Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Writing Tools and Software to Help You Improve

A lot of people just don't have the technical savvy or the experience to know that they don't have to do everything on their own. If you're a writer, there is software and apps out there that can help with problems you didn't even know you had. This chapter focusses on helping you be aware of some tools you may not have known even existed. There are tools geared towards scriptwriting and poem writing, and if you want those I can search them out for you if you want to pm me. Otherwise, this mostly focuses on story writing and novels. I'm not rating software or picking the best for you, but I'll give you a few examples of stuff I've run into... things like... 

Writing Editor -  

Microsoft Word would be the most instantly recognizable writing editor in existence. However, it isn't the only one. Most people have the assumption that getting decent writing software costs money, and attempting to find something free will cause your computer to get overwhelmed with spyware and viruses. For that... I have two words for you that might very well change your life. Open source. Basically, open source is legitimately free software.  

People with certains skills make this software as a tool in order to use, and distribute their work absolutely free. Others add to it, and over time, the software can become incredibly refined. Complete office suites on par with the $200 Microsoft Office are available. Some of them look pretty, some don't, but they all do everything office does. They also come fully supported with addons. So if you are missing something you'd rather see, you can also add to it.  

As an added piece of advice... if you ever find yourself with a .edu email address as a college student, you can almost certainly get Microsoft office for much much cheaper. I can pick up a copy of office ultimate 2013 for $19 through my school.  

Also, there are a series of online word writers too. The files get stored on the cloud, so if you have a failure and your computer crashes, everything is safe. This also allows interesting opportunities, like being able to access your work from any computer, letting others look at it or even edit it from a far, and being able to follow them as they edit the work in real time.  

For $$$: Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect 

For Free: Open Office, Libre Office, Abiword, Jarte, Koffice, Neooffice, Etherpad, Notepad , Lotus Symphony 

Online (also free with account): Google Docs, Zoho, Thinkfree, AjaxWrite, Peepel, Etherpad, Adobe Buzzword  

Also - I have to give a nod to Dragon NaturallySpeaking and other speech recognition software. You can always talk and have the story be written for you. Eventually, you'll have a lot of grammar or spelling to fix, but heck, that might be one of the best ways to write your story if you just write slower than your brain moves.

Dialogue Readers -  

So you've written something, but how good is it? How do you know it's readable? It seems readable in your head. How about having what you wrote read back to you? That'll help you quickly break down severe problems, misplaced words, and incoherent sentences. Don't have someone to sit down and read your story back to you? Well there is an app for that too.  

Available software: Textaloud, Natural Reader, Windows Text to Speech

Grammar and Writing Improvement Software -  

Word has a grammar and spelling check. Most of the other word editors do too. However, that isn't always enough. Sometimes, you want your writing to be analyzed a little more thoroughly. Sometimes, you want it torn apart in ways your eyes can't accomplish, so you can stitch it back together again. Certain software will rip apart your work. It will point to every time you use it's or its and make sure you use the right one. It'll check the start of every sentence and make sure you have sentence variety. It will make sure your sentences are easy to read, that you aren't using too many of certain words, that you aren't filling it full of adverbs.