Software for Writers et al - Part One

This will be the first of several lists pertaining to software that may be useful to writers. Enjoy!

Movie Magic Screenwriter - The award-winning script formatting tool that lets you write your finished screenplay, teleplay, stage play, multi-media script, or novel without worrying about formatting technicalities. Combines the most features, superior ease-of-use, incredible reliability, and maximum flexibility into an industry standard program used by the top writers in Hollywood and around the world.

Final Draft - Use your creative energy to focus on the content; let Final Draft take care of the style. Final Draft is the number-one selling word processor specifically designed for writing movie scripts, television episodics and stage plays. It combines powerful word processing with professional script formatting in one self-contained, easy-to-use package. There is no need to learn about script formatting rules – Final Draft automatically paginates and formats your script to industry standards as you write.

What-If Creator Sci-Fi Edition 1.1 - Plan the details of your sci-fi novel, develop plot ideas, and write your story.

OpenOffice.org - A new approach to office productivity software, OpenOffice.org 1.1 gives you everything you'd expect in office software. You can create dynamic documents, analyse data, design eye-catching presentations, produce dramatic illustrations, and open up your databases. You can publish your work in Portable Document Format (.pdf), and release your graphics in Flash (.swf) format - without needing any additional software.

TreePad's Writer's Outliner - TreePad's Writer's Outliner is a great utility to use to organize your writing projects. The bigger the project, the more useful you'll find the program. TreePad helps you organize information, outline writing projects and it has hundreds of other potential uses. It works in the same way as Windows Explorer, with a tree structure you can create to store your information. It's ideal for writers wanting to gather facts, bibliographical entries, notes quotations and even first drafts.

SuperNotecard (formerly Miss Lonelynotes) -SuperNotecard 1.6 arrives with a set of incredible enhancements: Screenplays Craft your next screenplay with the help of SuperNotecard's automatically indented dialog and capitalized slug lines. Time scenes and instantly calculate the length of your script. Deck Work Control the size and shape of your cards as you arrange them with the new, space-efficient, flattened mode. Alt-click cards to quickly view their content. Make the background orange and increase the size of the categorization markers to aid your yes. Deck and Card Flags and Categories Flag and categorize decks as well as cards. Use the toolbar to assign (or unassign) an entire deck and its contents to a category. ...and lots more!

Dramatica Pro - Dramatica Pro works with you to develop stronger, richer characters that leap off the page while weaving your themes into your plot seamlessly. Plus, it helps you identify and eliminate unwanted story choices before they become problems. Choose the Ultimate Creative Writing Partner that 10 time NY Times Best-selling author Tracy Hickman uses. Dramatica Pro gives you ACTIVE GUIDANCE not just a fill-in-the-blank template. Perfect for beginning writers-learn while you develop your story. Perfect for advanced writers-apply what you know to maximize your creativity. Print story reports, character reports, or your full treatment. Export your story into StoryView or Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000.

Story View - Structure your ideas with StoryView's traditional Outline View or remarkable Timeline View to get a stronger visual sense of your story. The Tracking Feature allows you to show connections between events and characters, objects or key words, revealing the rhythms and patterns of your story in seconds. StoryView lets you see your story like never before!Instantly change the sequence of events by clicking and dragging Event Boxes -- Size Event Boxes to represent the duration of an event or its importance -- Customize StoryView to your personal structuring style or choose one of the many pre-built templates -- Import a story or script you've already written to analyze it and get through the rewriting phase faster -- Export into Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000.

The Writer's DreamKit - The Writer's DreamKit is a proven software program designed by writers for writers -- a complete step-by-step fiction writing system designed for the aspiring writer. The Writer's DreamKit StoryGuide handholds you from initial idea all the way through to completed narrative treatment, inspiring you and supporting you along the way. It's like having a successful author as your writing partner, sitting by your side and mentoring you! Structure your Plot -- Illustrate your Story -- Create Scenes -- Develop your Characters -- The End Result-Gain deeper insight into your story with the Writer's Dreamkit's StoryGuide and detailed reports. Export your story treatment -- containing the scene-by-scene narrative plot synopsis (novelists) or treatment (scriptwriters) -- into your favorite word processor for further rewriting.

Writer's Blocks - Writer's Blocks is a powerful tool that will help you get your ideas out of your head and onto the page faster than ever before. Use blocks, to capture, organize, outline, and structure your notes. By combining our acclaimed visual outliner with our innovative word processor you can now use one tool from brainstorm to rewrite. Writers, novelists, authors, journalists, researchers, screenwriters, attorneys, students, and technical writers will be more productive with Writer's Blocks.

Sophocles - Sophocles is a new screenplay software program that emphasizes the writing process. While other script writing software puts the focus on margins and page breaks, Sophocles was conceptualized from the start as a story creation tool for screenwriters. By allowing you to easily navigate and manipulate your story elements, Sophocles helps you craft a tighter, smoother flowing screenplay. Professional Screenwriting Format Default format settings derived from a sample of 25 modern Hollywood screenplays. Story Centered Design An interface that directs your attention away from mundane formatting issues while directing it towards the actual creative screenwriting process. Get the Big Picture Tools to help you stay oriented within your story-space, and to easily navigate related scenes and plot points. Easy to Use A clean, uncluttered interface, and an extremely shallow learning curve. If you have prior word processor experience, you can get up to speed in minutes.

The Writer's Organizer - The Writer's Organizer helps writers organize their ideas, submissions, and stories. It also helps writers build worlds, generate random names, brainstorm and create characters. Other features: automatic cover letter generation, access to online market download site, simplified user interface, organize images too.

The Scriptwriters Toolkit

Movie Outline Software

Story Master Pro - Story Master Pro is a software product created to help novelist & short story writers plan and organize story information.

Hollywood Screenplay - The only COMPLETE SUITE OF SOFTWARE for writers... screenplay formatter, novel formatter, story developer, plot selector, character namer, submissions manager, and more!

Great Dialogue Software

Power Writer™ The first Word Processor with fully integrated Story Development and Outlining Tools Power Structure™ The award-winning Story Development software designed for writers who know how to write Power Tracker™ Submission, File and Expense Management for Writers FrameForge™ 3D Studio The future of Storyboarding - Don't Draw Storyboards. Direct Them! All of the above can be found HERE

Screenplay Outliner - Screenplay Outliner is the shareware program for Windows that makes organizing your story ideas, and then outlining them, simple. Finally, you have one program that lets you store and develop and outline your ideas in one place.

Mindstar Cinergy Script Writing Software

Screenplay Template for Word

WriteItNow Novel Writing Software Main Features: Write and store complete novels Keep background details of characters, events, locations and ideas. Display charts of events and relationships Generate characters, names and ideas Registered users can generate characters and background notes using add-ons Powerful search options Download stories at www.ravensheadservices.com/download.htm Context sensitive help Record all manuscript submissions Sample story with tutorial. 100,000 word spelling checker Auto-scale charts 100 step undo and redo RTF output. Create a neatly formatted manuscript with two key-presses FAQ. Frequently asked questions.

Story Bones - With Story Bones your stories will be cohesive and engaging with characters that sparkle. Story Bones was developed to assist writers in making sure things happen when and how they are supposed to happen. Plot/Subplot interweaving, Pace, Climax, Setbacks, Continuity and more are enforced to assist you in constructing a story with a solid plot and story line that won't fall flat, hit a deadend or runaway to nowhere.

Manuscript Tracking Software

Comedy Writer

My Writer's Notebook

ParaMind Brainstorming Software - ParaMind offers you a quick way to develop ideas much like a person with a high IQ develops ideas. ParaMind creates in seconds thousands of idea combinations that are directly related to the idea that you type on to its screen.

FirstAid for Writers®

Liquid Story Binder - Liquid Story Binder is a uniquely designed word processor for professional and aspiring authors, poets, and screenwriters. It is for those who require the editing ability of a commercial word processor as well as a document tracking system. It is for those who want the freedom to create and revise but are tired of losing track of their work. Spellchecking, thesaurus, document indexing, checklistings, image gallery, notes, multiple backups.

Simon Skill Systems - providing screenwriting software and multicolumn scripting software for television commercials, etc. Includes online newsletter

I will be adding to this list in future posts!