Write It Now Review

Review of Write It Now

Write It Now, Write At All?

Write It Now is a program in a league of its own. The program is helpful to the fiction writer, plus, very affordable at around $37.00 depending on current currency exchange rates. Although the company that offers Write It Now is in England, Ravenshead Services works hard to keep their American customers happy too.

This program is loaded with features, more than you may need. Yet, to my way of thinking, more is always better. Extra features you may not need for your story today, may come in handy tomorrow. When writing a novel, or any piece of fiction, organization is important. Write It Now, provides all the organizational tools you need, with quite a few added bonuses.

When you first open the program, the first screen will be the overview tab. Here is where you name your story, call yourself an author and give the date you begin the story. There is a text box for a summary or synopsis.

Each of the nine tabs is self-explanatory. You can choose to work on Characters, Events, Chapters, Locations, Notes or Ideas. There is also a Time Line Chart and a Records screen to track your submissions.

What makes this program special is the free add-on's you can download after registration. This is where the Write It Now really shines, especially if you are writing an historical or regency novel or romance.

When you enter the character screen, hover your mouse over the icons until you find the one with an "A" on it. This will allow you to create a character with several options. First, you can select a specific time period, with choices of 19th Century USA, Stuart, Tutor or Victorian Britain. Add a personality type using the Enneagram or Myers-Briggs personalities. Click on the icon beside the name field, and the program will name your character, male or female, from the time period.

The first icon on the right side of your screen by the text box will fill in the personality type. The second will add a timeline to your character's life, i.e., what happened when. Be sure to click on the next icon to add the character to your story.

Under the ideas tab, you will find an icon that will generate ideas for your story based on the characters you have chosen. This wonderful feature comes in handy when you find plot holes or just don't really know what comes next.

Under the Notes Icon, you can choose events and situations that were notable during the Tutor Britain time period. I am sure more and more of these add-in's will become available in the future as Ravenshead also has, as a free download, a program for you to work up your own notes and import them into the program.

Like so many programs on the market today, this one does not include what could be considered a 'real' word processor. This does not mean that you will be unable to write your novel within the program, only that the features offered by the text editor are rather limiting in what you can do with the text. The program allows you export in several formats including a text file, rich text file or an .html file. Personally, I would go for writing the entire story within the program and then export the entire thing to a format compatible with your favorite word processor.

It also allows you to import text files from other applications into the Notes Tab for viewing. This is a time saver and can be a handy feature if you already have chapters or scenes written with another program. It is always a good thing when you don't have to retype.

The program also includes a submission tracker. This can be used for everything you write, including your current story. While the tracker is rather limited at this time, for my money, it sure beats index cards or tiny slips of paper.

Online support for this product is wonderful. Emails are answered within a day usually if you cannot find what you need online. Of the more affordable programs of its type, I believe it to be one of the best on the market. I see this program building a large following of loyal writers. I'm happy to say I am one of them.

Rating:

Cheap at only $37.00

Tons of free add-ons

Export and import of several formats (rtf, html, etc.)

No 'real' word processor included

Conclusion:

Write It Now is a pretty good fiction writing program. It's easy to use, although a bit overloaded with different tools. Online support is wonderful. There's a growing community using this software. This fact makes it a strong competitor to all those fiction writing programs out there. To anybody on a tight budget we can recommend it without a doubt.