We novelists spend oodles of time sitting on our duffs staring at screens -- and dealing with software. It's the price we pay to pursue our passion for words. Those of us born in the previous century can look back with fondness on ancient word processors like WordPerfect and WordStar. Or maybe a text editor like XYWrite. Heck, some of us go back to portable typewriters and blank sheets of paper. Then Microsoft Word came along and introduced us to the world of gigantic word processors that can do everything but sharpen your pencils and tie your shoelaces. It also turned us into kissing cousins with software bloat and constant upgrades.
As a novelist, I've used word processors for more years than I care to admit and, as you might imagine, I have a few thoughts.
A word processor or a text editor is just a tool we use to do a job. Some tools are better than others. We all have our favorite tools and our reasons for using them, but I would like to suggest a new tool when it comes to sitting down and writing a novel: Markdown.
Never mind the fact that the cool kids are using it with their blogging and wiki- and website-madness. I think the kids are onto something.
What is Markdown? Created by [John Gruber] (https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) in 2004, it's one of the world's most popular markup languages. Some call it a text-to-HTML tool. The aim of Markdown is to create plain text documents with basic formatting commands that can be easily turned into web pages or structured documents. Instead of the WYSIWYG ("What you see is what you get") model, Markdown is the WYSIWYM ("What you see is what you mean") model where the focus is on the meaning of the content and not the way it is presented.
Web pages use a lot of markup, which are simplified formatting commands. If you want to make a word appear bold on a web page, you would add the standard HTML markup bold command to your text, which is </b> (both before and after the word or words you want in bold). By inserting these formatting commands, you can add italics, or create lists or special headers, or even such things as tables or placeholders for graphics.
Markdown radically simplifies HTML commands. Instead of typing <b> for bold, you can simply use two asterisks (**) to achieve the same effect.
Most text editors and word processors can handle formatting issues quite readily. If you want a sentence to be in italics, you can hit the "Italics" icon on the menu bar and presto, you've got italics. Why bother with Markdown?
To answer that question, I will tell you what I need from a software program when I'm writing a novel:
I need to add a few formatting elements, like italics, from time to time. Just a few. Not enough to have 847 icons taking up my screen real estate all the time.
I need a chapter heading to visually separate it from the rest of the text. I will usually find these headings somewhere in the "style" dropdown box of whatever program I'm using. They serve the dual purpose of creating a visual representation of what I'm doing while also providing a convenient bookmark so I can use the "navigator" function (or document structure menu item) to move around in the document.
Spell checker.
Proper word count to see how far along I am.
Print option.
And that's about all. Most of what I'm doing is putting the story down on paper. I'm not much concerned about dropcaps or mail merges. I want to tell the story -- and I want my software to stay the hell out of my way.
I don't need all the whistles and bells and ribbons and sidebars of a Microsoft Word or today's version of WordPerfect -- I don't need all those icons and options in my face each time I sit down to write. I want them to go away. I mean, I really, really, really want them to go away.
"Distraction-free" editors like [FocusWriter] (https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/) are becoming a thing, and I believe software bloat is the reason why. Many writers want to sit down and write and not be bewitched and bewildered by too many choices and options, and these editors provide a way to do that. If simplifying your screen appeals to you, you may want to check into these. Some of them, like [Sublime] (https://www.sublimetext.com), can handle Markdown.
Markdown editors are also increasing in popularity. They have proven themselves to be quite useful for the writing of structured documents (and what is a novel if not a structured document?). The markup commands are quite easy to learn; some editors even have icons on the tool bar to do it for you. Some Markdown editors are enormous, like [Obsidian] (https://obsidian.md), which does all kinds of things that may or may not appeal to you. Most Markdown editors are like simple text editors that let you write freely while adding some markup commands here and there to format your text. They provide an output window to see what your "marked up" text will look like. Most have a side panel that will show you headings so you can navigate through your document. For example, I have a "things to do" file with different headings, which include "Things To Do", "Dates to Remember", and "Things To Remember." Under each section, I add the pertinent bits of info. When I open my "things to do" file I can look at the side panel and easily jump from one heading to the next to find exactly what I want.
Two things I like most my Markdown editor:
Goodbye proprietary file formats. By using Markdown, my documents can be read by any Markdown editor since the Markdown commands are standard and used by all involved. It's like HTML: web pages are written in HTML which means any web browser on any computer can view the page. It is not like creating a bunch of documents in one program only to find the next program cannot read them. Markdown files are text files. Nothing more. I've got three decades of writing on my hard drive spanning all kinds of file formats and programs. Some I can no longer open. Saying goodbye to a proprietary file format means no longer having to worry about future upgrades or my files becoming obsolete or unreadable.
My screen only shows me what I want to see. I use a Markdown editor called [Typora] (https://typora.io) (which I highly recommend; best $14.99 I've spent in a long time). Most of my screen real estate is devoted to text. There is a sidebar (which I can hide) that shows me either a list of my markdown files so that I can easily switch between them, or an outline of the current document. In the bottom right corner is an on-going word count. If I want to blow up the screen since I can't see as well as I used to, I use the Control-Shift-= key combination to instantly increase the font size. There's a menu bar across the top allowing access to functions like "format" or "themes" or "view." No icons. Full screen mode is accessed by the F11 key, which makes the menu bar disappear altogether. If I highlight a word, I can right-click and have access to such things as making the text bold or italic, or doing a Google search, or inserting a footnote or a horizonal line. When I hide the sidebar, the entire screen is devoted to text and nothing else. This minimalist approach helps me focus and get more work done.
When you're ready to send your novel to your agent or publisher, you're going to need to export the text to a proper file format like Microsoft Word. This is where you need to pay attention to which Markdown editor you decide to use. Most will export your text into PDF format, which is fine for most purposes, but if you really must have a Microsoft Word file, you will be out of luck. Some Markdown editors, like Typora, have you covered and will be happy to export your work to a Microsoft Word file, or an OpenOffice file, or many other formats (which is one of the reasons I purchased a copy). Other editors may require you to download and install a separate program such as [PanDoc] (https://pandoc.org/installing.html) which will do the conversion for you.
In my Markdown journey, I installed several different editors before settling on the one I liked. [Monster Markdown] (https://markdownmonster.west-wind.com) is an excellent editor -- but it threw a lot of icons and interface at me and I didn't like it, but your mileage may vary. There are a numerous free software packages like [Ghostwriter] (https://ghostwriter.kde.org) that are good choices. There are even online Markdown editors, like [StackEdit] (https://stackedit.io/app) that are worth checking out. At the end of the day, it depends on what you, as the writer, want and need from the software.
A final note: As I said earlier, I paid $14.99 for my copy of Typora. This is far less than the annual subscription fee I'm required to pay to have a copy of Microsoft Word on my computer. Typora isn't going to shine my shoes or provide a talking Paper Clip assistant -- but it will save me some money.
Nick Wilgus is a best-selling novelist, composer, and former newspaper editor who lives in Mississippi.
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