Writing tools definitely aren’t the most important part of the job, but using the wrong ones can have drastic effects on your process. While using Google Docs to write your book is possible, you aren’t doing yourself any favors by contorting office software to create your stories. To ease the most tedious parts of the process and make writing work feel more comfortable, we’ve gathered seven high-quality Mac apps together in the Storyteller’s Must-Have Mac Bundle. This collection is now available in the Boing Boing Store.
Here’s what you get:
Montage: This app is the quickest way to convert your screenplay draft into the proper industry format. It imports final draft files for maximum compatibility, and also features outline and script views to help you organize your work.
StoryMill: If you’re working on a novel, StoryMill makes it easy to keep track of people, places, and other important details with their story database. Additionally, you get some nice writing productivity tools to compare draft versions and monitor your progress.
Narrator: Writers that lean heavily on dialogue should check out Narrator. To ensure your characters sound natural, it plays back your written parts in a variety of different spoken voices and inflections.
MacJournal: Journaling is great practice for writers, and can provide a much more accurate record of your life than social media. MacJournal is purpose-built for personal logs and blogs, and provides easy uploads to a variety of platforms like WordPress and Tumblr.
Contour 2: Expressive dialogue and rich detail make writing feel more immersive, but locking down the skeleton of your story is critical for actual readability. Contour 2 was designed by Emmy-nominated writer Jeffrey Alan Schechter and it helps you focus your ideas and shape the form of your work.
Mariner Write: All the software bells and whistles can’t beat a sustained flow state. With Mariner Write, you get everything you need to author documents without rows of superfluous formatting toolbars. It offers split panes to let you work in two places at once, and handles Word-formatted files with ease.
Persona: Developing characters is tough, especially when it’s unclear where their backstories fit into your linear narrative. Build standalone character sketches and explore their relationships with Persona.
You can pick up all of these applications in the Storyteller’s Must-Have Mac Bundle for $29.