: Re: What is useful about writing software? Okay, so every 5 minutes I see a question uploaded to this site about writing software. What is writing software? Why don't you just plan on paper? I

@Carla500

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This is the definition of "your mileage may vary."

Some people work better on paper; you are clearly one of them.

I was blocked for years until I found Scrivener, which for whatever reason helped get all my creative juices flowing again. Scrivener clicked with me.

Some people work better with absolutely bare environments. Some want all the bells and whistles. Some want LaTeX markup. Some people find mind-map software really useful and others find it overwhelming.

Writing software is only useful if you find it so. Different writers have different needs, so they will use different tools. Asking other people doing the same thing as you what they find useful is perfectly reasonable.

ETA To address @what 's comment: Writing software can come with a lot of features which writers may find more useful and flexible than writing on paper. To wit:

Let's just start with typing. I can type a helluva lot faster and
more neatly than I can hand-write anything.
Extensive search/replace capabilities
Tagging
Easy rearranging of large chunks of text
Easy copy-paste of large chunks of text
The ability to copy and save infinite variations of a page, scene,
chapter etc. if you need to noodle on something
The ability to gather various media (web links, video, sound, images)
in one project file rather than have them scattered in several
programs
The ability to keep extensive research materials in one project file
rather than have them scattered across files and programs
Mind-map features let you link and combine different elements in
different ways to see how characters and plot bits interconnect
The ability to plot in a large flexible grid and move items and
threads around easily instead of physically erasing and rewriting

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