome | about this project: | | 1. Open-source. This should always be celebrated because it's not | easy to just give away your hard work. (My own app will be SaaS.) | | 2. Word counts per chapter and for the book as a whole, viewable | at all times. | | 3. Editor and preview at the same time. (Common feature for | markdown editors, but still well done.) | | 4. Solution for outlining, character profiles, tracking | locations, plot points, etc. The implementation for these appears | to be quite simple, too. These are features that my own app may | not have at launch, so hats off. | | 5. They actually delivered. | | I, for one, am excited about this project and will be following | along. | jonnycomputer wrote: | I am writing a novel in Markdown using Emacs. For most of the | novel writing process Markdown is enough. I have been toying with | the idea of tweaking the markdown like this novelWriter does, | mostly because I constantly find myself wanting to annotate my | text, or temporarily mark out, but not delete, blocks of text. | michaericalribo wrote: | Lots of comments here to the effect of "novelists don't need | full-featured rich styling*, it's all just plain text!" It's true | for _many_ novels. | | But it's not true for _all_ novels! House of Leaves (Danielewski) | and S. (Abrams/Dorst) are full-fledged multimedia novels. Many | fantasy novels use maps; Crying of Lot 49 uses at least 1 image, | in situ. And I would love to see an edition of Pale Fire | (Nabokov) that interposes annotations between the "original | formatting" of the poem! | | "The novel" isn't really a well-defined concept...there are many | interpretations of the basic concept! The high % of novels that | are "just text" is descriptive, not prescriptive. | | * Use whatever definition of "rich text" you like, I don't care | ElBookleyTruth wrote: | I'll learn you why formats doesn't matter. If your book is good | we'll pirate it. And if your book is good it doesn't matter how | you write it. The publishers will be willing to dig through your | shit to get to the grains of it. Trust me. If you worry about | formats you need to write better. Let that shit sink in. It | really doesn't at all matter. And if you're popular you'll both | earn a million and have a million pirates dude. Just write a good | book. Bad books is nothing anyone cares about. | jzer0cool wrote: | Very nice from the screenshot provided and I would like to try | running later this month. | | With new GNU license is it fine to release something new in same | why there are different linux flavors? As I understand I must | than return also provide the product source code as well and must | also release under GNU, or is it something else? | | Or am I thinking here of GPL? If anyone has info please share! | chank wrote: | Outside of the more technically inclined; Does anyone who is a | long-form (novel) writer actually use markdown? Outside of | blogging, which it was invented for and makes total sense for | syntax conversion of free formed text to html is there any real | use for it? | | Obviously you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but it | sort of feels odd to me that all these developers making | writing/notes apps that neglect rich text editing entirely in | favor of markdown simply because it's easy to implement. I am | definitely tired of seeing my writing littered with a detritus of | special characters when it's never going to get exported to | anything other than text. | ordinaryradical wrote: | Published novelist. | | I use markdown for drafting via the delightfully minimalistic | iA Writer. It is useful for first drafts and editing on a | sentence by sentence level. | | However, it is not really ideal for getting the text into ms | format or for organizing and editing something as complex as a | finished draft, so I use Scrivener at that end of the process. | | I think there probably is no single tool that is ideal at all | stages of writing a novel. In the beginning you want something | that gets the hell out of your way and lets you write quickly. | Once the first draft is done, you need structural editing | tools. And during that process you will want to dip into | tighter, sentence-by-sentence tooling for rewriting and | revising. | caconym_ wrote: | I wrote the first draft of my first novel in Vim using | Markdown. I've since switched to Scrivener, mostly for the | general convenience it offers and especially the mobile apps | and syncing, but there is a lot about that old workflow that I | miss. It's really convenient to have everything in a single | buffer optimized for keyboard-only navigation, and with Pandoc | there aren't really any concerns around exporting to .docx. | | I absolutely hate WYSIWYG editing when I'm writing fiction, | because it's totally unnecessary and only serves to muddy the | waters when it's time to export the text, e.g. if some of the | devices I was editing on were set to use smart quotes and some | weren't. The text of a typical novel doesn't have much going on | besides chapters, sections, and paragraphs, so Markdown really | has everything you need, and for fancier formatting (like the | side-by-side verse paragraphs in _Stand on Zanzibar_ , just to | name one example off the top of my head) I get the feeling that | Scrivener isn't really flexible enough. There are better tools, | like Vellum, and I think traditional rich text editing exists | in a sort of uncomfortable middle ground where it offers just | enough functionality to get in the way. | | But obviously installing and using a command-line utility like | Pandoc is not something the typical author can really be | expected to do, so they're stuck using the standard industry- | favorite tools that do it all from a GUI. | greenie_beans wrote: | i do, but i'm an unpublished writer. i didn't start using | markdown until i learned to code. also, non-technical writers | need to learn how to use git. | chipotle_coyote wrote: | Well, adding this condition: | | > Outside of the more technically inclined... | | Makes it hard to definitively answer your question: | | > Does anyone who is a long-form (novel) writer actually use | Markdown? | | I am aware of published authors who've used Ulysses, a | Markdown-based multi-document editor for the Mac, for writing | novels.[1] Semi-famously, mystery author David Hewson is a huge | Ulysses fan, and wrote his own book about his process. I don't | get the impression Hewson is super technically inclined the | way, say, Matt Gemmell -- a software engineer turned novelist | who's also a huge Ulysses fan -- clearly is. Some of the appeal | for non-nerds is, I think, part of what grognards like George | R.R. Martin and Robert Sawyer argue gives WordStar for DOS a | big appeal: it's just you and your text with very little else | to distract you. I've personally found that a bit overstated | (most word processors have some kind of "draft mode" that, | while perhaps not as minimal as just You And Your Plain Text, | gets the job done), but it's clearly a thing, and I admit I | enjoy writing in Ulysses more than I would expect. | | Ulysses does, it's worth noting, have the capability to compile | and export documents to Microsoft Word format. It's not as | flexible (or overengineered) as Scrivener's compilation tools, | but that's really something you should be saving until you have | what you think is the final draft -- Ulysses and Scrivener, and | for that matter NovelWriter, are ultimately composition tools, | not editing tools. (Once you're in a "dialogue" with your | editor sending Word documents with embedded revisions and | comments, your manuscript is almost certainly going to stay in | Word.) | | I've written two novels with Scrivener, but I am slowly moving | toward Ulysses for a variety of reasons -- but they are, | indeed, technical reasons. I don't find the "detritus of | special characters" to be particularly annoying with a well- | chosen Ulysses theme; the underlines/asterisks are faded out | and the italics and bold are, well, italics and bold, and for | fiction that's virtually all I need. | voidhorse wrote: | It's a problem I've grappled with for a while. I used to use | Scrivener but eventually got tired of its syncing capabilities, | as I took a lot of notes on my phone in markdown and wanted an | easy way to integrate and transform these notes into longer | form pieces. Scrivener does support this, but it's definitely | not the most polished feature of the tool and it kind of clunky | and annoying to work with in my opinion. | | Tried using vim+git for a while. This combo is great for | portability, but my eyes get tired staring at a terminal all | day, and while git feels nice, it doesn't give you huge | advantages and is just more work when many GUI tools like | scrivener have good enough version control built in -- some | would probably find a complete git version history useful, and | use branches for different drafts etc. but I personally have | never needed this and find it's just another distraction from | actually doing the work of writing. | | Now that I stare at a screen for several hours a day during my | day job, I've settled on pen and paper for my own health. No | idea yet whether or not I'll be able to translate this into | finished products or if typing out handwritten text will prove | too tedious. | powersnail wrote: | Given how many published novelist write their first draft by | hand, I'd argue rich text is not useful at all. | | Manuscripts typically are just plain texts, at most some | italics. | | The organization, however, is very important. | joeldg wrote: | I know authors who write directly into the Vellum app, so I | think you are 100% right. | sicher wrote: | I'm halfway through my second novel. Both in very barebones | markdown (using pretty much only headings). Plain text is a | blessing. I can keep everything in git, searching in emacs with | swiper is fantastic (and good search is a _must_ as the | material grows) and any tool I lack I can hack together. | em-bee wrote: | how do you convert from markdown to standard manuscript | format which is often required for submissions? | powersnail wrote: | pandoc is pretty handy. It's pretty much plain text anyway, | whatever format is used. | em-bee wrote: | yup, and here is how to use pandoc to convert to standard | manuscript format: http://www.autodidacts.io/convert- | markdown-to-standard-manus... | jonnycomputer wrote: | thank you for this. | | huh. looks like i bookmarked this article for followup | some time ago, and completely forgot about it. | jonnycomputer wrote: | but won't get you all the way there, unfortunately, since | novel format is pretty specific. | powersnail wrote: | What are some specific requirements? Aren't most | formatting done by the publisher anyway? | em-bee wrote: | publishers format for print, but the submission needs to | be in a specific format too. | | this stems from the days where manuscripts were submitted | on paper, and not electronically. one could argue that | with electronic submission such format requirements are | no longer relevant, but we all know that people don't | like change. | | standard manuscript format looks roughly like this: | | lines are double spaced | | first line of each paragraph is indented, but there is no | space between paragraphs | | first page contains contact information and word count. | | section headers are centered | | each page (except the first) contains a header with: | "authors lastname / story title / page #" | powersnail wrote: | These requirements seem to be easily within pandoc's | ability though, as it can use a reference docx file. | jonnycomputer wrote: | News to me, but in this case, I'm happy to be wrong. | em-bee wrote: | indeed, see my other reply above, linking to an article | explaining exactly how that works | jonathanstrange wrote: | I'm using _Papyrus Autor_ because I write in German [1,2]. It | 's expensive but superior to everything else for the German | language. They're expanding to English users, but only offer a | super-expensive subscription model for them [3]. If I wrote | novels in English, I'd probably use _Scrivener_ [4]. | | I'm very familiar with markdown, pandoc, and LaTeX, but none of | these are relevant or important for writing novels. As a | novelist, you need grammar and style correction features, | pinboards for ideas, databases for characters and sources form | the Net, easy snip management, advanced typography (especially | quote correction and automatic quote conversion), name | generators, non-continuous selections, selection by font, | search & replace of formatting, automatic backups over network | and advanced data integrity features, excellent ebook and PDF | export, different views for writing/editing/correcting, etc. | | [1] https://www.papyrus.de/ [2] https://talumriel.de/ [3] | https://www.papyrusauthor.com/ [4] | https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview | vidarh wrote: | It's interesting to see differences in desired features here, | because I'm currently writing my third novel, and ditched my | previous editors because I realised I needed basically no | features - I need a clean canvas without distractions, and | ability to do some basic tagging for cross-references. That's | it. So now I'm writing in my own editor, in windows with | nothing but the text - not even a menu or title bar - and | literally not a single one of the features you list. | | Some of it because I don't want to focus on it while writing | and/or because it's something my editor or proofreader | handles (grammar and style correction, typography, selection | by font, search & replace of formatting, ebook export). Some | of it because I'd rather pick and choose separate tools (name | generators, backups, data integrity). Some because I've never | had a use for it (pinboards, character databases beyond a | folder of plain text files by name, snip management). | | To be clear, I'm not at all disputing that these features can | be useful or essential for you. I just find it fascinating | how different our expectations are. | | There's room for a lot of _very_ different editors for the | writers market, as people have very strong and contradictory | ideas about what you need... The UI for Papyrus Autor looks | like something I might have nightmares about, for example... | progx wrote: | You can use zettlr. | vidarh wrote: | Thanks for the suggestion, but zettlr has too much UI for | my taste. I use an editor I've written myself, with no UI | at all by default. | jonathanstrange wrote: | You can define arbitrary work views in Papyrus Autor, | including distraction-free fullscreen mode, and there are | plenty of reasonable "view" templates to chose from, too. | It even has a special "typewriter mode" scrolling. I don't | want to advertise the expensive subscription (don't think | it's really worth it), but this program has been sold | commercially since the 80s for a reason. | vidarh wrote: | It does seem like a fantastic tool for those who want | more functionality. I'm absolutely not surprised there's | a market for it - as I said, there's clearly a huge span | in terms of what writers want. | app4soft wrote: | > _I 'm using Papyrus Autor because..._ | | Proprietary?! | progx wrote: | And? | | You know a better tool that does the work? | app4soft wrote: | > You know a better tool that does the work? | | Yep, _KIT Scenarist_.[0] | | [0] https://github.com/dimkanovikov/KITScenarist | 13415 wrote: | Not even remotely... | YetAnotherNick wrote: | I think most authors don't write in richer text format than | markdown. | mhd wrote: | They don't _produce_ richer text, they might write in a | richer format, if you can all it that. Non-printing notes | /comments were quite common in the DOS days, similar to the | "front matter" in the screen shots, or what people would put | in separate UI sections in tools like Scrivener or Ulysses | (chapter notes, marginalia, cork boards etc.) | | A more code-like (and probably extreme) perspective would be | this screenshot from sci-fi author Vernor Vinge: | | http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/images/Vinge_s. | .. | | All kinds of annoations, references, etc - only the indented | text is actual for publication. | elcomet wrote: | most authors write in Word, and use only one or two font | variation bigger size for chapter titles). | chank wrote: | I think you're assuming and probably wrong. | vidarh wrote: | I think _you_ are assuming. I also think there 's a | confusion here and that you're talking specifically about | RTF while the people responding to you are talking about | the capabilities provided when they use "rich". The point | being that Markdown has far more formatting features than | most people who write novels need, and so it is "rich | enough" as a format. | | I've written two novels and I'm writing my third, and as | others have also pointed out, there's rarely a need for | more than headlines, bold and italics, all of which are | trivial in Markdown. | | Whether or not the _editors_ are capable enough depends on | peoples preferences and tools. But there 's nothing about | writing a novel that requires a _format_ more complex while | _writing_ (if you send it off to an _editor_ , they'll | almost certainly insist on something they can import easily | into word, though some accept Google Docs or ODT these | days) | chank wrote: | But I am not assuming at all. In fact most professional | writers still use Microsoft Word. It's sort of how people | don't realize the world still runs on Microsoft Excel. | Markdown is not "rich" in any way. It's syntactical | representation for what you want the "exported" text to | look like. It is not a drop in replacement for rich text | editing. | | Of course people who come here are going to be the | outliers of this use case and say markdown is fine. Go | ask Neil Gaiman or Stephen King if they know markdown and | after explaining what it is ask if they need it? And I'd | be willing to put money on them just stating "why not | just make my italic text italic, why do I really need to | put special characters around it?" | vidarh wrote: | > Go ask Neil Gaiman or Stephen King if they know | markdown and after explaining what it is ask if they need | it? And I'd be willing to put money on them just stating | "why not just make my italic text italic, why do I really | need to put special characters around it?" | | Gaiman has at least in the past stated he prefers to | write his first drafts with a fountain pen in a physical | notebook, to the point where there's various lists of the | specific brands of pens he uses. | | Stephen King prefers a Waterman fountain pen, though he's | also been known to use typewriters, and may very well | also use word processors. He's known to use Word for some | work, certainly. | | But because of the tools a lot of novelists use, a lot | are _used to_ using special marks to indicate the (very | limited) formatting they do. Many people use multiple | tools, including pens, text editors, smartphones, | typewriters, or whatever is to hand. For some picking | tools depending on what they work on is part of the | process. | | You may be right that most professional _writers_ today | use Word, but novelists makes up a very specific subset | of professional writers and have very much idiosyncratic | ideas about their preferred writing environment, ranging | from the aforementioned fountain pens on anything from | loose-leaf paper to very specific notebook choices, to | old typewriters (some insisting on specific models of | manual typewriters), via long outdated word processors, | to modern word processors or editors written specifically | for novelists (like Scrivener etc.). Or tools like the | one linked here. | | The point remains that in terms for formatting, Markdown | is _sufficient_ and _simple_. That does not mean it will | be what everyone will prefer, like or even tolerate. But | it has all the functionality needed to represent the | formatting done in a typical novel, with minimal | interference in the writing. | dangoor wrote: | 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. | atmosx wrote: | I would be interested to know why you choose "Ulysses" and | not "Odysseus"? | | ps. I followed a conversation about James Joyce novel which | was hinted that there is a difference between the two names | and Joyce didn't pick "Ulysses" randomly. I'd like to know if | you went through the same process. | | UPDATE: Ok, I mis-read the comment, I though the name of the | Novel was Ulysses, apparently it is an app. | jmkb wrote: | It's a writing-focused word processor for MacOS and iOS. | | https://ulysses.app/ | nbzso wrote: | Which moved to subscription model and lost me completely. | After trying Scrivener, I realised that for my needs is | overkill, moved to something that I know will not bite me | in the future: Folder organisation plus Vim - Org mode. | Adobe in their infinite greed ruined propriety software | model for all. SaaS is pure hell. | atmosx wrote: | Thanks for pointing that out! | lelag wrote: | I also use Ulysses and very happy with it (except for it | being a subscription based product). | | The feature that I would miss the most by switching to | novelWriter or another open source solution would be the | following: | | - auto cloud sync across all devices (I can even write on my | phone if I think of something while waiting for the bus) | | - print quality output in PDF and epub with a single click | (and many available themes to choose from). | | - nice eye pleasing UI that put me in the right mood for | writing | | - good integration with my third party writing assistance | software (Antidote). | JulianMorrison wrote: | I use Ghostwriter, it's free. I write in a directory that | is continuously synced to Dropbox. And I write in pandoc | flavored markdown, so a single script can spit out compiled | PDF or epub. | lelag wrote: | I've wanted to try it as it looks pretty slick but it's | apparently "a [...] Markdown editor for Windows and | Linux". Not much of an help if you are using macOS. | jjkaczor wrote: | "auto cloud sync across all devices" | | hmmm - if it is an editor that handles text files, then | myself, I would rely on one of the myriad of sync | tools/platforms available, rather than have someone else's | implementation | lelag wrote: | True and it's actually possible to use any tools you want | as it supports local directories of markdown files (I use | git to version my writing) but the product does not | target at a technical audience but writers in general and | their cloud sync is pretty well implemented. I like their | cloud sync for the ability to sync with ios devices | without doing anything in particular. | em-bee wrote: | syncthing is the tool i use for that now | chank wrote: | That's the kind of need for text manipulation I would expect | of a typical writer. Hence why bother with markdown at all | (unless it's the only thing available). Rich text is a much | cleaner solution for that. Markdown really shines when it | comes to text that has to be formatted just so for web | layout. e.g. tables, bullets, multi-headings and linking. | oneeyedpigeon wrote: | Markdown absolutely does _not_ shine when it comes to | tables, at the very least. Unless you 're using a variation | of the 'standard', of course. | vidarh wrote: | Because it's not a bother. It's pretty much just plain | text. | | And having it as plain text means adding your own special | annotations is easy. E.g. I'm writing my third novel in my | own editor using Markdown, and key for me was that it was | easy to write small little scripts to e.g. process front- | matter with similar "@pov" tags etc. to let me trivially | cross-reference things. | globular-toast wrote: | Markdown _is_ "rich text". What distinction are you trying | to draw here? | chank wrote: | no it isn't. | oneeyedpigeon wrote: | It's not rtf, but it _is_ rich text as opposed to plain | text. | chank wrote: | The point I am getting at is that if an editor wants to | use markdown in place of rtf, fine. But it should hide | the syntax just like rtf editors do (unless you want to | see it). No editor that supports markdown to date has | been able to achieve the quality of editing that rtf | editors already have. So in essence outside of markdowns | original use case of web publishing, why bother using it? | vidarh wrote: | Here is the grand total of formatting supported by RTF in | use in my novels: | | * headers | | * italics | | * maybe 2-3 instances of *bold* through the entire text. | | I don't need any additional "quality of editing". Hiding | the syntax is _irrelevant_ because the needs are so | limited. Hiding _the user interface_ on the other hand, | matters to me, because it 's a distraction (to others it | isn't). My editor color-codes the headers and the | italics, and having it stand out matters far more to me | than that it looks the way it will in the formatted book, | because my draft looks nothing like the finished book | will _anyway_. | | If you look at interviews with writers, you'll find a | whole lot of obsession over the process, and things like | how it feels to write with a pen vs. a typewriter vs. a | word processor, and very, very little about what their | drafts _look like_. It 's _far down_ the list of | considerations you 'll find novelists care about. | | Nobody cares what the drafts look like, because they are | transient. In fact you'll find a whole lot of authors | advocate avoiding going back and editing and arguing for | things like dictaphones etc. to make going back _harder_ | or using tools that won 't let scroll up in some cases to | simulate the typewriter experience, and _all kinds of | similar_ obsessions with spending as little time as | possible on formatting and what the manuscript looks like | in preference of being able to just dump the first draft | into text the fastest way possible (while other authors | _want_ writing the first draft to take longer _on | purpose_ - to some that is a reason for using pens or | pencils). | | You mentioned Gaiman in another reply - someone who has | talked at length about how since he wrote Stardust in a | fountain pen he has come to enjoy being forced to rewrite | his second draft entirely instead of being able to go | back and forth and editing it since he switched to | writing with pen on paper. | | I'm sure you _can_ find novelists that want to see a | beautifully formatted manuscript while writing it. They | have tools they can use. | | But to suggest Markdown is some sort of big hindrance | compared to some of the barriers novelists create for | themselves on purpose doesn't pass the smell test for me. | jonnycomputer wrote: | >If you look at interviews with writers, you'll find a | whole lot of obsession over the process, and things like | how it feels to write with a pen vs. a typewriter vs. a | word processor, and very, very little about what their | drafts look like. It's far down the list of | considerations you'll find novelists care about. | | This. | | I chose emacs because I'm a programmer who uses emacs | frequently. And its just damn text and I don't have to | get all fiddly with everything. And like I don't want to | have to fiddle around with Word, I don't want to fiddle | around with some complicated markup langage like rst | either. I just want to write. | | I wrote my thesis is Word, I know what it can be like. | cgriswald wrote: | Writing a novel is definitely a 'to each, his own' | practice. | | I can format text all day. It's a huge distraction that | allows me to also feel 'productive'; which gets in the | way of actually writing. Using a markdown editor lets me | do the formatting that is necessary for the work ( _e.g._ | , italics) without being hugely distracted. | | > But it should hide the syntax just like rtf editors do | (unless you want to see it). | | I'm using Obsidian and wouldn't mind seeing this feature. | However, it currently offers the option of toggling | quickly between edit and preview modes, or opening up a | second view for preview, which can optionally be scroll- | locked with the editing window. That works great for me. | | I use copious amounts of _notes_ in my fiction writing, | that sometimes include mathematical /physical formulas, | data, and code. Obsidian supports (various amounts of) | inline LaTeX, syntax-highlighting, and mermaid. (I'm also | not above abusing these things for my own purposes: I've | used mermaid graph to create a quick-and-dirty character | family tree for my own reference, for instance.) And, of | course, I use markdown to tie all these notes together | and to the novel. | thangalin wrote: | > quick-and-dirty character family tree for my own | reference | | KeenWrite supports inline TeX, Mermaid (via Kroki), R for | calculations, and interpolated string variables: | | https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite#screenshots | | This allows me to create a family tree and, when I change | a character's name, the diagram---along with every other | reference to their name---is updated automatically. | Here's a video showing how it works: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_dFd6UhdV8 | cgriswald wrote: | Thanks for the recommendation! This looks powerful and | useful. I will definitely check it out. | em-bee wrote: | 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 i can | then load and export as word) but i have not found any way to | apply a standard manuscript style in the conversion process. | | without that i'd have to manually reformat the document each | time i want to submit a new revision. | em-bee wrote: | i found an answer to this question here: | http://www.autodidacts.io/convert-markdown-to-standard- | manus... | jonnycomputer wrote: | I tried out and one issue I had was with indented | paragraphs. I ended up using LibreWriter's regex search | replace to remove all the extraneous newlines. | em-bee wrote: | can you describe the complete process you use to convert | your documents? | jonnycomputer wrote: | I only gave it a try for a chapter or two just to get a | feel for what might be involved. I first tried pandoc. | This mostly worked, except for the indentation of | paragraphs. I took care of that by setting up | LibreOffice's paragraph indentation, and used | LibreOffice's search replace to remove the (now) | extraneous new lines. | | My recommendation is to grab a decently long markdown | document and give it a try. | [deleted] | falcolas wrote: | Funnily enough, a lot of the work I've interacted with has | been in the Lit RPG genre - which needs a lot more, since | they're often including tables of "character data", not to | mention "system" fonts. It's surprisingly challenging to | typeset and make it broadly readable across devices. | ehutch79 wrote: | As an avid LitRPG reader, i can tell you most authors need | to scale their system WAY back. I like the crunchy parts, | but at the end of the day story should take the focus, not | 10 page long stat tables. Either that, or there's just | enough crunch to slap a litrpg label on a bucket of cliche | fantasy tropes. | falcolas wrote: | > most authors need to scale their system WAY back | | Oh, no doubt. I've seen entire chapters devoted to | "character evolutions" and the associated spew of | repetitive skills/character sheets. | | What I personally like is when there's a secondary | resource (aka a wiki) which tracks changes to the various | character sheets and skills over time. Perhaps this could | be done within the novel by using appendices? Wouldn't | help extensively with Patreon-based web novels, sadly. | | All that said, litrpg - not to mention software | development books, cookbooks, etc - do still need these | kinds of extended typesetting resources. | wishinghand wrote: | I'm just getting into making RPGs and I was using Joplin. | Switched to Zettlr for the linking and file folder == a | project paradigm. What are you using? I was hoping to use | the PHP based command line tool Ibis to convert to PDF but | in order to auto-generate a table of contents I'd need to | have way too much white space after each section. Ideally I | could change the output formatting with a CSS file. | Bakary wrote: | I keep seeing references to markdown editors on HN. As a non- | tech person it would have never crossed my mind to use | something like this to write a novel or even keep notes, but it | seems to really strike a chord here. Perhaps it's simply the | comfort associated with code over a long period of time? | therealdrag0 wrote: | Part of it might be preference for plain text files with no | vendor lock-in. | | Or it might be preference for explicitness, we've all fought | with rich editors bleeding format from one word into another | and struggling to un-format the text at the right location. | michaericalribo wrote: | To play devil's advocate, ODF is (a) open, and (b) native | in Word. | | For that matter, docx is an ISO standard. | | On the other side, I perpetually have to unformat my hard- | wrapped lines, before I paste plain text into eg an | email... | KaoruAoiShiho wrote: | On Fiction.live https://fiction.live (twitch for webfiction) we | use straight up HTML through a WYSIWYG editor. If there's an | easily extensible markdown-like with full features for stuff | common in webfiction like spoiler tags we would like to adopt it. | jotson wrote: | Fiction.live looks really interesting. Thanks for sharing it. | Might want to check out https://twinery.org/ if you haven't | already | isaacimagine wrote: | Okay, so this looks incredible, congrats on the 1.0! | | Something a bit interesting but entirely unrelated: around | 2018-06, I started a shell repo for a project named 'NovelWrite,' | [1] (unrelated to this project, but a markdown novel serializer) | then promptly forgot about it. | | Seeing novelWriter (this post) surface to the top spot was pretty | interesting because, despite similar names, I was unaware of this | project until now. | | 1: I'm not going to post the link to the repo as I'm not trying | to advertise it; it's really quite a horrible project. I just | found the coincidence mildly amusing. | kleer001 wrote: | Looks fantastic! But, too late for me. | | I'm writing a novel now in emacs' orgmode (spacemacs) with lots | of customization. The killer app for me is orgmode's foldable | hierarchies of text. Beyond that even typing speed isn't my main | bottleneck, it's ideas and sitting down in front of the keyboard | and actually typing. | qorrect wrote: | Here that OP, Foldable Regions ^. | michaericalribo wrote: | > it's ideas and sitting down in front of the keyboard and | actually typing | | This is the crux of the challenge for every writer. At least | for me, I use "finding the right tool" as a way to | procrastinate from actually writing... | em-bee wrote: | i wrote my story in plain text in vim. when i was forced to | convert to libre office in order to produce the format | required for submission, editing became a pain, and i felt | blocked from working on the story any further, since i no | longer was able to just take any break i had to work on it. | | not being able to use my preferred editor, i too ended up | searching for a better solution... | michaericalribo wrote: | What a pain! And there don't seem to be any good + easy | answers... | | I'm addicted to my emacs bindings, and not using them trips | me up--I might as well draft in plaintext, like you said | preferred editor minimizes friction. | | But then there's the cost of switching tools at different | stages of the writing process. Arguably, that's even more | difficult! | therealdrag0 wrote: | Yeah and "building my own editor that's just right for me" is | a tempting next level procrastination. | diimdeep wrote: | Why is there still no text editors as smart about the text as | JetBrains IDE as smart about the code, or there is? | gebt wrote: | Great idea, great design! As I think markdown is good only for | write simple texts (AND NOT FOR ADVANCED BLOGGING), a novel | writing software would to be a choice; because authors don't use | richer text format than markdown, as Nick mentioned. | dyates wrote: | Markdown is pretty good for advanced blogging if you use it as | a superset of HTML, as originally intended.[1] That way you get | simple syntax for the stuff you're likely to use most often and | can still implement more complex formatting when you need to. | | [1]: https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#html | chank wrote: | I have the complete opposite view as you. Markdown is for | advanced blogging and since novel writers don't need advanced | html formatting they don't need markdown. | falcolas wrote: | Ebook formats are mostly HTML and (a strictly limited subset | of) CSS. So, given that a book will eventually be rendered | down to HTML, markdown isn't really that bad of a choice. | | Especially since things like tables can actually be useful, | depending on what you're writing. | ripperdoc wrote: | Possibly relevant alternative product: Dabble, which includes | plotting tools, etc, using Svelte as UI if I understood it | correctly. https://www.dabblewriter.com/ | manojlds wrote: | Probably a dumb question - what makes it not suitable for writing | technical books? | sleepysysadmin wrote: | It would be amazing if it fixed your grammar, removed cliches, | fixed wordiness, activated passive language, swapped repeated | words, fixed my run on sentences, overall just fixed my englitch. | | #featurerequest | zx321 wrote: | You're looking for proselint. | https://github.com/amperser/proselint | vidarh wrote: | Looks very interesting, but the example given ("John is very | unique") and the warning given by proselint for it | illustrates why this is a veritable mine-field, and why what | sleepysysadmin asks for isn't really possible (but that's ok | - having a tool flag possible issues is still great) | | The example warning is certainly worth giving, but conversely | Merriam-Webster points out that "very unique" is a common | construction when "unique" is used in the sense "unusual", | though most frequently used in less formal contexts. And so | it may or may not be justified depending on what you're | writing... | | Having gone back and forth with a real editor for a novel, | half the effort was a conversation with the editor based on | questions about intent and preferred tone and style, in order | to come to agreement on things she had flagged as _possible_ | issues where it was not clear whether or not a change ought | to be made or not. | | I'm absolutely going to take a closer look at proselint, | though. | tclancy wrote: | Certainly. I think the idea is you pick and choose the | plugins that suit you (so it's probably not a perfect fit | for OP) based on what you think your strengths and | weaknesses are. And taste: I want to slap everyone who | sticks an adjective in front of "unique", so that rule | works for me. No matter what Black says, all linters are an | aggregation of someone's tastes and you are free to tweak | as you see fit. Descriptivism beats prescriptivism where | language is concerned IMHO. | MyWorkComputer wrote: | Scrivener should integrate this. | chrisdbanks wrote: | ProWritingAid integrates with Scrivener and provides | grammar checking, repeated words, and much more to help you | improve whatever you're writing. http://prowritingaid.com/ | cweagans wrote: | Friendly advice: This is helpful to know about, | contextually relevant, etc and I'm glad you posted it, | but you should probably disclose that you're the CEO. | Veen wrote: | You'd need a human editor to do all that. Automatically fixing | run-on sentences and removing repeated words is possible. | Activating passive sentences is challenging; Grammarly gets it | wrong all the time, in my experience. Replacing cliches and | fixing wordiness would be very challenging without deep | linguistic and cultural knowledge. | vidarh wrote: | I tried using Grammarly when writing a novel, and just had to | turn it off. It gets things wrong so often that it just | turned out to be a distraction. I still like using it for | e-mails etc. but for anything that will pass through a | professional editor anyway it's just not worth the hassle to | me. | sleepysysadmin wrote: | >You'd need a human editor to do all that. Automatically | fixing run-on sentences and removing repeated words is | possible. Activating passive sentences is challenging; | Grammarly gets it wrong all the time, in my experience. | Replacing cliches and fixing wordiness would be very | challenging without deep linguistic and cultural knowledge. | | Well I don't know why I was downvoted so heavily. I dont | disagree. | | My goal isn't so much to write a novel but rather improve | upon my englitch. Now I have chosen writing a novel in order | to improve but I dont know where I went wrong. | | I would love a human editor but that costs $. I doubt anyone | is giving me a dime for my book. I don't have >$1000 to get | my book edited. | | Of which any hired editor will just shoot themselves. | vidarh wrote: | For _that_ use, I think "proselint", as zx321 recommended, | is probably a perfect start, as it references the source of | the recommendation. | | (in terms of cost, though, you can get a decent editor for | closer to the ~$300 mark for up ~60k-70k words, but of | course if you're not intending on putting in a lot of | effort - and more money - to market and sell it, that may | well be too much too) | sleepysysadmin wrote: | >For that use, I think "proselint", as zx321 recommended, | is probably a perfect start, as it references the source | of the recommendation. | | I see that, I will give it a try. Cant hurt. | | >(in terms of cost, though, you can get a decent editor | for closer to the ~$300 mark for up ~60k-70k words, but | of course if you're not intending on putting in a lot of | effort - and more money - to market and sell it, that may | well be too much too) | | Lets say there was a magical machine learning perfect | editor for free. I input my trash and I get an amazing | copy out. | | I might try marketing and selling it. I have put lots of | effort into the book. Afterall just getting 75,000 words | down is good effort by itself. | | The problem is that I put this in grammarly or prowriting | aid it finds thousands of problems. You fix them. Then | put it in another grammar thing and it finds thousands | more. | vidarh wrote: | Yeah, Grammarly etc. is great for short things like | e-mails and the like, but it's a massive pain for | anything of any complexity... | theSuda wrote: | Thanks for mentioning proselint. I just took a quick look | and it looks really interesting. Going to give it a try. | swansonc wrote: | I looked at the project, and the editor doesn't look to bad, but | why, oh why, yet another markdown-ish format? Did you REALLY need | to do that? There are multiple markdown flavors, and, if you want | something a bit more 'bookish' there's a nice ecosystem around | asciidoc(-tor). Did you REALLY need to introduce another | markdown? | pwinnski wrote: | I used Scrivener (MacOS) for my first novel, but I did not use | most of the features of the software. Now it's stuck as the last | remaining 32-bit app on MacOS, and I've debating whether to pay | for an upgrade or use something else for novel #2. | | I've learned about this at a very good time! | dnw wrote: | I am currently using Obsidian for writing a book-length tutorial | with multiple docs. Support for comments and footnotes are really | useful to have for projects like the one I am working on. | ajarmst wrote: | Two of my favourite authors draft by hand, which I still do | (we're all in our fifties). What I want is not yet another (sigh) | editor for writers but OCR tools that can be trained for cursive | and don't soil the bed on encountering a crossed out word or | insertion. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-19 23:00 UTC)