I’m a programmer and a novelist, and yWriter is the result of 3 or 4 years of development. I really struggled over my first novel because I wrote whole slabs of text into a great big word processor file and tried to make sense of the whole thing at once. I then tried saving each chapter to individual files with great long descriptive filenames, but moving scenes around was a nuisance and I couldn’t get an overview of the whole thing (or easily search for one word amongst 32 files) In the end I realised a dedicated program was the way to go, and yWriter is the result. It may look simple, but as the author of three books written with this tool I can guarantee it has everything needed to get a first draft together.
Features:
Organise your novel using a ‘project’.
Add files to the project, each containing a chapter.
Add a summary to each file, showing the scenes in each chapter.
Print out summary cards, showing the structure of your novel.
Display the word count for every file in the project, along with a total.
Saves a log file every day, showing words per file and the total. (Tracks your progress)
Saves automatic backups at user-specified intervals.
Allows multiple scenes within chapters
Viewpoint character, goal, conflict and outcome fields for each scene.
Storyboard view, a visual layout of your work.
Re-order scenes within chapters.
Move scenes from one chapter to another.
Automatic chapter renumbering.