If you're using Word to write a book, I'm surprised you haven't already thrown yourself out a window 😜😂 @galacticwriters @bookstodon @writingbooks @humor@fedigroups.social @humor@lemmy.world @aiop#WritingMemes #Meme #Humor #Humour #Geek#Author #IndieAuthor #Indie #Writers #Writing #WritingCommunity #WritersOfMastodon

You tag yourself as a writer, and blast Word. I'm curious what you use.

I'm not a writer, but I've dabbled. I like Ellipsus right now. It's a freemium service, but I'm paying $6 a month for it. Normally I hate subscriptions, but after 24 payments, you own it — the payments stop. You can also buy it at $100 all at once, or for two annual payments of $60. So you pay more the longer you pay overall, or you can pay more up front to pay less over time, if that makes sense ($100 up front, $60 per year for 2 years totaling $120, or $6 per month for 2 years totaling $144).

It's kind of like Google Docs in the sense that it's an online writing platform, but it's private. They also have this thing where you can show you didn't use AI to write, by showing how many words you wrote per hour over time. I copied and pasted a couple of stories I had on Google Docs, so, I won't be able to prove AI didn't generate those stories, unless I rewrite them. But for any new project, it should work as advertised.

Anyway, I've heard that while some writers write how they read (IIRC, Stephen King does), a lot of them... don't. They write out of order. I've heard the best way to write is not to start on "Page One" but to start with your favourite scene, the scene that defines the work for you. Write that. Then write the other important scenes. Then connect them. Then, as you build the world and the story, go back and amend the "good" parts. So some parts you'll have just written once (by the first draft, I mean) but some parts you may have rewritten a dozen times, and those are the parts that spoke to you, and that you hope speak to the reader. I'm not sure if I could use Ellipsus for this style — I think this is more like what you'd do with Scrivener or something like that.

I have written in Word, and it was fucking atrocious. It's okay for short works, but anything longer than, I dunno, 15-20 pages, and it's going to get pretty hard to navigate. Microsoft would like you to use Copilot, it's built right in, you can just ask it, but... then you're using AI, and there's almost certainly got to be a better way. I've named a couple. But even if we're using LibreOffice Writer (a free, open source Word clone that doesn't have AI in it), your point still stands. It's the same thing, functionally.

@NickEast_IndieWriter @galacticwriters @bookstodon @writingbooks @humor@fedigroups.social @humor@lemmy.world @aiop Anyone on here using #LyX to write books?en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LyX