Product Reviews

NewNovelist 2.0 has evolved significantly since its previous incarnation and the first thing you'll notice is the addition of an integrated word processor, spelling checker and thesaurus. The novel-writing guidance hasn't changed a bit, though. You decide whether to write a plot-driven, character-driven or epic novel, and then choose from the different sub-types of story within each of the wider genres.

Having decided on a tale about a kidnapping (this is just one of ten different types of plot-driven story) the program presented us with a generic structure for a kidnapping story divided into 12 chapters.

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What to put in each chapter is briefly explained with examples, and the program also offered guidance on how long each part of the book should be. Unfortunately, the right balance is difficult to achieve because the word processor doesn't include word or page counting facilities.

Books do not have to be written in sequence, so you can flit between chapters, restructuring them later with the help of a chapter organiser. Always available on the right of the screen is the resources bank, where notes can be made of the characters, objects and places in the novel. Useful prompts help you to think more deeply about all of these as you create them. The resource bank also taps into Internet Explorer (but not Firefox) favourites, enabling you to display useful web pages.

There are built-in name generators for people, places and objects, but these are frankly worthless. The dictionary and thesaurus work fine, but you can't highlight a word and then look it up - you have to retype the word into the dictionary.

Your novel's text and notes can be exported in RTF format for use in a word processor, but if changes are made, the revisions have to be manually pasted back into NewNovelist.