I’ve started messing around with yWriter this morning and so far I like it a lot! I’m more of a pantser than a plotter, but I still like to have everything organized as I pantser along. Right now I’m editing a few different things and I’m stuck on a section so I thought I’d try a different track. Sometimes when I’m stuck, moving on to something else for a while helps.

Enter, yWriter. I downloaded it a while ago, but then just haven’t had the time to do much with it. What is it, you are asking? What it is, is a piece of software that helps you break your novel into chapters, but more importantly scenes. Once the scenes are all laid out it’s much easier to see the track of your story. You can see where you might  need to beef up a section if there is a lull or if there are two really intense chapters to close together, etc. It gives a nice visual representation of what’s going on in the story. You can check out the website for a full description. Here’s the link.

Oh, and guess what. It’s free. That might be the best part of all, especially considering how robust it is. I have to admit, I was a little sketchy at first about a free piece of software, but even though I’ve just started scratching the surface of it, I’m finding it extremely useful, and can’t wait to add all the details from my various projects to it so I can get them done!

Anybody else a yWriter user? Any tips or tricks I should know about?