What’s On Your Writer’s Utility Belt?

You might have seen that Batman has been trending on Twitter lately. Naturally when I saw it, I thought the time was ripe to do Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Batman Edition... Until I remembered I still haven’t seen Batman v. Superman and so, couldn’t possibly offer a complete review of all the Batman flicks. Not content to let the Batman theme pass me by, however, I decided instead to write about my Writer’s Utility Belt.

‘Your writer’s… what?’ I hear you cry, somewhat bemused.

You know! My writer’s utility belt! Just like Batman has a utility belt which is loaded with all deus ex machina gadgets he needs to help him save the day, so we writers all have our (figurative) utility belts loaded with all the tools (mostly apps, these days) we rely on to help us whenever we sit down to write.

… Don’t we? 😶

… No?

Well… just humour me for a couple of minutes while I tell you what I keep on mine anyway:

Physical Notebooks and a Bic Four-Colour Ballpoint Pen

It all starts with paper and pen for me. Specifically a generously sized notebook with plenty of space for scribbles, doodles and general nonsense and a Bic Four-Colour Ballpoint Pen for effective brainstorming.

I usually move onto the computer pretty quickly once I get past the initial stages of coming up with and refining ideas but in the early days of a new story, physical honest-to-goodness paper and pen are a must for me.

Jotterpad

I’ve got to be honest here: despite the fact I’ve written manifold positive reviews about various mobile writing apps, I don’t actually use them very much for writing. Don’t ask me why, but I just find them really awkward to write with, no matter how good they might be.

That being said, if you’re sitting on the bus, on your way into work with no hope of getting home to your precious notebooks, you might want a quick and easy way to write down ideas (or whole chapters) that suddenly pop into your head. For me, Jotterpad for Android does the job nicely.

Scapple

For me, one of the toughest parts of writing a story is bringing order to the chaos of my original ideas. Even once I’ve got my basic plot and characters figured out, there were still be a lot of plot holes and other loose ends to tie up before I can create a functioning chapter outline.

When I’m deep in the throes of figuring all this out, I can easily lose track of where I am. There is often too much material to sift through for me to simply write it out in a linear fashion. That’s when Scapple by Literature and Latte, the virtual corkboard comes into its own. You can spread out all your thoughts in whatever order you like, linking them together (or not) as you see fit. Ideal for mind-mapping and general idea sifting, it’s helped me out of more than one bout of writers’ block and plays a key role in all my writing projects.

Typewriter

I’ve spoken before about free writing; a pre-writing technique in which the writer takes a few minutes to write anything and everything that comes to mind without pausing to edit. It’s a technique I swear by to get me started in the morning, and yet it’s also a technique I found almost impossible to master given my tendency to edit as I go…

Until I discovered Typewriter – Minimal Text Editor. This simple ASCII text editor has no editing functionality whatsoever. No deleting, no copying, no pasting, nothing. All you can do is add text and once you’ve added it, you’re stuck with it. It can probably serve quite a few functions, but for me, it’s my go-to app for free writing.

Scrivener

Well of course, it had to be here. Scrivener is the app that I, along with many of my writer colleagues, use to create my story bibles and to write my actual manuscript. I also use it to keep my daily writer’s journal.

It’s powerful. It’s popular. It’s surprisingly affordable. I can’t remember the last time I ever considered writing a manuscript with any other app and I doubt I ever will.

What about you? What’s on your writer’s utility belt? Are there any particular apps or tools you rely on to help you write? Share it with us in the comments below!

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ATTENTION AUTHORS:

I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.

You can check out our previous interviews here:

Sharleen Nelson, Author of The Time Tourists [2]