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Outside of the more technically inclined; Does anyone who is a long-form (novel) writer actually use markdown? Outside of blogging, which it was invented for an

• YetAnotherNick 6y ago
  I think most authors don't write in richer text format than markdown.
  • elcomet 6y ago
    most authors write in Word, and use only one or two font variation bigger size for chapter titles).
  • chank 6y ago
    I think you're assuming and probably wrong.
    • vidarh 6y ago
      I think you are assuming. I also think there's a confusion here and that you're talking specifically about RTF while the people responding to you are talking about the capabilities provided when they use "rich". The point being that Markdown has far more formatting features than most people who write novels need, and so it is "rich enough" as a format. I've written two novels and I'm writing my third, and as others have also pointed out, there's rarely a need for more than headlines, bold and italics, all of which are trivial in Markdown. Whether or not the editors are capable enough depends on peoples preferences and tools. But there's nothing about writing a novel that requires a format more complex while writing (if you send it off to an editor, they'll almost certainly insist on something they can import easily into word, though some accept Google Docs or ODT these days)
      • chank 6y ago
        But I am not assuming at all. In fact most professional writers still use Microsoft Word. It's sort of how people don't realize the world still runs on Microsoft Excel. Markdown is not "rich" in any way. It's syntactical representation for what you want the "exported" text to look like. It is not a drop in replacement for rich text editing. Of course people who come here are going to be the outliers of this use case and say markdown is fine. Go ask Neil Gaiman or Stephen King if they know markdown and after explaining what it is ask if they need it? And I'd be willing to put money on them just stating "why not just make my italic text italic, why do I really need to put special characters around it?"
        • vidarh 6y ago
          > Go ask Neil Gaiman or Stephen King if they know markdown and after explaining what it is ask if they need it? And I'd be willing to put money on them just stating "why not just make my italic text italic, why do I really need to put special characters around it?" Gaiman has at least in the past stated he prefers to write his first drafts with a fountain pen in a physical notebook, to the point where there's various lists of the specific brands of pens he uses. Stephen King prefers a Waterman fountain pen, though he's also been known to use typewriters, and may very well also use word processors. He's known to use Word for some work, certainly. But because of the tools a lot of novelists use, a lot are used to using special marks to indicate the (very limited) formatting they do. Many people use multiple tools, including pens, text editors, smartphones, typewriters, or whatever is to hand. For some picking tools depending on what they work on is part of the process. You may be right that most professional writers today use Word, but novelists makes up a very specific subset of professional writers and have very much idiosyncratic ideas about their preferred writing environment, ranging from the aforementioned fountain pens on anything from loose-leaf paper to very specific notebook choices, to old typewriters (some insisting on specific models of manual typewriters), via long outdated word processors, to modern word processors or editors written specifically for novelists (like Scrivener etc.). Or tools like the one linked here. The point remains that in terms for formatting, Markdown is sufficient and simple. That does not mean it will be what everyone will prefer, like or even tolerate. But it has all the functionality needed to represent the formatting done in a typical novel, with minimal interference in the writing.
  • mhd 6y ago
    They don't produce richer text, they might write in a richer format, if you can all it that. Non-printing notes/comments were quite common in the DOS days, similar to the "front matter" in the screen shots, or what people would put in separate UI sections in tools like Scrivener or Ulysses (chapter notes, marginalia, cork boards etc.) A more code-like (and probably extreme) perspective would be this screenshot from sci-fi author Vernor Vinge: http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/images/Vinge_screenshot.png http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/images/Vinge_s... All kinds of annoations, references, etc – only the indented text is actual for publication.
• dangoor 6y ago
  I'm close to 60,000 words into my latest novel and I'm writing in Ulysses using Markdown. Novels, in particular, rarely need more than headings and occasional italics or boldface.
  • atmosx 6y ago
    I would be interested to know why you choose "Ulysses" and not "Odysseus"? ps. I followed a conversation about James Joyce novel which was hinted that there is a difference between the two names and Joyce didn't pick "Ulysses" randomly. I'd like to know if you went through the same process. UPDATE: Ok, I mis-read the comment, I though the name of the Novel was Ulysses, apparently it is an app.
    • jmkb 6y ago
      It's a writing-focused word processor for MacOS and iOS. https://ulysses.app/ https://ulysses.app/
      • atmosx 6y ago
        Thanks for pointing that out!
      • nbzso 6y ago
        Which moved to subscription model and lost me completely. After trying Scrivener, I realised that for my needs is overkill, moved to something that I know will not bite me in the future: Folder organisation plus Vim - Org mode. Adobe in their infinite greed ruined propriety software model for all. SaaS is pure hell.
  • chank 6y ago
    That's the kind of need for text manipulation I would expect of a typical writer. Hence why bother with markdown at all (unless it's the only thing available). Rich text is a much cleaner solution for that. Markdown really shines when it comes to text that has to be formatted just so for web layout. e.g. tables, bullets, multi-headings and linking.
• jonathanstrange 6y ago
  I'm using Papyrus Autor because I write in German [1,2]. It's expensive but superior to everything else for the German language. They're expanding to English users, but only offer a super-expensive subscription model for them [3]. If I wrote novels in English, I'd probably use Scrivener [4]. I'm very familiar with markdown, pandoc, and LaTeX, but none of these are relevant or important for writing novels. As a novelist, you need grammar and style correction features, pinboards for ideas, databases for characters and sources form the Net, easy snip management, advanced typography (especially quote correction and automatic quote conversion), name generators, non-continuous selections, selection by font, search & replace of formatting, automatic backups over network and advanced data integrity features, excellent ebook and PDF export, different views for writing/editing/correcting, etc. [1] https://www.papyrus.de/ https://www.papyrus.de/ [2] https://talumriel.de/ https://talumriel.de/ [3] https://www.papyrusauthor.com/ https://www.papyrusauthor.com/ [4] https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview
  • vidarh 6y ago
    It's interesting to see differences in desired features here, because I'm currently writing my third novel, and ditched my previous editors because I realised I needed basically no features - I need a clean canvas without distractions, and ability to do some basic tagging for cross-references. That's it. So now I'm writing in my own editor, in windows with nothing but the text - not even a menu or title bar - and literally not a single one of the features you list. Some of it because I don't want to focus on it while writing and/or because it's something my editor or proofreader handles (grammar and style correction, typography, selection by font, search & replace of formatting, ebook export). Some of it because I'd rather pick and choose separate tools (name generators, backups, data integrity). Some because I've never had a use for it (pinboards, character databases beyond a folder of plain text files by name, snip management). To be clear, I'm not at all disputing that these features can be useful or essential for you. I just find it fascinating how different our expectations are. There's room for a lot of very different editors for the writers market, as people have very strong and contradictory ideas about what you need... The UI for Papyrus Autor looks like something I might have nightmares about, for example...
• sicher 6y ago
  I’m halfway through my second novel. Both in very barebones markdown (using pretty much only headings). Plain text is a blessing. I can keep everything in git, searching in emacs with swiper is fantastic (and good search is a must as the material grows) and any tool I lack I can hack together.
  • em-bee 6y ago
    how do you convert from markdown to standard manuscript format which is often required for submissions?
    • powersnail 6y ago
      pandoc is pretty handy. It's pretty much plain text anyway, whatever format is used.
      • jonnycomputer 6y ago
        but won't get you all the way there, unfortunately, since novel format is pretty specific.
        • powersnail 6y ago
          What are some specific requirements? Aren't most formatting done by the publisher anyway?
          • em-bee 6y ago
            publishers format for print, but the submission needs to be in a specific format too. this stems from the days where manuscripts were submitted on paper, and not electronically. one could argue that with electronic submission such format requirements are no longer relevant, but we all know that people don't like change. standard manuscript format looks roughly like this: lines are double spaced first line of each paragraph is indented, but there is no space between paragraphs first page contains contact information and word count. section headers are centered each page (except the first) contains a header with: "authors lastname / story title / page #"
• greenie_beans 6y ago
  i do, but i'm an unpublished writer. i didn't start using markdown until i learned to code. also, non-technical writers need to learn how to use git.
• Bakary 6y ago
  I keep seeing references to markdown editors on HN. As a non-tech person it would have never crossed my mind to use something like this to write a novel or even keep notes, but it seems to really strike a chord here. Perhaps it's simply the comfort associated with code over a long period of time?
  • therealdrag0 6y ago
    Part of it might be preference for plain text files with no vendor lock-in. Or it might be preference for explicitness, we've all fought with rich editors bleeding format from one word into another and struggling to un-format the text at the right location.
    • michaericalribo 6y ago
      To play devil's advocate, ODF is (a) open, and (b) native in Word. For that matter, docx is an ISO standard. On the other side, I perpetually have to unformat my hard-wrapped lines, before I paste plain text into eg an email...
• ordinaryradical 6y ago
  Published novelist. I use markdown for drafting via the delightfully minimalistic iA Writer. It is useful for first drafts and editing on a sentence by sentence level. However, it is not really ideal for getting the text into ms format or for organizing and editing something as complex as a finished draft, so I use Scrivener at that end of the process. I think there probably is no single tool that is ideal at all stages of writing a novel. In the beginning you want something that gets the hell out of your way and lets you write quickly. Once the first draft is done, you need structural editing tools. And during that process you will want to dip into tighter, sentence-by-sentence tooling for rewriting and revising.
• voidhorse 6y ago
  It’s a problem I’ve grappled with for a while. I used to use Scrivener but eventually got tired of its syncing capabilities, as I took a lot of notes on my phone in markdown and wanted an easy way to integrate and transform these notes into longer form pieces. Scrivener does support this, but it’s definitely not the most polished feature of the tool and it kind of clunky and annoying to work with in my opinion. Tried using vim+git for a while. This combo is great for portability, but my eyes get tired staring at a terminal all day, and while git feels nice, it doesn’t give you huge advantages and is just more work when many GUI tools like scrivener have good enough version control built in — some would probably find a complete git version history useful, and use branches for different drafts etc. but I personally have never needed this and find it’s just another distraction from actually doing the work of writing. Now that I stare at a screen for several hours a day during my day job, I’ve settled on pen and paper for my own health. No idea yet whether or not I’ll be able to translate this into finished products or if typing out handwritten text will prove too tedious.
• powersnail 6y ago
  Given how many published novelist write their first draft by hand, I'd argue rich text is not useful at all. Manuscripts typically are just plain texts, at most some italics. The organization, however, is very important.
  • joeldg 6y ago
    I know authors who write directly into the Vellum app, so I think you are 100% right.
• chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  Well, adding this condition: > Outside of the more technically inclined... Makes it hard to definitively answer your question: > Does anyone who is a long-form (novel) writer actually use Markdown? I am aware of published authors who've used Ulysses, a Markdown-based multi-document editor for the Mac, for writing novels.[1] Semi-famously, mystery author David Hewson is a huge Ulysses fan, and wrote his own book about his process. I don't get the impression Hewson is super technically inclined the way, say, Matt Gemmell -- a software engineer turned novelist who's also a huge Ulysses fan -- clearly is. Some of the appeal for non-nerds is, I think, part of what grognards like George R.R. Martin and Robert Sawyer argue gives WordStar for DOS a big appeal: it's just you and your text with very little else to distract you. I've personally found that a bit overstated (most word processors have some kind of "draft mode" that, while perhaps not as minimal as just You And Your Plain Text, gets the job done), but it's clearly a thing, and I admit I enjoy writing in Ulysses more than I would expect. Ulysses does, it's worth noting, have the capability to compile and export documents to Microsoft Word format. It's not as flexible (or overengineered) as Scrivener's compilation tools, but that's really something you should be saving until you have what you think is the final draft -- Ulysses and Scrivener, and for that matter NovelWriter, are ultimately composition tools, not editing tools. (Once you're in a "dialogue" with your editor sending Word documents with embedded revisions and comments, your manuscript is almost certainly going to stay in Word.) I've written two novels with Scrivener, but I am slowly moving toward Ulysses for a variety of reasons -- but they are, indeed, technical reasons. I don't find the "detritus of special characters" to be particularly annoying with a well-chosen Ulysses theme; the underlines/asterisks are faded out and the italics and bold are, well, italics and bold, and for fiction that's virtually all I need.
• caconym_ 6y ago
  I wrote the first draft of my first novel in Vim using Markdown. I've since switched to Scrivener, mostly for the general convenience it offers and especially the mobile apps and syncing, but there is a lot about that old workflow that I miss. It's really convenient to have everything in a single buffer optimized for keyboard-only navigation, and with Pandoc there aren't really any concerns around exporting to .docx. I absolutely hate WYSIWYG editing when I'm writing fiction, because it's totally unnecessary and only serves to muddy the waters when it's time to export the text, e.g. if some of the devices I was editing on were set to use smart quotes and some weren't. The text of a typical novel doesn't have much going on besides chapters, sections, and paragraphs, so Markdown really has everything you need, and for fancier formatting (like the side-by-side verse paragraphs in Stand on Zanzibar, just to name one example off the top of my head) I get the feeling that Scrivener isn't really flexible enough. There are better tools, like Vellum, and I think traditional rich text editing exists in a sort of uncomfortable middle ground where it offers just enough functionality to get in the way. But obviously installing and using a command-line utility like Pandoc is not something the typical author can really be expected to do, so they're stuck using the standard industry-favorite tools that do it all from a GUI.
• burlesona 6y ago
  One of my personal projects is https://betabooks.co https://betabooks.co, which is a markdown based feedback collection tool for pre-publication books. In other words, securely share a complete draft with beta readers and get their feedback nicely organized in an easy to use app. The app works best with markdown, but very early on I had to add "paste from word" and rich text formatting because I discovered that, while _I_ write fiction in markdown, only ~5% of other authors do. Too bad, because it fits really well for the task, and there are so many great long-form markdown writing tools. I personally prefer Ulysses for Mac.