neon-free-smells-mgdc2a9Who hasn’t tried a demo before? They’re a good way to get to know some software (or a video game) without having to shuck out the bucks for the full thing. I guarantee you, anyone offering a free demo… thinks their stuff is the greatest under the sun. So what’s a person to do? Follow the yellow brick road (links), and read about what each of these is about. Then, give one or two (or all of them) a shot.

yWriter5http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html
Scrivenerhttp://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
WriteWayhttp://www.writewaypro.com/
PageFourhttp://www.softwareforwriting.com/pagefour.html
StoryBluehttp://storyblue.com/
PowerWriterhttp://www.write-brain.com/power_writer_main.htm
Writer’s Blockshttp://www.writersblocks.com/

This is definitely not an exhaustive list. These are the ones that are talked about the most. If you see one I may have missed, that would fit the bill of, ‘beyond just a normal word processor’, leave me a comment and let me know (I just may add it to the list).

Do you NEED one of these? No. Books have been written for a long time without the need for any kind of special software, and they’ll continue to do so. These are tools… a helping hand… something to keep straight the wild worlds we have running around in our heads.

I hope to get a review, or at least TRY each and every one of those programs that I’ve listed, but that’s going to have to come at a later date. Tomorrow, we’ll try to look at the bare minimum it’ll take for us to step off on our journey into the lush jungle.