A good few years ago now, when I first thought about writing Stigma, I decided I didn’t want to use Pages (I’m a Mac user) or Word. I wanted something that gave me a little more control over what I was doing.
I looked around for a while, and having went through a few trials of different products, I decided on Scrivener
I have a background in software development. When I’m working on a project, I break things down into small chunks of code, which, when brought together, forms the whole. For me, the ability to break chapters, scenes, etc. into individual files made the process of writing much easier. It allowed me to focus on a small part of the story.
I love the cork board view, the ability to write notes as metadata assigned to a chapter (file), colour coding parts for location, character, etc. Being able to reorder the story by simply dragging files up and down the manuscript view, had been a god-send when restructuring the novel based on feedback.
