Here is a very peculiar review of Scrivener by the author of a software story structuring strategy that sits on WritItNow.
writersdigest.com/mbbs/forum … s=5#M60759
Weird! Talk about “ready, fire, aim.”
Here is a very peculiar review of Scrivener by the author of a software story structuring strategy that sits on WritItNow.
writersdigest.com/mbbs/forum … s=5#M60759
Weird! Talk about “ready, fire, aim.”
Argh, hard to read: a big text desert, as we call this in Germany.
Did I read that right? Did he say that because Scrivener wasn’t the same as his software, it wasn’t a good program?
ready, fire, aim indeed…
Well, it’s just his opinion and he has designed his own system that works for him (and others)… As I read it, he is actually telling the other posters not to be negative about software such as Scrivener, even though Scrivener isn’t the software for him - fair enough and good luck to him. Perfectly understandable he prefers his own system. His view of Scrivener is perfectly valid; what annoys me are the real naysayers in that thread who say things such as, “Oh, can’t people just write anymore?” and “All of this software just makes you write by numbers” - the latter showing complete ignorance of the software itself, bundling it in with software such as NewNovelist, which does try to tell you how to structure a piece of writing. This sort of attitude is exactly why I never hung around places such as writers.net for very long - base snobbery. Similar luddites no doubt sat around bemoaning parchment and the quill when they were quite content with their oral methods, thank you very much, then later berated Caxton with his fancy printing presses (because scribal errors and dialects bring such character to a work) and after that refused to use a typewriter (new-fangled technology - now which writer was it that famously refused to use a typewriter? One of many, probably). I read a really good blog post about this somewhere recently, about how this attitude stems from the silly belief that an artist must “suffer” for his art, and that software somehow softens the “true artist”.
Bleugh.
Now look what you’ve made me do? One of my New Year’s resolutions is not to rant as much this year. Lucky it’s still 2006.
Ha! Well, you just saved me the trouble. I was actually going to post something on the site but then thought better of it. I realized it was more defensive on my part, as if they were saying I/we are not ‘real writers’ just because we prefer a particular writing tool. Ludicrous and not worth my time.
You’d think with 12 books under his belt, he would have discovered the ‘paragraph’ by now.
Reading some of the replies, it seems that the posters have mistaken Scrivener for one of those packages that takes you through steps to write your story.
Anyway, they all seemed pretty sure they were right, so it’s probably best to just leave them to their cave painting.
Actually I think this Strephon bloke has some nerve.
He criticises Scrivener, but then a few feeble lines later, he criticises people who dared to find fault with his ‘The Writer’s Interface’.
Seems he’s just trying to push his own wares.
My personal favourite was: “The critics, just like book critics, don’t show that they have actually read or used this new writer’s interface with its many writing ideas and tools.”
This is of course, in complaint to anyone who criticises New Writer’s Interface. Not applicable to anyone who criticises Scrivener in a single paragraphic burst.
Yes, that’s right; because book critics don’t actually read a book, before writing a critique on it …
The posting says a lot more about Strephon and very little about Scrivener.