It’s almost here! That’s right, Mark Fassett is set to release StoryBox 1.0 tomorrow.
The software for Novelists that lets you write the way you want to write.
Yeah? So what? 
Hmm. Let’s take a trip down memory lane. A few months ago, I reviewed this software version 0.54 (see review here). I found it easy to use, eye pleasing, and full of great features. It almost fit my needs perfectly. Awesome potential. It had a few glitches, but still a nice product in the making. Mr. Fassett put StoryBox through a host of fixes and added quite a few features in the process.
Being the needy person I am, I had a few wants of my own. A quick look at my wishlist when I wrote the first review.
- Thesaurus – Got it! Woohoo!
- Spellchecker while typing – I didn’t get this, but Mr. Fassett did add a spellchecker.
- Tutorials and Help Guides – Got it! And it’s nicely formatted also.
- I’d like the chapters to be automatically numbered in the File Drawer instead of every new chapter having the label “chapter” – Got it!
- I prefer NOT to have a separate tab open when clicking on the the items in the File Drawer, it gives me a sense of clutter. Yes, I know I can close them all down in one swoop. Personally, I’d just like it to do what I want in the first place rather than cleaning up after the fact. An option maybe in the preferences? – This was already available, I just didn’t know how to do it.
- Would like the labels for the character interview to be semi-permanent. That way I can do a simple tab to the input fields (as it is, the interview is a document with questions for the user to answer, but not separated into labels and input fields.)
- Would love to have a find and replace feature – Got it.
As for the character screen? Well, not sure if I’ll get that. After all, it’s not called Reena’s Personal Writing Software. And the character template is very functional as it is. But 6.5/7 isn’t bad.
One big feature, Mr. Fassett added is the Outline Builder. I’ll be honest, I haven’t given it a real go. The idea behind it is to have a place to store important ideas for the story, then insert them as needed. In my mind, it’s a neat feature when used correctly. It works great for catching stray ideas such as scenes, dialogues, etc. In fact, if I used it, I’d have fewer problems with jacking up my word count, since I tend to jot my stray thoughts directly into the document.
He also added another features I’ve yet to try, the ability to Split and Merge Documents. Sounds wicked useful, but I’ve not had a reason to use it. If you haven’t tried StoryBox in the past, you probably won’t notice tweaks he’s made to prior features, so I won’t even get into them. For a full version you can visit his download page and see the journey for yourself.
Anyway. Today is your LAST chance to order StoryBox for the prerelease price of $25 Version 0.9.82. If you like StoryBox, now’s the time to buy. It includes version 1.0 and all the updates until version 2.0.
