I was recently asked by friend and fellow word-lover Steve Dale: "you're a Mac guy ... do you use a 'writing tool' for the Mac, or do you just use a word processor?"

The first thing I thought of was "storytelling" software like Dramatica and Power Structure. I remember when Dramatica came out about ten years ago, and while I leafed through the manual several years ago (it read like a theory book more than software documentation), I've never used the program. Power Structure, on the other hand, I really tried to give it a go about two years ago.

Holy hell, talk about over-complicating a process. There are fields for charactes and plots and themes and so on. Presumably its power comes from its relational databse of data entered; that is, character actions entered in the plot area are linked to the entries in the character section. If ... oh, and I mean IF ... you have a huge mess of a story that needs some amount of structure, AND you have a working knowledge of story structure theory (like you're a Joseph Campbell groupie), THEN you could probably spend a day or two filling in all of this meta data about your story into this program, only to find that it's not going to FIX it for you, just show you that it's a mess.

No, thanks.

Mr. Dale went on to ask about a specific program, that shame on me, I hadn't heard of: CopyWrite. So I downloaded the demo. And I did some research online. It appears that a number of programs have come out recently that are more "project management tools" rather than storytelling tools, as with the lot above.

This research led me to Ulysses. I'd have more to say about this program if it weren't a cool hundred Euros. No, thanks. Plus, I've read a bunch that it includes much of the same functionality as CopyWrite.

Okay, enough with the stalling! Here's the deal with CopyWrite: It essentially offers you a master project view that give you access to multiple document files that have separate info in them (chapter, characters, places, elements, ideas, premise). Within these categories, the program gives you the option to keep a revision history (date modified), including a status marker (new, rough, second, final). My favorite feature (and one that is not easily replicated in a standard word processor) is the ability to keep a separate notes file with a sepatate space for reference URLs associated with each document.

Just this morning, I found another program that looks quite interesting. It's called, lovingly, Jer's Writing Software. It's in pre-beta (though he's not calling it alpha ... hmm), so it's free if you're up for the bugs. The plus side of it is that if you register as a bug tester, you'll get a free copy of all the paid 1.x versions.

Does this really make writing easier? Well, in a classic Pasconian dodge (to the original question, no less!), I'll answer that tomorrow. Now, get back to work! (Or if you're still on your "break," you can watch this.)