4 Nifty Tools for Novel Writers

As I write this, we are bearing down on 4 days left until the start of NaNoWrimo.

So in honor of that, I will be drinking 4 Red Bulls tonight, infuriating 4 neighbors with 4 different methods (music, property line, livestock and fireworks) and posting 4 nifty tools for writing your novel that you are probably not aware of.  Cool, huh? (Unless you live in my neighborhood.)

1. What Happened In My Birth Year?

For those of you who remember life before the internet, go put your teeth back in.

I kid.

Remember seeing these as printed sheets that you could buy in gift shops?

I’m sure there are plenty similar sites online but I found this one to be the most informative.

So if you are writing a novel set some time in the past, you can take a look at the cultural details of that year, i.e. who won the nobel prize, popular books, movies, songs etc.

The other day, fellow NaNoWriMo author Mark Means posted on Google + that he wanted to set his novel in the 1930’s and was asking which year in the decade he should choose.  Someone as resourceful as Mark, with his fancy in-home electricity and what-not can look up each year in the decade and choose the one with the best cultural alignment to the theme of his novel.

If you are setting your novel in present day, this is still helpful.  How old is your character? Take a look at what was going on during their childhood and adolescence. By knowing what was popular during those times you can glean a good bit of information about what they grew up listening to and reading.

Finally, the interface is a nice rolling keystroke setup on a black background that is both informative and relaxing to read.

2.  Fuzzmail

Direct from the site:

Fuzzmail records the act of writing and lets you send it as an email. Dynamic changes, typoes, pauses and writeovers are captured and communicated.

So you get an email recording your real time typing and writing.  While this may not help you write your novel (they can’t all be winners!) I found it helpful using this tool to examine the flow of my writing.  Try it, the narcissist in you will love yourself for it, no irony intended.

3. GreatSummary

So let’s say you are writing a book and need to know a little bit about the Freemasons, or the Hell’s Angels, but don’t have the time or desire to read their sprawling Wikipeidia pages…you can enter the info here into GreatSummary and save yourself tons of research time.

Short mention but all the magic is between the lines.

4. Floorplanner

This one is my favorite.  Floorplanner is a tool that allows non-architect types to create beautiful floorplans.  Like all of these tools, it’s free and you can save your projects.

For designing scene settings, this site is great. You can even design in 3D. You can design, homes, offices, restaurants, businesses, gardens, you name it!

I find this to be a great tool for chiseling a little bit of tangibility out of the scene settings I’m working with.  Design your main settings of movement and when it comes time to describe them?  So easy.  Just write what you see!

And Finally…

Today I had the pleasure of attending an employee orientation for the day job.  It was immensely interesting, but I found my attention wandering.

So I was (I thought!) clandestinely reading a novel on my Kindle.  As the HR Manager/Facilitator approached me during a break I thought to myself…”I might be busted here.”

He posed me this: “I noticed you were reading your eReader during the class.  May I ask what you were reading?”

To which I answered…”Uh, Water for Elephants? About a travelling circus in the 1930’s. Have you read it?”

To which he answered, “Love it.  Coincidentally, I will be writing a novel of my own in the month of November.”

“Me too!”

And then both of us simultaneously, “NaNoWriMo!”

I was the only one who was allowed to leave early.  I guess he figured with only 4 days left I should go home and polish my outline.

Don Theo III