Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1516 in Software
• Brand: Avanquest Software
• Model: 5016488110785
• Released on: 2004-10-01
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 95

Manufacturer's Description
Always wanted to write your own novel but didn't know where to start?

Well, with Write your own Novel Professional you'll have everything you need to create a masterpiece.

Easy-to-use
This easy-to-use program will give you the confidence to plan and write a novel from scratch, helping you methodically develop, organise and refine your story.

Characters
Create characters with the help of a database which can create 800,000 names and add personalities using the program's profiling systems.

Events
The flexibility of this program allows you to adjust ideas and track events, dates and characters. You can brainstorm the background to your story then leave and return to a clear record of where your thoughts were heading something that's harder to achieve using written notes.

Ideas and Notes
Simply jot down your ideas and notes for the story which have not yet been incorporated, safe in the knowledge they won't be lost. You can even use the 'generate new ideas' function to give you inspiration if you are having an unimaginative day.

Formatting
Once you've finished your story, this software will automatically convert your writing into a formatted manuscript style, ready to be sent off for publication.

Submissions Tracker.
A perfect tool to help keep a record of where and who you've sent your story to, whether it was accepted or rejected, and even when your work was published.

Customer Reviews

Would be lovely if it were somewhat better.
The only problem with this software is that it could be better. If GSP created some 'add-on' downloads for users it would be lovely. This is a fun bit of software to work with and more 'clean-cut' than a lot of writers' software out there. Let me put one thing straight to begin with - this software does not teach you to write; neither will it help you write your novel as far as the process of writing itself goes. What it does is help you organise.

I have three main issues with it. The Submission tracker is great but is linked to the story - it would have been brilliant if it also had the option just to work as a tracker independently so you didn't have to open the story to work with the tracker.

This software could seriously do with a Grammar checker. It has spelling and thesaurus and the readability check will give you a word count but usually the most basic word processor comes with some sort of grammar checker included now and considering the price you feel cheated that one isn't included. On a side note regarding the price, having used the professional version I cannot imagine what good the standard would be despite the cheaper £ tag.

You can write into it no problem and export into an rtf file that any other software can open. The trouble with this is that it uses plain punctuation eg: straight 'quotes'. This is all very well but most word processing software types with curly quotes and the option to use the better format of punctuation would be nice as most WP software doesn't give you the option to then change it unless you want to plough manually through the document. It also exports in what they call a submission layout. Though close, the layout isn't perfect and not exactly what every publisher wants. The really annoying thing about this though is if you've done a couple of returns to indicate a paragraph the software changes this into double line spacing as well so each paragraph is exported with GREAT gaps in between. For it to work correctly you have to get used to typing all the lines right under each other and relying on the software to convert it for you.

The 'help' is about as helpful as any software - in other words you learn how to use by fiddling about most of the time and by looking at the example. Still, it's pleasant to work with - but a heads up to the designers - some add-on's would be great!

Really, don't bother.
This is a truly awful piece of software. Whilst it may well be useful to be able to organise ideas for writing into subsections regarding character, event, location etc. etc.; it is simply ABOMINABLE that you can lose hours of irretrievable creative work at the click of a mouse. I was lucky that I had the foresight to mess around with it a little before putting in any serious work. Every time I switched tabs to differing sections of information I had entered another piece of said information would just disappear. This one simple bug makes the package completely unusable unless you are prepared to save every tiny detail you enter bit by bit - we're talking sentences here. I was also annoyed that GSP saw fit to package the program in a large box (presumably in an effort to make it look professional) which contained one CD and no printed manual. I can't explain my frustration and disappointment enough. The features SEEM useful but the information loss just destroys the program completely. This product should be removed from sale period.

Very good but not great.
For designing and plotting it's great. It feels like it has been designed by a writer. I particularly like the ability to add icons to text that hot link - eg a note on a character name takes you to the character page.

But - occasionally it loses unsaved text as you move between tabs. Save often. And most annoyingly the time line function calendar isn't customisable, rendering it pretty much useless for fantasy and science fiction where calendars will have different structures.

Also there seems to be no way of giving feedback to the programmer or ask for support, just a link to the publishers who claim to have no contact with them. One can only assume they found it abandoned on their doorstep one day. Either that or they couldn't be arsed to help once they had my money.

If it combined its good features with the timeline/scene planning structure of Writer's Cafe and was more customisable it would be perfect.

Would-be writers should check out both but for £20-£30 you can't go wrong with either. I use both for different things.