Writing Tools: OED

     A post on Query Shark by Janet Reid (with an update on her other blog here) got me thinking. She's talking about vocabulary and voice. People have different vocabularies. There's all the words we know, and then there's our working vocabulary, which is all the words we use regularly. Obviously the working vocabulary is smaller than all of the ones our noggins can hold.
     The post made me think of just how much we rely on certain vocabularies to establish voice. Characters have their own way of saying things. Speech patterns and words establish character and narrative voice, so the usage of words is absolutely essential.
     As writers, we need to know words. Lots of words. Huge Mack truckloads of words, but that's not all. We need to know the permutations and histories. The meanings of words changes over time. Yes, a simple online dictionary can give a list of current definitions, maybe even suggest slang usage, but most of those won't tell the etymology of the word. There are a couple of online etymology sources, but none of those compare to the definitive source for the English language: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
     There is only one OED. Oxford University Press puts out many dictionaries, but only one of which is the OED. Nothing compares to how thorough the OED is in chronicling the language. In print form it is over 20 volumes, and it does much much more than simply give definitions. This is a resource which peels back the layers of the language to show off its roots. It is now available online, so writers need not devote shelf space (or backpack space) to the 20+ volume set. It is accessible anywhere in the world.
     Now, it's not free. In fact, its cost is prohibitive for most writers to purchase on their own. However, most university and public libraries purchase access to the OED, so it may be freely available via library web portal. Go forth and explore the wonderful language. Bonus points for those who knew the picture was of a noggin.

Writing Tools: Em dashes and Quotation marks

      After last week's writing tools, I played around with em dashes a little more, and one of the odd behaviors I've noticed with word processors is they have a block when it comes to making the dash play along nicely with smart quotation marks.

Writing Tools: Making em dashes

     I love the em dash. It's one of my favorite punctuation marks. It's also not the easiest one to break out at a moment's notice, and the usage is a little non-standard. I'll leave the usage up to you as googling it and finding out the various arguments for its use as dictated by the Chicago Manual of Style is out there in bulk. And it's on Wikipedia.
     For this post, I'll just go over how various word processors make the durned thing. I have no illusions about Word's dominance, so it's up first.
     In Word, there are a couple of ways to form the em dash. First, assuming that the autoformating is enabled (which, by default, it is), type a word followed by two hyphens (--) followed by the second word. As soon as you hit the space bar after the second word, the word processor will automatically replace it with an em dash. An alternate method is to press CTRL + ALT + Num -. This is the minus sign on the number pad, which is different from the hyphen and underscore key. Laptop users without a number pad will have to first turn on their num lock key, then find the minus sign on their regular keyboard (on my Thinkpad, it's the ; key). Obviously, having the autoformat is a much quicker way to form this punctuation. You can also go the insert symbol route, where it appears at the top of the special characters list (you can also specify a new shortcut here).
     WordPerfect has something similar to Word, but instead of two hyphens, it's three (---), and it replaces themas soon as the first letter after the hyphens is typed. I find this more useful as it allows me to put a dash at the end of a line of dialogue followed by a closing quotation mark to indicate a speaker has been cut off or interrupted.
     For the GoogleDocs users, there's no easy shortcut. You need to go into it from the menus: Insert > Special Characters. Left drop down select Punctuation. Right drop down select Dash/Connector. Em Dash is dead center (not the Horizontal Bar as they're typographically different).
     Last there are the ASCII, Unicode, and html methods, which are summarized in Wikipedia's Common Dashes
     Remember that the em dash is your friend. Use it wisely; use it correctly; it will never let you down.

Writing Tools: Disable Autocorrect

     An urgent twitter went out from an author one night about Word's proclivities for crashing. She went to the web. She got suggestions from Twitter, and I even tossed a couple of ideas her way. Fortunately, she resolved the problem. For now. It's a problem I have seen and heard complaints about for far too long. MS Word, despite being an industry standard, is not the most reliable performer.
     I'm not out to blame Microsoft or its programmers; however, I'm sure everyone out there has had headaches when it has come to trying to get Word to behave, and as per Murphy, it generally chooses the worst possible time to act up.
     I've talked about automatic file backup here, but there are other things to look at. Word has autocorrect and automatic spell and grammar check options that tend to slow things down. Honestly, I had forgotten about these features because I disable them as soon as I install the software. I have found that there are too many rules in both spelling and grammar that Word just doesn't know, so I don't want the program to break my writing flow by alerting me to a misspelled word.
     But I do recall, in the distant past of my memory and youth, that these features can cause problems for Word. They slow the software down, increasing its CPU and memory footprint. This can be compounded if you are in spell-check or track changes mode as the computer must redraw the entire screen every time you move on to another error. Re-drawn complete with all the arrows, comments, highlights, and red and green squigglies.
     Why does it bog down? Well, mostly my theory is that Word was not designed for writers. Word was designed for business writing, by and large, and while it can handle business and school reports just fine, it doesn't do so well at 100,000+ word novels. Spell and grammar checking all of those words just causes a memory drain on the system. So at least experiment with disabling these autocorrect features to see if it works for you. For those with Word 2007 and newer, go to:

Office button (file in 2010) > Word Options > Proofing. Uncheck "Check spelling as you type" and "Mark grammar errors as you type"

     Older than 2007, go to:

Tools > Options > Autocorrect.

     I hope to, in future posts, tackle some of the other common difficulties writers have with Word, and how to correct them.

Writing Tools: Write then Research

     Butt in chair, hands on keyboard is hard to pull off as every writer knows. If we complicate that with the added temptation of social media, internet, and everything else, it becomes nigh impossible.
     I've never been overly tempted by the allure of social media, so I don't know how to address that one, but I do know that the internet's siren lure of reference material calls to me whenever I write. I've lost myself in hours of research when all I intended to do was look up a quick geographic fact to insert into my WIP. I was led on a merry romp through various cultural and historical facts about the location that, while enlightening, distracted me.
     Writers obviously need to do research (my students could stand to do a little more), but it's important not to let the research overtake the writing itself. I've learned to incorporate a little journalistic shortcut into my writing by inserting TK (short for "To Come" [don't ask me about the spelling etymology]) as a placeholder for whatever fact I need to insert. Sometimes I'll add in parentheses the specific bit of information I need to look up.
     This works not only for odd bits of reference, but for odd things about the story line or characters I may have forgotten. Yes, I should have a series bible (we all should) but that may not take into account what a character said three chapters ago, or was wearing the day before yesterday. I find TK a quick and dirty way to both remind me and to keep me writing instead of breaking up the creative flow with a trip searching through the internet or the book so far.

Writing Tools: Grammar Handbooks

     I suppose I'm on something of a grammar kick with the end of the teaching semester here. Grammar is one of those subjects that writers at almost every level hates or dreads. Whether your particular bane is the apostrophe, the 14 (or is 15 now?) comma rules, when to capitalize certain titles, or any of the other seemingly endless arbitrary rules, it's the author's job to get good at grammar.
     It's not just for the sake of your agent or editor, either. Yes, they will certainly feel like executing you if you continue to make the same error throughout your manuscript, but more importantly you need to know how to craft sentences in an effective way. The very structure of a sentence can convey as much as the words in a sentence.
     To that end, every author should invest in a solid writing or grammar handbook. There's plenty of them on the market, many with tabs for ease of reference. Browse them on Amazon or pop over to a local college bookstore where you'll find many of them. They can run anywhere between $20-$65, and are worth every penny. Well, there is one catch. It doesn't do anything if it sits on your shelf or desk collecting dust. Get in the habit of using it when you revise and edit. Yes, it'll slow you down as you edit, but there is a trade-off. 1. Agents and editors will love you for it. 2. Your writing will improve at the composition stage so you will make fewer initial mistakes.
     Now if only I can get my students to do this.

Writing Tools: Macros--replace periods

     One of the pet peeves of copyeditors is the dreaded double space after a period, or other sentence ending punctuation. And for authors preparing a manuscript, it becomes tedious to find and replace all these instances, even using the word processors feature. So here is a quick little macro for Word that does just that. Assign the macro to a button, and when it's time for the tediousness, simply click it.
     This macro can also be modified to accommodate exclamation points and question marks by replacing the period in the find and replace lines, then the whole thing could be run at once to replace all the spaces after end punctuation.

Here's the macro in its entirety:

Sub periodspace()
'
' periodspace Macro
'
'
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.Text = ". "
.Replacement.Text = ". "
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

Writing Tools: Normal.dot continued

     A few weeks back I talked about the infamous normal.dot in general terms, and what can be done with it. Now I've got a couple of websites that go into a little more information.
     The first is a guide on how to change the normal.dot found here: Change normal.dot. Now, a simple way to create a backup of the file is to

Writing Tools: Emergency computer plan

     Not long ago, agent extraordinaire and shark Janet Reid experienced some computer difficulties. While she was able to resolve the dilemma (without much expense or cost in time), it got me thinking about the tech dilemma.

Writing Tools: Macros

     Ah, Macros, one of my favorite little tricks to use in word processing and in Excel. Macros are little bits of computer code in an office program that do something. They're usually used to automate some kind of process that is usually repetitive such as preparing a document in manuscript format or

Writing Tools: Text Editors

     I'm a nerd, and proud of it. Yep, I said it. I've been tinkering and toiling away since high school with my 286 with its whopping 256kb ram and a 40mb hard drive. I had a vga monitor (there is a large difference between the vga of then and the super vga often delineated as simply vga today). I even added in a sound card, and managed to get it to work by finagling the IRQs. I started out with DOS 5, in the era before Windows.
     Back in the day the word processor wars waged a bitter battle. I won't discuss the outcome of the war, as it's largely immaterial. Today I want to talk about a new, emerging trend of softwares: the stripped down novelty text editor.
     It seems hardly a week goes by where some new plain text editor is hawked as the thing in writing, now. The idea behind them is to distill the writing environment down to its most fundamental: a screen, and a cursor. By ridding the real estate of everything else, it's believed to eliminate distractions. I can't say I've ever been distracted by the various menus and toolbar buttons of my word processor, so I don't get the appeal.
     Others add in gimmicks to ease the burden of writing such as a concept that if the writer doesn't keep writing, the word processor will slowly begin to sound an annoying tone or even erase what was written. Another seeks to transform writing into a zen-like experience with pleasant sounds, soft backgrounds, and customizable clacking sounds of the keyboard. Some take the other route, and while providing a simple editor, offer extensive organizational tools that cross link, allow for pictures, sound files, notecards, and the like.
     I've played around with them, and can't say that I prefer any of them over my word processor, and I've got reasons for them.
     1. Text editors, while some of them support file formats other than plain text, do not allow for formatting inputs. If I need to add in italics, underlines or any other non-standard formatting, the text editors can't handle it. Yes, I could come back later and put them in, but what's the point? It makes more sense to add it right away instead of making a notation to do it later. Text editors also cannot handle headers, page numbers, indentations, or page breaks. The WYSIWYG interface of a word processor is also very nice to have.
     2. Automatic backup and save options are limited. With my word processor I can tell it where I want to save backups, and how often, minimizing the chance of something going wrong.
     3. A word processor is highly customizable. If you really want a stripped down appearance, you can do it! Take down all the toolbars, rulers, buttons, and what have you for a clean, no frills appearance. My beloved WordPerfect even allows for a fully retro appearance with a blue screen and a cursor (ahhh, memories).
     4. Writers are required to know how to perform some more advanced functions on word processors. Aside from knowing how to properly format a manuscript (and that means not inserting headers and page numbers manually or hitting enter several times to get to a new page. More on manuscript formatting here) there are the tools of editing, such as Track Changes, which Rachelle Gardner posted about some time back found here.
     5. Distractions come in many shapes and sizes. I don't believe that a plain text editor really is a solution. The various menus of word processors really aren't the distraction. Internet, TV, other people, and cats are distractions (even now my cat has decided that my keyboard is an excellent place for her tail to rest). And, let's face it, distractions happen no matter where you're at or what program you're running.
     I think it's far less complicated to eliminate extra software. The time it takes to learn these new text editors (despite having minimal features) could be better spent writing, or even getting to know your word processor under the hood. Make it fit your needs instead of going for gimmicks.

Writing Tools: Accents

     Accent marks are cool looking, give an exotic feel to writing, and are downright necessary for certain words and sounds, but they're also a royal pain to try and use with a word processor. There are some bizarre shortcut keys you can attempt to memorize, or you can use the character mapper or the insert symbol menu to scroll through and find the exact mark in the exact font, but that is very time consuming.
     Fortunately, there is a nice easy solution
by way of Autohotkey and a gentleman by the name of Skrommel. With a little piece of software, all you need to do is press a key 3+ times to insert the accent you need. Multiple presses cycles the letter through the various accents that you might use, and then it's done. It only takes a few keystrokes to insert the accent you need.
     Skrommel has made an .exe file out of the script as well as the regular .ahk file. You can find both here: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/index.html#Accents. For the more paranoid among you about viruses and the like, you can see the .ahk file completely written out here: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/Accents/Accents.ahk

Writing Tools: Make Capslock Useful

     There is one key that has been a perpetual bane on the modern keyboard. It's usefulness is so limited as to be laughable, and it's usefulness is really only a momentary convenience. In all of the writing I've done, and all the reading I've done, I've never really found a use for the Capslock key. It just sits there on the edge of the keyboard taking up useful space. I'm more likely to hold onto the shift key to type out capitals. Finally, though, there is a solution.
     I introduce you to Autohotkey a wonderful little scripting tool which can, among many things, remap keys on the keyboard. No, it does not take a degree in programming to use this program. In fact, I'm going to just give you the script I use to remap capslock to something useful.
     My script remaps capslock to become CTRL+I, which turns on italics in all major word processing programs, a typeface I find infinitely more useful in writing than all capital letters. Change the I to a U or a B, and it becomes underline or bold, respectively. More than that, I still have a way to enable the Capslock mode by holding down the shift key, then hitting Capslock. to turn Capslock off again, I repeat with shift and Capslock.
     To use the script, simply download the program from the link above, open up notepad, and copy the following two lines into it, and save the file as filename.ahk (the extension is important).

+Capslock::Capslock
Capslock::^i

     And that's all there is to it. The possibilities are endless with Autohotkey, and several sites post up their own scripts for users to download and use. I've got another one that lets me put in the nice little indents to my blog paragraphs, but that's next week.
     For more information on Autohotkey, here is a nice little write up about it on Lifehacker (a favorite site of mine).

Writing Tools: Dropbox

     There's nothing quite so terrifying to a writer (at least to me) as the following phrase: Hard disk failure. Data death is not something that a book can realistically recover from. That 100,000 word manuscript can disappear in an instant, and even if you perform a back up, when was the last time you did that? A month, two, six? It's imperative for writers to have a fast, simple way to regularly back up their writing, else they will be wont to commit Hari Kari after ritualistically bludgeoning the remains of their computer with an aluminum baseball bat.
     For all the paranoid writers out there, I give you dropbox. Dropbox is a simple, fast, and free (up to 2gb, more than enough for even prolific writers) online file synchronization tool. What this means for writers is that, as long as you are connected online, your documents will automatically update themselves to dropbox's servers as soon as you're done working on it. Even if you're not connected, dropbox will wait until you are, and then synchronize them, without you needing to remember to tell it to do so.
     This means there's always a copy available to you online, securely backed up on Dropbox's servers. The site is secure, using encryption that rivals that of banks. Of course, the feature I like most is that I can use multiple computers and have it sync the files between all of them without eany effort. I can take my netbook out to the coffee shop, write something, bring it back, and the files were automatically updated over wi-fi on my home computer. I can open it and resume writing where I left off.
     Now, there are other services such as this, but some of them are overly technical, are not free, or simply a pain to use. A simple search for online file sync should turn up many different services you could try, but I throw my weight behind dropbox for its ease of use. I've been using it for 3 years, and it's really saved my bacon a number of times, and I have never lost a hard drive in that time.
     So, writers, I encourage you to go check out dropbox and see if it's for you. If you use the link below, you'll get an extra 250mb for free. One more tip: Complete their online tutorial and get another 250mb for free.
     One last thing. Those file folder locations from last week with the autosave? You want to make sure that those save folders point somewhere in your dropbox folder. Get out of the habit of saving everything in just the 'my documents' folder, and pipe it into some place useful, such as a documents folder inside of your dropbox folder.
     Dropbox sign-up link: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTQ4NzE4OQ?src=global0
     Dropbox information: http://www.dropbox.com/

Writing Tools: Autosave

     Writers fear losing their work. It's a given. Having a word processor freeze up or a computer crash while in the middle of a hot writing streak is a knife to the heart. We simply can't recreate what was written before. However, all is not lost as one of the best tools for writers is under their very noses.
     All word processors these days are equipped with an autosave or autorecover option (at least ones worth their salt). As I am a more mainstream word processor instead of the new options such as Scrivener or Liquid Story Binder, I'm stinking to only platforms I use: WordPerfect and Word.
     By default, the time limit on an autosave or autorecover is listed at 10 minutes. However, ten minutes, on a really good day, could mean pages of a novel between saves. Fortunately, that ten minute time limit can be brought down to 1 minute (the absolute minimum as I've tried decimals and the program pitches a fit).
     For you Word users out there---despite the awesome superiority of WordPerfect! (end soapbox)---finding the actual location of the autosave depends on which version of the program. In the more recent 2007 or 2010, it's buried in Word's options Office Button > Word Options (2007) or File tab > Word Options, and the screen looks something like this:

     Simply change the time from the default 10 minutes to the much less scary 1 minute time. And that's it. All work is automatically saved every minute.
     For the people who have older versions of Word the autosave is buried under Tools > Options.
     For my WordPerfect peeps (Represent!) it's under Tools > Settings > Files, and basically is the same process.
     Now, lastly, you'll notice in the picture that there are file locations which I've blanked out. These are important to keep in mind for next week's tip. We'll be doing something special with them.

Writing Tools

     Writing tools will be a new feature I put up here, and I'm going to do my best to make it a weekly feature, either every Monday or Wednesday. I'm something of a nerd (okay, more than something) and I realize that I have talents in areas that I have re-purposed towards writing, and I should share them with web o'sphere. So I'll post up blurbs about software, word processor configurations, lines of code, and other bits that have helped me in my writing. Hopefully some people will find this helpful to their writing.