I use google documents too, because the future is storing everything on the “cloud”. Laptops will be equipped

with 3G technology, so you can use the Internet anywhere you go. Generally speaking I use open office and

google documents (using Google documents as a backup just to be safe)

One feature I love is to be able to view my documents revision history and roll back to any version. Also if you do any collaborating you can give others access to your document in real time.

if you are looking for an alternative to ms word I recommend you check it out!

There is a product that works the way you are describing. It’s not free (but not particularly expensive either) and it does have a slight learning curve with it. It’s called Scrivener and it’s reviewed in detail here. Actually the review doesn’t cover all of it, and the product has been updated since the last review. I am currently using Scrivener to write Strangeness & Charm and I have it structured into folders which I have called chapters. Each scene is a text item in a folder and I can re-order them, or switch them between chapters, or insert new material or split a scene into two scenes, at will. It’s extremely flexible while allowing me to maintain an overview of my work as I write.

At this time I know of no product more capable and flexible for writing a novel length work. Everyone I know who’s tried it, loves it, and wouldn’t go back to what they had before. The Windows version is now in public beta, so Windows users will soon be able to enjoy using Scrivener too: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/

The problem I have is that none of the software I messed with is flexible enough. yWriter is great if you’ve figured out exactly what chapters and scenes you’ll have, and what will happen in each, and you like to focus on one scene at a time to the exclusion of all else. But I like to scroll back and forth between scenes, and I re-delineate my scenes all the time. Having to click around or cut and paste to re-organise the structure is quite jarring. Even having to click “previous” and “next” buttons to shift between scenes can be enough to throw me out of a creative mood.

Hence I fell back to Word. I have one file for the entire novel, with subheaders for chapters and scenes and a navigation pane permanently open so I can hop between sections quickly. I haven’t experienced any lag yet, though I’m only at 40k words. It probably also helps that I haven’t done any fancy formatting apart from the abovementioned headers. Perhaps when my novel is longer I’ll start to experience your frustration, but I imagine if that happens I can always split it up into 3 files (one for each Act).

If anyone knows of a good writer’s program that lets you structure your novel how you like without any fuss, I’d love to hear of it. (Especially if it’s free!) But after trying out over a dozen of them, I’m starting to think such a program doesn’t exist.

I think the millions of users don’t actually get the choice of what software to use. It’s become the defacto choice for businesses, especially if they are a Microsoft “shop” and it will always be that way until there is a real alternative. I don’t see one in the near to mid future.

I’ve never considered writing books with MS Word before, as you say it’s fine for mid-sized business documents. It’s piqued my interest in looking at other authoring software that is freely available and simple, as I am a very rare user of the MS Word and find even the latest versions overly complicated for knocking up a letter or invoice.

what program do you use?