No, not that kind of software; I mean the kind of software that will help you with your writing. One that helps you get — and stay — organized.

For someone who writes, any little thing that may help has got to be a good thing. And this is greater than your average little thing. I can't rememebr where I found this piece of software, but I really dig it. Actually probably from a random blogger recommendation.

It works in the same manner as some paid software, but it remains free. It's called ywriter. It's up to version 3 now. Here's some of its features:

1. Organise your novel using a 'project'.
2. Add files to the project, each containing a chapter.
3. Add a summary to each file, showing the scenes in each chapter.
4. Print out summary cards, showing the structure of your novel.
5. Display the word count for every file in the project, along with a total.
6. Saves a log file every day, showing words per file and the total. (Tracks your progress)
7. Saves automatic backups at user-specified intervals.
8. Allows multiple scenes within chapters
9. Viewpoint character, goal, conflict and outcome fields for each scene.
10. Storyboard view, a visual layout of your work.
11. Re-order scenes within chapters.
12. Move scenes from one chapter to another.
13. Automatic chapter renumbering.

I am still learning to use it but it is well laid out.

I moved away from the habit of writing in a linear fashion (starting at page 1 and grinding out the pages until I fleshed out some kind of narrative). The author of this software phrases it best:

I really struggled over my first novel because I wrote whole slabs of text into a great big word processor file and tried to make sense of the whole thing at once. I then tried saving each chapter to individual files with great long descriptive filenames, but moving scenes around was a nuisance and I couldn't get an overview of the whole thing (or easily search for one word amongst 32 files).

Anyway, all of your 'scenes' are stored in RTF files, and these can be edited with regular word processor. You can add multiple characters to every scene, the way information is presented and used is much more logical. The editor also allows setting of font style and size, plus bold, italics and underline.

Check it out here.

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