Apps for novel writing

Thanks for the advice. I'm down to the last two chapters on my novel, writing completely in Pages. I bought Scrivener and Notebooks for iPad today and transferred the book to it. My God I wish I had gotten these earlier. They are FANTASTIC! Making it so easy to go back and edit plus check my organization. Hopefully there will be another book after this one to use this setup from the beginning. The sync function through Dropbox is magnificent!

I can't recommend this setup enough. You can't go wrong!

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Originally Posted by jkhonea

Thanks for the advice. I'm down to the last two chapters on my novel, writing completely in Pages. I bought Scrivener and Notebooks for iPad today and transferred the book to it. My God I wish I had gotten these earlier. They are FANTASTIC! Making it so easy to go back and edit plus check my organization. Hopefully there will be another book after this one to use this setup from the beginning. The sync function through Dropbox is magnificent!

I can't recommend this setup enough. You can't go wrong!

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Wow, well done! I searched for Scrivener in the App store yesterday and whatever came up didn't look right to me, some Japanese app? I ended up taking a look at Notebooks and Docs2Go, finally deciding on the latter as I do all my writing in Word, ( though rather annoyingly only the premium version allowed the Dropbox function!) I also downloaded Dropbox for free. I found no easy way to transfer my chapters from Pages to Docs2Go. I tried syncing in Itunes but there was no document syncing option available. So a bit of kerfuffle with that, but nonetheless, progress is being made.

What I have still found rather irritating is the lack of folder organisation in Docs2Go which seems to be great in Dropbox!

PS:I just tried to edit the above as I can't seem to edit my posts in IPad screen at all. It won't allow me to scroll down the text anyone else have this problem?

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Originally Posted by Ipadpaws

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Originally Posted by jkhonea

Thanks for the advice. I'm down to the last two chapters on my novel, writing completely in Pages. I bought Scrivener and Notebooks for iPad today and transferred the book to it. My God I wish I had gotten these earlier. They are FANTASTIC! Making it so easy to go back and edit plus check my organization. Hopefully there will be another book after this one to use this setup from the beginning. The sync function through Dropbox is magnificent!

I can't recommend this setup enough. You can't go wrong!

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Wow, well done! I searched for Scrivener in the App store yesterday and whatever came up didn't look right to me, some Japanese app? I ended up taking a look at Notebooks and Docs2Go, finally deciding on the latter as I do all my writing in Word, ( though rather annoyingly only the premium version allowed the Dropbox function!) I also downloaded Dropbox for free. I found no easy way to transfer my chapters from Pages to Docs2Go. I tried syncing in Itunes but there was no document syncing option available. So a bit of kerfuffle with that, but nonetheless, progress is being made.

What I have still found rather irritating is the lack of folder organisation in Docs2Go which seems to be great in Dropbox!

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Scrivener is actually a Mac program, not for the iPad. There is a Windows Beta but I haven't tried that yet. The thing I'm most impressed with is the folders carrying back and forth for syncing between the iPad and the computer now. I've always worried about backing up and overwriting something I shouldn't but this will really help.

As far as editing posts, look at the top of the text box and see if you see small up and down arrows. They should be there. That will allow scrolling.

Yep. We all kinda do. I use a ZaggMate keyboard which has arrow keys.

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Originally Posted by Ipadpaws

PS:I just tried to edit the above as I can't seem to edit my posts in IPad screen at all. It won't allow me to scroll down the text anyone else have this problem?

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Instead of trying to scroll with one finger, put two fingers down instead. This is good too for any kind of text box or scroll down menu.

Based on this thread, I downloaded Scrivener for my Macbook and Notebooks for my ipad. I transferred my novel into Scrivener (made all the chapter folders and added the chapters written so far).

I can't figure out how to sync the Scrivener project with Notebooks. Would one of you novel writing gurus be kind enough to tell me how you have been doing this? Thanks so much!

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Originally Posted by Major Eazy

As a fellow writer, I would advise you not to write a novel on your iPad, you need a desktop computer (a laptop would be okay) and a proper sitting position to write a novel.

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That statement is patently absurd.

Ray Bradbury, who sadly died today, and generations of writers prior to the advent of personal computers seemed to have managed quite well. Bradbury wrote a novel on paper using a fax machine to send pieces to his co-writer, laying then out on the floor to organize. There are also thousands of writers who still write without a computer. Is a proper sitting position "in a booth at a coffee shop?" If not, we might have had no Harry Potter.

Saying that one explicitly needs a desktop system (with the parenthetical insinuation that a laptop is possibly substandard) is ridiculous.

Plenty of people find the iPad an exceptional interface for writing. One with a fewer number of distractions than a full-fledged computer. In fact, with the Bluetooth keyboard, it very much reminds me of the word processors I used decades ago- a distraction-less environment that's actually very conducive to writing. Don't listen to someone telling you that an iPad is not a good writing interface, try it out and see if it works for you. It's a new technology and many, if not all, writers will incorporate it as they have all new technologies.

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Originally Posted by JohnMetta

That statement is patently absurd.

Ray Bradbury, who sadly died today, and generations of writers prior to the advent of personal computers seemed to have managed quite well. Bradbury wrote a novel on paper using a fax machine to send pieces to his co-writer, laying then out on the floor to organize. There are also thousands of writers who still write without a computer. Is a proper sitting position "in a booth at a coffee shop?" If not, we might have had no Harry Potter.

Saying that one explicitly needs a desktop system (with the parenthetical insinuation that a laptop is possibly substandard) is ridiculous.

Plenty of people find the iPad an exceptional interface for writing. One with a fewer number of distractions than a full-fledged computer. In fact, with the Bluetooth keyboard, it very much reminds me of the word processors I used decades ago- a distraction-less environment that's actually very conducive to writing. Don't listen to someone telling you that an iPad is not a good writing interface, try it out and see if it works for you. It's a new technology and many, if not all, writers will incorporate it as they have all new technologies.

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+1,000,000,000 well said!

Keyser, use Dropbox for the transition. Shoot me a pm with your email and I'll help you with it. I am so sorry I didn't see your response earlier. I so apologize.