In the words of comedian and gamemaster Brennan Lee Mulligan pretending to be George R.R. Martin: “Have you ever tried to write? It’s the saddest, hardest, worst thing in the world.” As much as I love his comedic chops, Mulligan is wrong on this count – I consistently find that writing is wonderful and terrible in equal measure, whether I’m scribing some dunk on a tech company’s most recent mishap or working on my personal projects.
However, this year brought something of a private victory for me: I finished the first draft of the novel I’ve been working on for more than three years. At close to 110,000 words, it’s become something of an epic, meaning I’m now entering a fairly ruthless editing phrase. Let me tell you – editing your own work like that? Now that’s worse than writing.
But I genuinely liked writing that novel, as much as I might dread the looming process of auditioning publishers (rejection letters, my old friend, come to taunt me once again). Writing was an escape for me during some hard times, and the satisfaction that comes with completing such an endeavor is sweet and well-earned. And I didn’t use any fancy writing software or clever techniques here: nope, I wrote the whole dang thing in a Google Doc on my laptop.
Being a writer – of almost any variety – these days, your two most straightforward options are Microsoft Word and Google Docs. The latter is a bit more lightweight than Microsoft’s Office package (along with Sheets and Slides, imitations of Microsoft’s Excel and PowerPoint), but at the end of the day, they do the same job: you can get words down on virtual paper. I’m not here to rag on Word; I just used Docs because it’s free, and a mishap with OneDrive many years ago that saw countless unfinished projects erased from the cloud has left me a little wary of Microsoft’s offerings.
There are, of course, more specialized apps when it comes to writing long-form creative pieces. If you’re in the novel-writing business, you’ve no doubt encountered the likes of Scrivener, Atticus, and Dabble. Virtually all of these apps are paid, be it a one-off purchase or a monthly subscription.
I shelled out for Scrivener several years back, hoping it would give me the boost I needed to start – and complete – a new novel. It’s a powerful tool, packed with useful features geared specifically towards novel writing. If there’s anything Google Docs lacks, it’s this: a proper function for organizing chapters is very useful, even setting aside the myriad other features it offers.
The problem I had with Scrivener, though, is that it almost offers too much. A dense research tool is built straight into the app, which some users might like, but I’m perfectly comfortable opening a new browser tab and researching unaided. The Scrivener website notes that “the main caveat for using Scrivener is that you do have to put in the effort to learn it”, and while I’ve never shied away from learning how to use new software, the numerous online courses to teach you how to use this particular app are nothing if not daunting. Even once I felt I had a handle on it, Scrivener just felt… cluttered.
What’s up, Doc?
Google Docs, by contrast, is beautiful in its simplicity. I’m the sort of person who wants minimal distractions when writing; I usually don’t even listen to music, and try to avoid checking my phone or leaving the document page at all. Docs lets me strip away a good chunk of the entire interface with a quick keyboard shortcut, giving me nothing other than what I need.
The crucial features are still here: grammar and spelling checks, a sufficient (but not exhaustive) range of formatting options, and a straightforward bookmarking system. Plus, it’s available on Android – Scrivener is iOS-only outside of computer operating systems – and I love being able to access my work anywhere, on any device, through Google Drive. My primary draft Doc has several nested tabs filled with useful editing notes, research, and ideas for expanding the universe I’ve created. It’s not perfect, but it is ideal for cutting out distractions and simply getting sentences down on the page.
So while I shan’t judge anyone who uses a more complex tool to shape their creative writing projects, I’ll be sticking with Google from here on out. As the old adage goes: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
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