I’ve written a bit over 2,000 words in Plume Creator this past week. So I thought I’d give some impressions as a writer using a writing program. I used the Outliner to sketch out the scenes in my first chapter. Being careful to write a synopsis for each scene and to use the notes section to remind myself of important features for each scene.
Before writing the scenes in the chapter, I also took the time to set up and add the locations, characters and objects used in each scene using the Attendance Tool. It seems like extra credit work when you are writing to do all this preparation, but believe me, it can save your butt and lead to quicker, more coherent scenes in your first draft.
I especially liked having the character’s names in the scene I was writing right there beside the text editor. I have a horribly short memory for new names of my characters and this prevents me from looking up the names and wasting time putting markers for names that I can’t recall as I’m writing.
Overall I’m very pleased with the program and I recommend you try it out if you are on Windows or Linux. If your using Plume Creator to write your novel, tell us about it in the comments. I happen to know the the program’s very talented creator Cyril, reads this blog.
Hi,
I’m spanish writer and I want use Plume Creator, but I need spelling checker in Spanish. ¿Do you know if this exist?
Thanks for your time.
At this time, Plume does not have a spell checker for any language. It is in the works. I believe the programmer was trying to make spell check work for French, so it might eventually work with Spanish too.
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At this time there are no RPMs of Plume Creator. But you can download the .deb and convert it using alien. http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/11/alien-command-examples/
Here is the Source Forge link for Plume Creator: http://sourceforge.net/projects/plume-creator/files/0.4/
If you do this, let me know how it went. I’d be curious to know.
Any chance of an RPM based file that will work with Mageia distribution?
I’m pulling the first draft card to get out of typo jail for free. ;-) Actually, I really wish Plume Creator had a basic spelling check in English. I figure since editing is still done in a word processor, it may not ever get added. So for idiots like me, that means all my first drafts will look bad. So it goes.
Coupla typos in the story…
Sorry, just couldn’t resist!
I’m finding that I like Plume Creator even for non-fiction. For some forms of that, it works pretty well. Like you say, using the Outliner and Attendance tools pay off in the long run. I’m usually a pantser, but for this non-fiction, it allows me to lay out the book properly with the chapters, synopsis, etc. while jotting in notes as they come to me. It may indeed seem, like you say, extra credit, but having the book all laid out and visible to the side in the tree actually cuts down on writing time. You start to write something, realize it goes in another chapter, switch to there, put it in…saves your time moving things around in D2.