<p>I had an odd email last night. A chap in a bit of a semi-panic because he couldn’t find <em>anywhere</em> a novel template for Apple Pages. Could I help? </p> <p>Well, no actually. I’ve written about Pages here. It’s a pretty good WP for book revision. I wouldn’t use it as a primary writing tool because the outlining is appalling. You can’t even see a book structure easily in the sidebar (for that you need to use Word 2011 on the Mac, though that porker won’t let you drag the elements to new positions). For the record, my current ‘workflow’ is to do primary writing in Scrivener 2 on the Mac, which is wonderful for the highly creative, organisational stuff. Then I plan to do major revisions in Word 2010 on Windows, which is still the best general WP for novel work in my opinion.</p> <p>Scrivener is much more than a word processor. More an operating system for creative writing. It can use templates very effectively. I’ve <a href="http://davidhewson.com/2010/11/03/a-novel-template-for-scrivener-my-way/">put one of my own for you to see here.</a> There are lots of other possibilities. But how about a template for a general word processor? Let’s give it a try…</p> <p>What do you need to write a book in terms of a general WP app? Er… headings and text. Nothing more that I can think of. You set up the different elements as heading styles and a body text for the, well, body text. And that’s it. For a complex book it might be…</p><!--more--><h1>Parts</h1> <h2>Chapters</h2> <h3>Scenes</h3> <p>Body text</p> <p>For a simple book</p> <h1>Chapters</h1> <p>Body text</p> <p>And that really is it. There’s a huge temptation to look for illusory reasons why a book project isn’t working. Maybe it’s the wrong software. You need a different font. Or, heaven forbid, a magic ‘template’. </p> <p>Cobblers. Books are made from words. If you’re using a general word processor set up the headings and body text in a font and size you find comfortable. Then find the right words and stop worrying about the minutiae.</p>