| I was never convinced by special writing software | | | | hotbed of creative writing which discovered |
| for your computer. I'd used one or two programs | | | | writers like Ian McEwan, Tracy Chevalier, Kazuo |
| over the years, but found they hindered rather | | | | Ishiguro and many others. It's simple, yet |
| than helped the writing process. Things have | | | | intelligent system basically lays out the structure |
| moved on, however, and there are now several | | | | of your novel for you, leaving you free to |
| good pieces of software you can easily download | | | | concentrate on the really creative work of |
| to help guide you, especially in structuring your | | | | realising great characters, writing brilliant dialogue |
| fiction. By far the best of them is Newnovelist. | | | | and mapping out a suspenseful plot. I've seen it at |
| Unlike other 'DIY' computerised writing systems | | | | work and was very impressed. I may well use it |
| (which seemed to have been written by people | | | | on a new novel project I will begin in 2009 with a |
| whose reading consisted of steamy potboilers by | | | | serving member of the Royal Marines. |
| Sidney Sheldon and Jackie Collins) Newnovelist is | | | | It is a very writer friendly tool and seems to |
| based on serious, academic study of the | | | | understand our little foibles. For instance, it saves |
| conventions and rules of novel writing. | | | | you the stress and organisation of keeping |
| Specifically, the designers have drawn on the | | | | together all those clippings, hastily written notes |
| creative writing theories and models developed at | | | | and scraps of paper that you accumulate when |
| the prestigious University of East Anglia, the | | | | you are germinating the idea for a book. |