Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Ywriter5 - Free Software for writers

Four years ago I began looking for a software package for writers. At that time, I was most versed in Windows, having taught Windows programs at the local community college - Word, Works, Word Perfect, QuickBooks, Netscape and Internet, Excel. Then I bought my 20 inch Imac, one of the first Intel chip Macs but the writing software the Apple Store offered was more of a scriptwriting program so for my writI decided to use my PC laptop with a smart little writing program by Simon Haynes, a writer and software designer at SpaceJock.


Simon has many useful programs on his site, all of them free. His easy to use writing program, Ywriter, has been upgraded in recent years but has always included such useful features as a Explorer-like drag and drop chapter/scene list, scene details like Goal, Motivation and Conflict, character development tabs, word frequency, readability values, locations tab and writing goals.




But that’s not all. Ywriter has a storyboard/timeline.



You can even track the POV character in Ywriter.



And automatic backups ensure you’ll never lose a revision.

Most writing programs use an export to rtf feature for the final revising and submission since publishers use Word as its standard and Ywriter does that as well.

Free in this case doesn’t mean you get what you pay for. You get far more. You can download Ywriter here. You can view all of the screenshots and reviews at Spacejock.com, watch a video tutorial and even download one of Simon’s entertaining books free here.

2 comments:

Susan said...

Thanks for the great post! Very helpful! :)

Anonymous said...

And thanks for stopping by, Susan. For a free program you can't beat Ywriter..