Introduction

Office software vs. writing software

If you want to write a novel on your PC, you generally have the choice between an office word processor or special writing software (plain text editors are neglected at this point).

Office software is readily available, widely used, efficient and proven. There is literature and training courses available. Many people use office software professionally and are familiar with its basic functions, so there is no particular difficulty to use it when “writing part-time”.

However, anyone writing a large novel will sooner or later reach a point where the story threatens to become overwhelming. You may already have outlines, notes, planning documents, synopsis drafts, chapter overviews and so on, but as the manuscript grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep these documents up to date. Rearranging sections and chapters, introducing additional storylines, maintaining chronological coherence - all this can become a serious challenge at the latest during revision.

This is where specialized writing software comes in. It generally offers better tools than office software to break down a novel into small pieces and to provide these pieces with all the additional information which would otherwise consist of notebooks, spreadsheets, supplementary documents and sticky notes. The main purpose of this software is therefore to keep the big picture of the story in view, even if the story is constantly being expanded, shortened or restructured. If you move a part of the text, the summaries, notes, word count information, and everything that falls under the term “metadata” move with it, so that everything always fits together.

Many writing programs also offer access to the collected digital research material so that everything is in one place and users only need one program for all their work. Of course, this requires a certain willingness to learn. Some writing programs have an operating concept that deviates from the standards of office software. This can be a hurdle for authors who do not enjoy experimenting with their PC. In addition, the word processing function of free writing software in particular is not always as mature as we are used to with office software.

Why novelibre?

The developer of novelibre has worked with office word processors for decades and has come to appreciate their advantages. At the same time, it was always a pleasure for him to try out every piece of writing software that came his way, always on the lookout for the perfect program. For a long time, that seemed to be yWriter. It is free and stable, and you can use it especially in conjunction with an “external text editor”, i.e. an office word processor. So you can structure and overview your novel with yWriter and write with OpenOffice at the same time. The developer of yWriter is a prolific writer himself and his software is very efficient in supporting especially his workflow.

However, there are other approaches to novel writing for which yWriter does not offer support out of the box. This mainly involves dramaturgical structures (e.g. the “three-act model” or the “hero’s journey”) and storytelling with several narrative strands or plot lines. There are impressive solutions for this in the commercial sector, such as DramaQueen or Causality.

Anyway, programming is fun, and that’s how novelibre was born, another writing program that tries to combine the advantages of very different software. You can see novelibre as a supplement to LibreOffice or OpenOffice. It manages the structure and metadata of the novel and, in addition to the actual manuscript, generates a selection of Office text and spreadsheet documents that can be worked on.

novelibre is primarily designed for authors who are familiar with LibreOffice or OpenOffice and who are missing the additional administration functions of specialized writing software.

As a special feature, you can use novelibre in combination with dedicated timeline software such as the free Timeline which opens up completely new possibilities for planning of the narrative plot.

As a computer program, novelibre has to save its data somehow. To do this, it uses an open and well-documented file format, so that nobody has to worry that his novel will at some point “be stuck in the program and no longer wants to come out”.

Last but not least, this online manual provides a comprehensive documentation of the novelibre features.

However you may have found your way here, I wish you much joy and success in writing your novel with novelibre!

Peter