New novelist
 For those who want to write a novel - forget whether you can write
one or not - I think I have some good news. Just last week I stumbled
upon something interesting. That’s a software called newnovelist.
I’m not a published novelist yet nor have I written / programed any
software. That makes me disqualified to comment on this. Even so I have
read novels and used software – something little to blow my own trumpet.
First I didn’t have faith in the software. No, not even after reading
reviews. Read them yourselves.
 If you’ve ever tried to write a novel (or even just thought about
it), you know the routine. You just can’t put everything together.
You’ve got to work step by step to write a great book, right? - Not
anymore! - Not with NewNovelist!
Let’s face it – writing a book takes time. LOTS of it. Until now,
aspiring writers and novelists faced - and let’s be honest – a
gut-wrenching, slow and grueling writing process.
NewNovelist has turned the writing process on its head. With this
revolutionary software, you can write your novel the way you want to.
You don’t have to be a slave to old, slow, archaic writing rituals and
methods.
Now this thread makes me a little scared. It means the software can
make any Tom Dick and Harry a novelist. That’s false impression, even my
computer-geek cum novelist friend agreed. Still and all I wanted to test
it.
Once open, it would have been ideal disillusion for somebody with
high hopes of writing a novel. Dangerously the software’s architects ask
users to forget old methods. Now the question arises: what are the old
techniques? I have heard and read how novelists do it. First you got to
have a story.
Events and situations to develop and maintain the coherence of the
story follow. And then, like weaving a cloth, little by little you have
to write the whole story. Draft after draft it will come out into some
shape. It involves a lot of rewriting, reshaping, deletions, insertions
and all this. The main thing is there is no hard and fast way of writing
a novel.
Basically these are the age old techniques one can say. Let’s see how
Dostoyevsky handled his Crime and Punishment in his own words translated
into English by David Magarshack:
The work on the novel is worse than hard labour to me… At the end of
November I had written a great deal of it and had it all ready, but I
burnt it; now I don’t mind admitting it; now I don’t mind admitting it.
I did not like it myself. I became absorbed in a new form, a new plan,
and I began everything from scratch. I am working day and night still my
output is small.
This indicates something: novel is a little hard exercise. When you
have the story, and the scenes and thoughts coming in a smooth flow you
will go on writing for hours. And in the end you may have the first
draft ready. It usually takes months, or sometimes just a few days. But
how does newnovelist software helps you do it? When you open the
software, you get MS Word in the centre surrounded by some so called
tips. And nothing else. My computer-geek friend likened it to writing a
business letter on the Word. There are certain things the software does
for you such as salutation and address line, but you got to handle the
core of the letter.
Earlier they said computer can make you write. Sometime later they
said the MS Word can make you write without mistakes.
Only later they realized there are mistakes even the spellcheck
cannot trace. All this shows you got to have your own world of thoughts.
A vehicle is there and visiting Jaffna seems an easy ride. What if you
don’t know the directions? Behind the wheel you got to have an idea how
take the path to Jaffna. Even a knight rider won’t do that without
instructions. Vehicle only makes things easier, and it applies to any
machine.
Not only the fact that we should forget archaic methods is false but
it is misleading too. I have some friends who are so willing to write a
novel. They just love the concept, though cannot think of anything to
write.
A novelist, like any other writer, emerges because h/she has
something to say and something to support it. They don’t need software
to do that. For those who cannot wait to use newnovelist, let me remind
something: without even a typewriter, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays in his
short life span.
We got to use technology with a little common sense and much
creativity, without falling prey to every commercial crap.
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