10 ms·

Neo – Desired Word Processor for Authors

134 points by ilamont 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dsun180 9y ago
I think the naming is counterproductive. How many things exist that are called "NEO" these days?
- knodi123 9y ago
  I know that was a rhetorical question, but a search for neo on github yields 14 thousand results. Granted, that includes some "neon", but sheesh. It's like that truck I saw the other day, for a business called "best carpet cleaners". I get that the branding is cool, but you can't google that name. Heck, there are several different programs named neo on the first page of google search results for "neo editor"!
  - JRITSRob 9y ago
    Finding the balance between searchable and memorable is quite the task. A text editor named Flugurbenhurg is gonna be relatively Google friendly, not quite so grey matter friendly. I've often had the itch to create tooling to automate tasks. Later deciding to make it more generic and open source it. I have such a time trying to give them names. Internal tooling, fine, just name it what it does and move on. Public releases though... Oy, I'm sweating just thinking about it.
    - bittermang 9y ago
      "Finding the balance between searchable and memorable is quite the task." While I agree, the name Neo is crap, unfortunately. It's like how many things are named Fuse or Fusion in open source, or new projects that start up with names that are clearly already dominated by something else. It just doesn't work, doesn't do anyone any good in the long run. It's worth it to go back to the drawing board for a minute, and just come up with a name. Especially since so much thought and care has gone in to the rest of the app so far. Calling it Neo works like an internal project name, just to fill in the blank and get something started. But as a name that can ship, Neo is never going to work. Unless it does, and becomes the new defacto Neo. Which could happen. But it's a pipe dream. I think it's better to start off on the right foot with a good name.
  - type0 9y ago
    The better name is Leo and off course there already is an editor with that name which is also a better one than this imaginative Neo
- projectramo 9y ago
  I believe this is the One, the piece of software we have been waiting for. It's coming was foretold.
- andrewbinstock 9y ago
  Neo-con!
_pmf_ 9y ago
> The main focus, however, is perfect ebook files. Complying with Amazon’s standards will be a huge goal I've bought Kindle books from Amazon that had 5 OCR errors per page.
- robin_reala 9y ago
  The quality of paid ebooks is generally atrocious. Mind you, I usually submit 3-7 fixes per Gutenberg text I read so maybe I’m just overly picky…
- knodi123 9y ago
  Amazon has automatically-checked standards for formatting, but I don't think anybody is manually reviewing content for errors.
- cmiles74 9y ago
  This makes the navigating by page thumbnail all the more confusing. I really think this idea really needs some rethinking.
tincholio 9y ago
95% of what he wants can be done with a suitable Emacs config, org-mode and some elisp... What I find confusing, coming from a professional writer (though maybe that's the eye with which they would look at this), is that he seems to view very different aspects (purely cosmetic ones, such as the indented line in a first paragraph, or heavily usability-oriented ones, inserting a TODO note) as equally important. Then again, he has tried all of the editors out there, and I'm just an Emacs geek :)
- rpastuszak 9y ago
  Indeed, you are:)
- rwnspace 9y ago
  I think book-writing software is one of those areas where 'UX' is crucially important, and if that's your ultimate goal then different kinds of features all get evaluated by the same metric, 'does this pass the idiot test, while looking and feeling clean and useful?'. I think most editors miss the mark when it comes to elegance - retaining a large feature-set without 'cramping style' seems hard.
- aidenn0 9y ago
  95% of any program can be done with a suitable emacs config, org-mode and some elisp. And then nobody will use it because it's emacs.
  - bittermang 9y ago
    The parent comment reminds me of a recent "every Stackoverflow question" post which I cannot locate right now. Yeah, you could emacs, or whatever. Or a regular human person could just use this app and really enjoy the User Experience out of the box without any fuss.
- Naga 9y ago
  Too bad emacs just don't have a good text editor ;)
aembleton 9y ago
If Dropbox Paper would work offline, then I think that'd be perfect for me.
- projectramo 9y ago
  Google docs?
JulianMorrison 9y ago
The closest I've come to smooth and flowing writing is using Sublime Text, pandoc flavored markdown (for the epub support), and pandoc and LaTeX to process it.
stepvhen 9y ago
i write passable poems using ed; it doesn't get more distraction free than that. i understand the drive to flatten out the learning curve of software for non-software-people. most of these options could be covered quickly with an author oriented LaTeX frontend, and i venture to guess that would be easier to develop. It already has an entire document class for books, covering frontmatter, mainmatter, backmatter, chapters, table of contents, headers footers, bibliography, etc. all that is needed is a author friendly GUI. file management, tabs, etc would then be the main part of the NEO ecosystem. One just has to supplement with templates and never mess with actual document creation.
- abricot 9y ago
  Yes, LaTeX is near-perfect for print, but pretty much useless for ebook formats.
weeksie 9y ago
For me the most important part of writing longer, novel-length pieces is the organization help that Scrivener gives me. So far it's my favorite tool and as cool as this might be I'll remain skeptical until I see the final product.
- tenkabuto 9y ago
  Scrivener's organization UI is wonderful. I wonder if there could be a one-thing-well app made for just handling that and relegating longer-form writing to the user's word processor of choice.
- ghaff 9y ago
  I used Scrivener for one non-fiction book I wrote that was very chapter-centric. (i.e. it was a compilation of quasi-independent pieces organized around broad themes). I really liked the flexibility it gave me to reorganize and include fragments of thoughts. On the downside, once you get past a certain point and get into editing and collaboration, you pretty much have to throw all that away and switch tools.
- antjanus 9y ago
  One downside of Scrivener is how old UI feels and looks. It definitely needs a heavy facelift after all these years. Oh and the use of RTF docs. I'd say that when someone comes to the table with markdown support, a UI that matches the times, a better format, and strap Pandoc on top of it, you'd see a true competitor to Scrivener. Scrivener satisfies the market but I think a straight up clone with a few changes and a few extra features could easily take over. Not one of these alternatives that keep trying out something "new".
  - dangoor 9y ago
    Scrivener is actually getting a facelift. Check out their blog with some screenshots of their in-progress Scrivener 3: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/ https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/
- jacques-noris 9y ago
roryisok 9y ago
My main personal project is a writing app, every time I see something like this on HN I get a little heart flutter which is about 50% somebody stealing my chance at greatness and 50% "oh cool, a new app to try out!" I'm genuinely delighted to see authors stepping into the app production space. I'm surprised more don't do it. I expected Charlie Stross to have his own flavour of Linux by now. I hope Hugh can pull this off. Edit: forgot shameless plug: http://getpoe.com http://getpoe.com, Windows 8/10 only at the mo, sorry.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  Totally subjective, but no treeview of chapters to organize work, no buy ;-)
  - roryisok 9y ago
    =) working on it. Testing a next generation beta at the moment which has lots of improvements. chapter list is one. also markdown + html support, inline comments (// format, ignored by wordcount), on screen widgets for wordcount etc.
    - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
      Then I'm interested :-)
- edgarvaldes 9y ago
  Looks nice. Can I download the app in your page directly?
  - roryisok 9y ago
    It's only on the windows store at the moment, but I plan to breakout pretty soon. It's a JS UWP app right now so the quickest way to open it up is (please don't lynch me folks) Electron. I have considered the alternatives, but I have a full time job, a family, and I'm also trying to write several novels so I don't have time to start from scratch in python or java.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Hmm, can anyone compare this to Scrivener, my current writing tool? Best about Scrivener is the dragging around of chapters, creating chapters, renaming etc. in the tree view.
- cstross 9y ago
  His mention of Scrivener in the intro was so brief that I have difficulty believing he even read the interactive tutorial, much less wrote one or more books using it. (I've written and published about a dozen novels using Scrivener, via imprints of Penguin, Macmillan, and Hachette, and I'm a beta-tester for the forthcoming Scrivener 3.) While Scrivener doesn't really emphasize page-by-page thumbnails as a navigation tool (what does, aside from Word or Pages, these days?) it just about throws the kitchen sink at the problem of how to structure a long compound document, with corkboard, outliner, and multi-select scrolling subdocument views of a project (in the current version: the next release is considerably more powerful).
  - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
    Thanks!
- edgarvaldes 9y ago
  What I don't like about Scrivener is the propietary format. I would love a text editor for writers, with simple text files as format, but some GUI for organization of chapters/outlines/characters, etc.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    Scrivener saves in open formats (XML and RTF), but it's nearly impossible to figure out what's what unless you write your own program to open them. It's a bunch of RTF files with numbers for names and a few index files in XML.
pmbailey 9y ago
Slightly off-topic, but I'd like to recommend the Silo Series also by the author of this blog post. They're perhaps not life-altering in content, but enjoyable sci-fi reads, nonetheless.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  Howey is perhaps my favorite new(ish) sci-fi author. His novels are almost always page turners, even if they aren't always deep. Wool (book one of the Silo series) was my introduction to Howey, and also among his best. I also recommend it for anyone that likes post-apocalyptic sci fi. Sand is good, too.
cstross 9y ago
(Wearing my jobbing-novelist hat here ...) He kinda lost me at the idea of navigating a WIP using page thumbnails on the left. (a) That's so 1988 (Clive Sinclair, I'm thinking of you and your Pipedream here), and (b) the page is not the appropriate document element for navigation — scenes can be as short as a sentence or almost as long as a chapter, and scenes are how I structure prose fiction. Indeed, a manuscript page bears no real relationship to a published paper book page, or an ebook equivalent. Finally, as functional requirements go this is, shall we say, less than ideal: but let's not go there.
- cmiles74 9y ago
  I'm not sure what a page even means anymore. There are some works that may only be available electronically, especially if they are on the shorter side. In that case the page size would be dependent on the Kindle or phone model, etc.
  - wongarsu 9y ago
    I read ebooks on my phone. While I could use page-like navigation, I find it more comfortable to just scroll down to keep the text I'm currently reading in roughly the same screen area. The only concept of a page that's left in that situation is the transition between chapters.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    It was already dependent on print edition, which varies over time and territory. E-books just emphasize the meaninglessness of page numbers.
- bobsil1 9y ago
  Totally agree. Check out Granthika, a semantic novel editor with automatic error checking for timeline and character errors: http://granthika.co http://granthika.co In progress, pre-beta, by a friend and novelist.
  - oever 9y ago
altschuler 9y ago
At Plotist[1] we're taking a slighty different approach to the writing process, where the writing module (which is coming soon) will stand alongside the world building parts of the application. We've found this to be a great way to keep yourself organized and to make use of all the notes about characters, locations, events, etc. that build up over time. This doesn't mean that the actual writing view has to be cluttered, but it's available when you need it. And we agree with the people here who like working with their chapters as a tree :-) [1] https://www.plotist.com https://www.plotist.com
JohnStrange 9y ago
I use an expensive payware application (Papyrus Autor) for my German novels because its spell-checking and style correction is unbeatable. It just works, which is the most important thing for me in addition to a strong focus on data integrity and rare updates. If there was something as powerful as Duden Korrektor for Emacs, I'd definitely prefer that, though.
thanatropism 9y ago
What's a pantser and a plotter? Wild guess: pantser novelists are more descriptive (a lot of ink spilled on clothing) while plotters have much more characters and intrigue? I keep trying to write something using composites of people I know as characters, but this ensures I don't get details as hair color right.
- DennisP 9y ago
  I think it's outlining your whole plot in advance, vs. writing by the seat of your pants.
- acdw 9y ago
  I took it more as "by the seat of your pants" (i.e., just write and organize later), vs. plotting a direction with an outline, etc. before beginning to write. Just a guess though.
- neogodless 9y ago
  Interestingly enough, these words have definitions available to anyone ambitious enough to take it upon themselves to do a web search. > A pantser is someone who, “flies by the seat of their pants,” meaning they don't plan out anything, or plan very little. Some people, like me, call themselves “plantsers,” which means they're in a little of both. > Simply put, a plotter is someone who plans out their novel before they write it. [0] http://thewritepractice.com/plotters-pantsers/ http://thewritepractice.com/plotters-pantsers/
- jcranmer 9y ago
  I've never heard those terms in particular used before, but there is a major dichotomy in writing: do you extensively organize, outline, and plan the structure of your novel before you start writing; or do you primarily let your novel evolve organically as you write it. The former I'm guessing is being called plotter and the latter a pantser here.
  - mrec 9y ago
    Yes, that's correct. I don't know whether these terms originated in the NaNoWriMo community, but that was where I first encountered them.
oconnor0 9y ago
Has anyone used (Quoll Writer)[0]? [0]: https://quollwriter.com/ https://quollwriter.com/
- wongarsu 9y ago
  I've just imported a story I'm editing into Quoll. It seems quite nice. Little visual clutter, a decent feature set that helps with keeping track of characters, scenes etc, organize ideas, keep track of word count targets, keep you motivated etc. The achievements are a nice touch, and the ability to invite editors looks helpful (though I haven't tried that) There are a few bugs (it reordered my chapters when I marked a chapter as edit-complete the first time. That obviously shouldn't happen). Overall it seems like a big step up compared to Word. It can't quite keep up with the feature set of scrivener, but in exchange it has a much more approachable and clutter-free interface, much closer to the idea of distraction-free writing.
  - oconnor0 9y ago
    What is the process for converting what is written in Quoll into something printable, like a PDF?
    - wongarsu 9y ago
      I would say the export functions are among the weaknesses of Quoll. You can export to HTML, docx and epub, with the only notable configurable option the selection of the chapters (and character notes etc) that should be included in the export. For epubs you can also configure author name and ISBN. The quality of the exports is not that great. The HTML looks good for printing, but is a pain to read on screen. The epub looks good, except that it doesn't display chapter headings. The docx has 8 newlines between paragraphs when I open it in OpenOffice. I don't have a MS Word on hand right now to check whose fault that is, but it's unfortunate since I would probably go via docx to pdf.
criddell 9y ago
Unless I missed it, he never mentioned a particular platform. Given the list of applications he's tried, I'm guessing Windows or macOS is where he does his work. I wonder if he's ever considered working on an iPad with a keyboard. Since the 10.5" iPad came out, I've been doing just that and it's by far my favorite device to work on. Amazing battery life, super portable, fast, and focused.
ilaksh 9y ago
The interesting thing to me about this as a programmer is that it really looks like a spec. There may be even bored programmers who read this on HN and have already started building it. It would be interesting to see how many changes were made to that spec by the end of the development process. The trickiest part to me is the idea that regardless of what computer you put the USB stick in, it just immediately loads the program. Can you even really be sure that will happen if you restrict it to the last few versions of Windows? So that right there is one of the most challenging aspects of software development -- when a big part of the concept is something that either isn't actually feasible as stated or you are not sure is possible. Which is really common because most projects are not driven by programmers but by non-technical people. What it seems like most programmers will do is to try to find a clever way to gloss-over this 'little detail' about how they don't know how to be sure that a program will immediately open with no effort once the USB stick is inserted. The issue with that is, if they leave it a little ambiguous, and then it turns out that whoops, it never opens on his Macbook or requires him to manually launch it.. then his super-easy program is not nearly as simple as he imagined.. if the instant launch was a big part of it. Then the average programmer would just say "well, I told you I wasn't super sure that it would work exactly as you liked" -- when really he barely mentioned it and the guy didn't believe him. Maybe some programmers are good at handling this -- I think you really need to find a slick way to convince the guy that he never really needed or wanted that instant open USB thing, or that having to double click after it was inserted is exactly the same. Kind of about psychology as much as anything.
- marmaduke 9y ago
  Yea I started reading it that way (as a spec I'd implement) but got hitched on the auto launch part. if a single double click was allowed, it's feasible but requires choosing a launcher/file for the os
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- empath75 9y ago
  > The trickiest part to me is the idea that regardless of what computer you put the USB stick in, it just immediately loads the program. Can you even really be sure that will happen if you restrict it to the last few versions of Windows? It's a textbook example of an x-y problem. He wants to be able to work anywhere. He thinks the right way to do that is a USB drive. The actual right way to do it is as a web app.
plg 9y ago
https://ia.net/writer/blog/ia-writer-5-from-raw-to-cooked-to-sushi/ https://ia.net/writer/blog/ia-writer-5-from-raw-to-cooked-to...
companyhen 9y ago
Is this related to the NEO Smart Economy? http://neo.org http://neo.org
dkersten 9y ago
What I would love is a tool that lets me chart out timelines (ideally with a visual representation) for characters and story arcs. I want to be able to see how different characters interact over time (double points if it takes both time and location into account and let's me, somehow, see this visually, but I'd settle for just time too). I want to be able to roughly make up how a story arc interweaves with others and then flesh it out bit by bit. I want to see how characters are affected etc. I've tried various other tools (diagramming, Gantt charts, brainstorming tools, note taking tools...) and they didn't really do it for me. If such a tool existed for iPad (I've searched and come up blank), I would buy it in an instant (ok ok price dependent, but I'd be very interested). I'd almost build it myself, but.. who has the time?
- projectramo 9y ago
  Aeon timeline. https://www.aeontimeline.com/ https://www.aeontimeline.com/ Even syncs with Scrivener.
  - dkersten 9y ago
    Thank you, I'll check it out. Looks good!
  - jemaddux 9y ago
    That looks awesome. Double points for syncs with scrivener. Thanks
unixhero 9y ago
Better than Scrivener?
X86BSD 9y ago
I use Lyx to write, well, almost everything honestly. It was made for writing imo. Leaving all the time wasting details for the core processor not for the author to stress over. It just lets you focus on simply writing the content.
- npsimons 9y ago
  Came here to say something similar. Glad I'm not the only one. Wish that more people knew about and used LyX. Yes, regular word processors (eg, MS Word) suck! There are already pre-existing better alternatives, such as LyX.
mizaru 9y ago
Real authors use WordStar 4.0
- dangoor 9y ago
  and then can't keep up with the TV series that is started years after the book series began?
  - mizaru 9y ago
    It's not his job to keep up with a prematurely produced TV series, though.
cdiamand 9y ago
I recently surveyed a writer about their software woes. Response: "I am a writer - fiction and non-fiction. I haven't found good software to keep my notes, sentences, ideas, etc. in a way that helps me easily incorporate them into the project I am working on. Oftentimes, I will come up with a sentence or a paragraph that I want to put in my story at a later time. It's just a moment - an idea- that comes up that I want to save for later use. Well, guess what, these ideas start piling up and I could have a huge pile of sentences/paragraphs that I will use to build my story. But hey, I don't know just yet where I want to place them to tell the most effective story. I want a section in the particular file I am working on where I can keep these ideas instead of having a whole separate "ideas" file or worse, scribbled on a paper napkin. I'd like to be able to easily drag and drop that paragraph/sentence from my ideas section right into my story without having to do the annoying cut and paste or worse, figuring out what file I saved that great sentence in. I'd pay $130+ for it."
- empath75 9y ago
  scrivener?
  - jeffwass 9y ago
    Was about to say the same. Scrivener is your friend here, and it's not even $130
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Hm, looks interesting, but is there anything similar available for Linux? I use a small chromebook as a primary workstation for its light form factor and ARM's low power usage/long battery life. So if it's Mac/Windows or closed source without an ARM binary, I can't use it.
- HerrMonnezza 9y ago
  emacs with org-mode?
- notamy 9y ago
  Honestly this reminds me a lot of the TempleOS editor.
megamindbrian 9y ago
Follow the white rabbit...
jogjayr 9y ago
Can someone who has written novel-length fiction give an explanation of why you need specialized software? I've never written anything longer than a short story (on MS Word or Notepad) back when I used to write fiction. So I am not aware of the problems that accompany a longer work. I always thought if I started writing again I'd use vim or Sublime Text. I've heard things like being able to do outlines or charts or whatever. But those things seem to lend themselves better to handwritten notes or hand-drawn diagrams.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  evidently, you need it to stroke your ego (the author of this piece, i mean)
  - jogjayr 9y ago
    I understood what you meant and I didn't downvote you. I think you were downvoted because that wasn't really an answer to my question.
fuzzygroup 9y ago
To me the best thinking around in the design of a writing tool is Scrivener. It is the first writing tool that seems to understand that writing, research, note taking a process and the page is the output from that process. My single objection to Scrivener is that its native data structure is RTF. I dearly wish it was a pure markdown tool.
gt_ 9y ago
Shoot me. This 'story' method of describing software is awful.

134 points by ilamont 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dsun180 9y ago

I think the naming is counterproductive. How many things exist that are called "NEO" these days?

knodi123 9y ago
I know that was a rhetorical question, but a search for neo on github yields 14 thousand results. Granted, that includes some "neon", but sheesh. It's like that truck I saw the other day, for a business called "best carpet cleaners". I get that the branding is cool, but you can't google that name. Heck, there are several different programs named neo on the first page of google search results for "neo editor"!
- JRITSRob 9y ago
  Finding the balance between searchable and memorable is quite the task. A text editor named Flugurbenhurg is gonna be relatively Google friendly, not quite so grey matter friendly. I've often had the itch to create tooling to automate tasks. Later deciding to make it more generic and open source it. I have such a time trying to give them names. Internal tooling, fine, just name it what it does and move on. Public releases though... Oy, I'm sweating just thinking about it.
  - bittermang 9y ago
    "Finding the balance between searchable and memorable is quite the task." While I agree, the name Neo is crap, unfortunately. It's like how many things are named Fuse or Fusion in open source, or new projects that start up with names that are clearly already dominated by something else. It just doesn't work, doesn't do anyone any good in the long run. It's worth it to go back to the drawing board for a minute, and just come up with a name. Especially since so much thought and care has gone in to the rest of the app so far. Calling it Neo works like an internal project name, just to fill in the blank and get something started. But as a name that can ship, Neo is never going to work. Unless it does, and becomes the new defacto Neo. Which could happen. But it's a pipe dream. I think it's better to start off on the right foot with a good name.
- type0 9y ago
  The better name is Leo and off course there already is an editor with that name which is also a better one than this imaginative Neo
projectramo 9y ago
I believe this is the One, the piece of software we have been waiting for. It's coming was foretold.
andrewbinstock 9y ago
Neo-con!

_pmf_ 9y ago

> The main focus, however, is perfect ebook files. Complying with Amazon’s standards will be a huge goal I've bought Kindle books from Amazon that had 5 OCR errors per page.

robin_reala 9y ago
The quality of paid ebooks is generally atrocious. Mind you, I usually submit 3-7 fixes per Gutenberg text I read so maybe I’m just overly picky…
knodi123 9y ago
Amazon has automatically-checked standards for formatting, but I don't think anybody is manually reviewing content for errors.
cmiles74 9y ago
This makes the navigating by page thumbnail all the more confusing. I really think this idea really needs some rethinking.

tincholio 9y ago

95% of what he wants can be done with a suitable Emacs config, org-mode and some elisp... What I find confusing, coming from a professional writer (though maybe that's the eye with which they would look at this), is that he seems to view very different aspects (purely cosmetic ones, such as the indented line in a first paragraph, or heavily usability-oriented ones, inserting a TODO note) as equally important. Then again, he has tried all of the editors out there, and I'm just an Emacs geek :)

rpastuszak 9y ago
Indeed, you are:)
rwnspace 9y ago
I think book-writing software is one of those areas where 'UX' is crucially important, and if that's your ultimate goal then different kinds of features all get evaluated by the same metric, 'does this pass the idiot test, while looking and feeling clean and useful?'. I think most editors miss the mark when it comes to elegance - retaining a large feature-set without 'cramping style' seems hard.
aidenn0 9y ago
95% of any program can be done with a suitable emacs config, org-mode and some elisp. And then nobody will use it because it's emacs.
- bittermang 9y ago
  The parent comment reminds me of a recent "every Stackoverflow question" post which I cannot locate right now. Yeah, you could emacs, or whatever. Or a regular human person could just use this app and really enjoy the User Experience out of the box without any fuss.
Naga 9y ago
Too bad emacs just don't have a good text editor ;)

aembleton 9y ago

If Dropbox Paper would work offline, then I think that'd be perfect for me.

projectramo 9y ago
Google docs?

JulianMorrison 9y ago

The closest I've come to smooth and flowing writing is using Sublime Text, pandoc flavored markdown (for the epub support), and pandoc and LaTeX to process it.

stepvhen 9y ago

i write passable poems using ed; it doesn't get more distraction free than that. i understand the drive to flatten out the learning curve of software for non-software-people. most of these options could be covered quickly with an author oriented LaTeX frontend, and i venture to guess that would be easier to develop. It already has an entire document class for books, covering frontmatter, mainmatter, backmatter, chapters, table of contents, headers footers, bibliography, etc. all that is needed is a author friendly GUI. file management, tabs, etc would then be the main part of the NEO ecosystem. One just has to supplement with templates and never mess with actual document creation.

abricot 9y ago
Yes, LaTeX is near-perfect for print, but pretty much useless for ebook formats.

weeksie 9y ago

For me the most important part of writing longer, novel-length pieces is the organization help that Scrivener gives me. So far it's my favorite tool and as cool as this might be I'll remain skeptical until I see the final product.

tenkabuto 9y ago
Scrivener's organization UI is wonderful. I wonder if there could be a one-thing-well app made for just handling that and relegating longer-form writing to the user's word processor of choice.
ghaff 9y ago
I used Scrivener for one non-fiction book I wrote that was very chapter-centric. (i.e. it was a compilation of quasi-independent pieces organized around broad themes). I really liked the flexibility it gave me to reorganize and include fragments of thoughts. On the downside, once you get past a certain point and get into editing and collaboration, you pretty much have to throw all that away and switch tools.
antjanus 9y ago
One downside of Scrivener is how old UI feels and looks. It definitely needs a heavy facelift after all these years. Oh and the use of RTF docs. I'd say that when someone comes to the table with markdown support, a UI that matches the times, a better format, and strap Pandoc on top of it, you'd see a true competitor to Scrivener. Scrivener satisfies the market but I think a straight up clone with a few changes and a few extra features could easily take over. Not one of these alternatives that keep trying out something "new".
- dangoor 9y ago
  Scrivener is actually getting a facelift. Check out their blog with some screenshots of their in-progress Scrivener 3: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/ https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/
jacques-noris 9y ago

roryisok 9y ago

My main personal project is a writing app, every time I see something like this on HN I get a little heart flutter which is about 50% somebody stealing my chance at greatness and 50% "oh cool, a new app to try out!" I'm genuinely delighted to see authors stepping into the app production space. I'm surprised more don't do it. I expected Charlie Stross to have his own flavour of Linux by now. I hope Hugh can pull this off. Edit: forgot shameless plug: http://getpoe.com http://getpoe.com, Windows 8/10 only at the mo, sorry.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Totally subjective, but no treeview of chapters to organize work, no buy ;-)
- roryisok 9y ago
  =) working on it. Testing a next generation beta at the moment which has lots of improvements. chapter list is one. also markdown + html support, inline comments (// format, ignored by wordcount), on screen widgets for wordcount etc.
  - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
    Then I'm interested :-)
edgarvaldes 9y ago
Looks nice. Can I download the app in your page directly?
- roryisok 9y ago
  It's only on the windows store at the moment, but I plan to breakout pretty soon. It's a JS UWP app right now so the quickest way to open it up is (please don't lynch me folks) Electron. I have considered the alternatives, but I have a full time job, a family, and I'm also trying to write several novels so I don't have time to start from scratch in python or java.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

Hmm, can anyone compare this to Scrivener, my current writing tool? Best about Scrivener is the dragging around of chapters, creating chapters, renaming etc. in the tree view.

cstross 9y ago
His mention of Scrivener in the intro was so brief that I have difficulty believing he even read the interactive tutorial, much less wrote one or more books using it. (I've written and published about a dozen novels using Scrivener, via imprints of Penguin, Macmillan, and Hachette, and I'm a beta-tester for the forthcoming Scrivener 3.) While Scrivener doesn't really emphasize page-by-page thumbnails as a navigation tool (what does, aside from Word or Pages, these days?) it just about throws the kitchen sink at the problem of how to structure a long compound document, with corkboard, outliner, and multi-select scrolling subdocument views of a project (in the current version: the next release is considerably more powerful).
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  Thanks!
edgarvaldes 9y ago
What I don't like about Scrivener is the propietary format. I would love a text editor for writers, with simple text files as format, but some GUI for organization of chapters/outlines/characters, etc.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  Scrivener saves in open formats (XML and RTF), but it's nearly impossible to figure out what's what unless you write your own program to open them. It's a bunch of RTF files with numbers for names and a few index files in XML.

pmbailey 9y ago

Slightly off-topic, but I'd like to recommend the Silo Series also by the author of this blog post. They're perhaps not life-altering in content, but enjoyable sci-fi reads, nonetheless.

SwellJoe 9y ago
Howey is perhaps my favorite new(ish) sci-fi author. His novels are almost always page turners, even if they aren't always deep. Wool (book one of the Silo series) was my introduction to Howey, and also among his best. I also recommend it for anyone that likes post-apocalyptic sci fi. Sand is good, too.

cstross 9y ago

(Wearing my jobbing-novelist hat here ...) He kinda lost me at the idea of navigating a WIP using page thumbnails on the left. (a) That's so 1988 (Clive Sinclair, I'm thinking of you and your Pipedream here), and (b) the page is not the appropriate document element for navigation — scenes can be as short as a sentence or almost as long as a chapter, and scenes are how I structure prose fiction. Indeed, a manuscript page bears no real relationship to a published paper book page, or an ebook equivalent. Finally, as functional requirements go this is, shall we say, less than ideal: but let's not go there.

cmiles74 9y ago
I'm not sure what a page even means anymore. There are some works that may only be available electronically, especially if they are on the shorter side. In that case the page size would be dependent on the Kindle or phone model, etc.
- wongarsu 9y ago
  I read ebooks on my phone. While I could use page-like navigation, I find it more comfortable to just scroll down to keep the text I'm currently reading in roughly the same screen area. The only concept of a page that's left in that situation is the transition between chapters.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  It was already dependent on print edition, which varies over time and territory. E-books just emphasize the meaninglessness of page numbers.
bobsil1 9y ago
Totally agree. Check out Granthika, a semantic novel editor with automatic error checking for timeline and character errors: http://granthika.co http://granthika.co In progress, pre-beta, by a friend and novelist.
- oever 9y ago

altschuler 9y ago

At Plotist[1] we're taking a slighty different approach to the writing process, where the writing module (which is coming soon) will stand alongside the world building parts of the application. We've found this to be a great way to keep yourself organized and to make use of all the notes about characters, locations, events, etc. that build up over time. This doesn't mean that the actual writing view has to be cluttered, but it's available when you need it. And we agree with the people here who like working with their chapters as a tree :-) [1] https://www.plotist.com https://www.plotist.com

JohnStrange 9y ago

I use an expensive payware application (Papyrus Autor) for my German novels because its spell-checking and style correction is unbeatable. It just works, which is the most important thing for me in addition to a strong focus on data integrity and rare updates. If there was something as powerful as Duden Korrektor for Emacs, I'd definitely prefer that, though.

thanatropism 9y ago

What's a pantser and a plotter? Wild guess: pantser novelists are more descriptive (a lot of ink spilled on clothing) while plotters have much more characters and intrigue? I keep trying to write something using composites of people I know as characters, but this ensures I don't get details as hair color right.

DennisP 9y ago
I think it's outlining your whole plot in advance, vs. writing by the seat of your pants.
acdw 9y ago
I took it more as "by the seat of your pants" (i.e., just write and organize later), vs. plotting a direction with an outline, etc. before beginning to write. Just a guess though.
neogodless 9y ago
Interestingly enough, these words have definitions available to anyone ambitious enough to take it upon themselves to do a web search. > A pantser is someone who, “flies by the seat of their pants,” meaning they don't plan out anything, or plan very little. Some people, like me, call themselves “plantsers,” which means they're in a little of both. > Simply put, a plotter is someone who plans out their novel before they write it. [0] http://thewritepractice.com/plotters-pantsers/ http://thewritepractice.com/plotters-pantsers/
jcranmer 9y ago
I've never heard those terms in particular used before, but there is a major dichotomy in writing: do you extensively organize, outline, and plan the structure of your novel before you start writing; or do you primarily let your novel evolve organically as you write it. The former I'm guessing is being called plotter and the latter a pantser here.
- mrec 9y ago
  Yes, that's correct. I don't know whether these terms originated in the NaNoWriMo community, but that was where I first encountered them.

oconnor0 9y ago

Has anyone used (Quoll Writer)[0]? [0]: https://quollwriter.com/ https://quollwriter.com/

wongarsu 9y ago
I've just imported a story I'm editing into Quoll. It seems quite nice. Little visual clutter, a decent feature set that helps with keeping track of characters, scenes etc, organize ideas, keep track of word count targets, keep you motivated etc. The achievements are a nice touch, and the ability to invite editors looks helpful (though I haven't tried that) There are a few bugs (it reordered my chapters when I marked a chapter as edit-complete the first time. That obviously shouldn't happen). Overall it seems like a big step up compared to Word. It can't quite keep up with the feature set of scrivener, but in exchange it has a much more approachable and clutter-free interface, much closer to the idea of distraction-free writing.
- oconnor0 9y ago
  What is the process for converting what is written in Quoll into something printable, like a PDF?
  - wongarsu 9y ago
    I would say the export functions are among the weaknesses of Quoll. You can export to HTML, docx and epub, with the only notable configurable option the selection of the chapters (and character notes etc) that should be included in the export. For epubs you can also configure author name and ISBN. The quality of the exports is not that great. The HTML looks good for printing, but is a pain to read on screen. The epub looks good, except that it doesn't display chapter headings. The docx has 8 newlines between paragraphs when I open it in OpenOffice. I don't have a MS Word on hand right now to check whose fault that is, but it's unfortunate since I would probably go via docx to pdf.

criddell 9y ago

Unless I missed it, he never mentioned a particular platform. Given the list of applications he's tried, I'm guessing Windows or macOS is where he does his work. I wonder if he's ever considered working on an iPad with a keyboard. Since the 10.5" iPad came out, I've been doing just that and it's by far my favorite device to work on. Amazing battery life, super portable, fast, and focused.

ilaksh 9y ago

The interesting thing to me about this as a programmer is that it really looks like a spec. There may be even bored programmers who read this on HN and have already started building it. It would be interesting to see how many changes were made to that spec by the end of the development process. The trickiest part to me is the idea that regardless of what computer you put the USB stick in, it just immediately loads the program. Can you even really be sure that will happen if you restrict it to the last few versions of Windows? So that right there is one of the most challenging aspects of software development -- when a big part of the concept is something that either isn't actually feasible as stated or you are not sure is possible. Which is really common because most projects are not driven by programmers but by non-technical people. What it seems like most programmers will do is to try to find a clever way to gloss-over this 'little detail' about how they don't know how to be sure that a program will immediately open with no effort once the USB stick is inserted. The issue with that is, if they leave it a little ambiguous, and then it turns out that whoops, it never opens on his Macbook or requires him to manually launch it.. then his super-easy program is not nearly as simple as he imagined.. if the instant launch was a big part of it. Then the average programmer would just say "well, I told you I wasn't super sure that it would work exactly as you liked" -- when really he barely mentioned it and the guy didn't believe him. Maybe some programmers are good at handling this -- I think you really need to find a slick way to convince the guy that he never really needed or wanted that instant open USB thing, or that having to double click after it was inserted is exactly the same. Kind of about psychology as much as anything.

marmaduke 9y ago
Yea I started reading it that way (as a spec I'd implement) but got hitched on the auto launch part. if a single double click was allowed, it's feasible but requires choosing a launcher/file for the os
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
empath75 9y ago
> The trickiest part to me is the idea that regardless of what computer you put the USB stick in, it just immediately loads the program. Can you even really be sure that will happen if you restrict it to the last few versions of Windows? It's a textbook example of an x-y problem. He wants to be able to work anywhere. He thinks the right way to do that is a USB drive. The actual right way to do it is as a web app.

plg 9y ago

https://ia.net/writer/blog/ia-writer-5-from-raw-to-cooked-to-sushi/ https://ia.net/writer/blog/ia-writer-5-from-raw-to-cooked-to...

companyhen 9y ago

Is this related to the NEO Smart Economy? http://neo.org http://neo.org

dkersten 9y ago

What I would love is a tool that lets me chart out timelines (ideally with a visual representation) for characters and story arcs. I want to be able to see how different characters interact over time (double points if it takes both time and location into account and let's me, somehow, see this visually, but I'd settle for just time too). I want to be able to roughly make up how a story arc interweaves with others and then flesh it out bit by bit. I want to see how characters are affected etc. I've tried various other tools (diagramming, Gantt charts, brainstorming tools, note taking tools...) and they didn't really do it for me. If such a tool existed for iPad (I've searched and come up blank), I would buy it in an instant (ok ok price dependent, but I'd be very interested). I'd almost build it myself, but.. who has the time?

projectramo 9y ago
Aeon timeline. https://www.aeontimeline.com/ https://www.aeontimeline.com/ Even syncs with Scrivener.
- dkersten 9y ago
  Thank you, I'll check it out. Looks good!
- jemaddux 9y ago
  That looks awesome. Double points for syncs with scrivener. Thanks

unixhero 9y ago

Better than Scrivener?

X86BSD 9y ago

I use Lyx to write, well, almost everything honestly. It was made for writing imo. Leaving all the time wasting details for the core processor not for the author to stress over. It just lets you focus on simply writing the content.

npsimons 9y ago
Came here to say something similar. Glad I'm not the only one. Wish that more people knew about and used LyX. Yes, regular word processors (eg, MS Word) suck! There are already pre-existing better alternatives, such as LyX.

mizaru 9y ago

Real authors use WordStar 4.0

dangoor 9y ago
and then can't keep up with the TV series that is started years after the book series began?
- mizaru 9y ago
  It's not his job to keep up with a prematurely produced TV series, though.

cdiamand 9y ago

I recently surveyed a writer about their software woes. Response: "I am a writer - fiction and non-fiction. I haven't found good software to keep my notes, sentences, ideas, etc. in a way that helps me easily incorporate them into the project I am working on. Oftentimes, I will come up with a sentence or a paragraph that I want to put in my story at a later time. It's just a moment - an idea- that comes up that I want to save for later use. Well, guess what, these ideas start piling up and I could have a huge pile of sentences/paragraphs that I will use to build my story. But hey, I don't know just yet where I want to place them to tell the most effective story. I want a section in the particular file I am working on where I can keep these ideas instead of having a whole separate "ideas" file or worse, scribbled on a paper napkin. I'd like to be able to easily drag and drop that paragraph/sentence from my ideas section right into my story without having to do the annoying cut and paste or worse, figuring out what file I saved that great sentence in. I'd pay $130+ for it."

empath75 9y ago
scrivener?
- jeffwass 9y ago
  Was about to say the same. Scrivener is your friend here, and it's not even $130
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Hm, looks interesting, but is there anything similar available for Linux? I use a small chromebook as a primary workstation for its light form factor and ARM's low power usage/long battery life. So if it's Mac/Windows or closed source without an ARM binary, I can't use it.
HerrMonnezza 9y ago
emacs with org-mode?
notamy 9y ago
Honestly this reminds me a lot of the TempleOS editor.

megamindbrian 9y ago

Follow the white rabbit...

jogjayr 9y ago

Can someone who has written novel-length fiction give an explanation of why you need specialized software? I've never written anything longer than a short story (on MS Word or Notepad) back when I used to write fiction. So I am not aware of the problems that accompany a longer work. I always thought if I started writing again I'd use vim or Sublime Text. I've heard things like being able to do outlines or charts or whatever. But those things seem to lend themselves better to handwritten notes or hand-drawn diagrams.

nyolfen 9y ago
evidently, you need it to stroke your ego (the author of this piece, i mean)
- jogjayr 9y ago
  I understood what you meant and I didn't downvote you. I think you were downvoted because that wasn't really an answer to my question.

fuzzygroup 9y ago

To me the best thinking around in the design of a writing tool is Scrivener. It is the first writing tool that seems to understand that writing, research, note taking a process and the page is the output from that process. My single objection to Scrivener is that its native data structure is RTF. I dearly wish it was a pure markdown tool.

gt_ 9y ago

Shoot me. This 'story' method of describing software is awful.