Filed under: Software, Features, Reviews
TUAW Review: Storyist 2.0, a professional's writing tool
Over the past several months, we've been publishing a series of reviews of writer's tools (last year we posted some great writing tools for students). While a few of the tools that have been covered in depth have been minimalist writing environments such as WriteRoom, there are more powerful and complete writer's tools that are available for Mac users. One of those tools is the recently updated Storyist 2.0 (US$59 as a download, or US$29 upgrade from a previous version) from Storyist Software. This application is very complete, with capabilities for completely planning out a story before writing it, as well as managing the writing process while the story is under construction.
I started testing this application a while back, and actually had a lot of my review written before it became stale and disappeared from our queue of posts. The reason it took me so long to write the review is that Storyist works differently from my brain, and it took me a while to get used to it as a tool. Every writer has his or her own particular style of writing, and I find that pre-planning the writing process just doesn't work very well for me. I prefer to jump in and start writing, but want a way to capture important information about characters, settings, and plot points so I can refer to them later. Storyist can also be used for this method of writing, so I found it to be more useful to me after learning how to navigate its many features.
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As a technical writer, blogger, and wannabe novelist, the tool that I use to capture my thoughts is almost as important as the words that I choose to describe those thoughts. I love to try out new writing tools, particularly those that say that they're going to let me write creatively without getting in the way. Unfortunately, many of them end up becoming the proverbial albatross because of steep learning curves, impossible-to-remember keyboard shortcuts, or complex user interfaces. In my thinking, any writing application that keeps me from writing deserves to go into the Trash Can quickly.
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