“Andrea, do you think that a writer really needs a novel writing software?“ This is the question they ask me at every interview about bibisco. “After all”, they say, “it’s about writing and to write you just need Microsoft Word. Isn’t it? “ Writing a novel is like building a house -------------------------------------- Someone thinks that a writer can write an entire novel feverishly, guided only by the sacred fire of inspiration. This idea is quite naive. Writing a novel, instead, is like building a house. Words are bricks, but it’s not enough to put one brick after another. If you build a house without a blueprint, it’s bound to collapse. Writing is only a part of the entire work --------------------------------------- When you write a novel, writing chapters and scenes it’s only a part of the entire work. The other parts are the research and study of the social and temporal context in which the story takes place, the design of the characters and the plot, the planning of the activities and the control of their progress. And so, you have to be very organized and disciplined to manage all this mass of documents. A novel writing software helps you in all stages of novel creation ---------------------------------------------------------------- A novel writing software, like bibisco, can help the writer to organize the work in all its phases in a single integrated novel development environment. There are no more files scattered in complex directory trees, but all the elements of the novel are well organized and immediately accessible without having to look for them in the file system. Moreover, it is always possible to have an eye on all the material produced for the novel while writing. In bibisco, with the project explorer, you can have all the information about the chapters, architectural elements, characters, locations, objects, and all the notes always available in a sidebar while you are writing. A novel writing software helps you to analyze your work ------------------------------------------------------- A novel writing software can help the writer not only to organize the work but also to analyze it. For example, in bibisco, you can analyze the length of the chapters to see if it is homogeneous between them. Or you can study the characters’ distribution to see which ones appear most often, to check when a character appears for the first time, to identify how many times two characters appear in the same chapter. A novel writing software helps you keep track of your progress --------------------------------------------------------------- A good novel writing software also helps you to plan and track the progress of your work. In bibisco, for example, you can set your words goal, your words per day goal, and your deadline. And you can check your progress over time. Furthermore, in bibisco, any element of the novel such as chapters, scenes, characters, places, objects, architectural elements, has its completion badge (red, yellow, green) to have at a glance the status of the work. Conclusion ----------- A novel is a complex artwork. A novel writing software, like bibisco, helps you in all the stages of the creation of the novel: research, design, planning, and writing.