For more than ten years I’ve been working on my Great American Novel. Granted, this novel only exists in the form of outlines, character sketches, and snippets of dialogue but I am “working on it”. One of the things that has been holding me back…is a lack of good software. While I could easily use a word processor to write I prefer to have a more organized working environment that would provide me with a simple way to find and organize specific information and chapters. I finally found what looks like a suitable program for such a need in the form of yWriter.

yWriter is free and created by a programmer who is also a writer. While I haven’t used the program for more than an hour so far it looks promising. There may very well be “better” commercial programs, but for a free app this is one of those tools that’s just hard to beat at that price. If you happen to visit Spacejock Software have a look around. The author also has written several specialized apps that demonstrate his awareness of what defines a useful application.

yWriter – A free software package for creating a novel that includes support for tracking and organizing chapters, characters, and several other useful features.