[NOTE: This post was originally written in November 2016. Some features or functionalities of the reviewed program may have changed since then.]
Welcome to Part 7 of my “Free Writing Software Review” series. This series is a complement to my "Free Scrivener Alternatives" post.
This week’s topic: Plume Creator!
Plume Creator has mostly minimal features, some of which are confusing (at least to me), and there are no help docs available, plus the website wasn’t working. This made my trial of Plume Creator less-than-ideal.
However, here is the basic rundown:
This software allows you to create a project and specify how many chapters and scenes will be in it, and even allows you to run a timer while writing.
It uses a left navigation bar to switch between chapters and scenes, and the right-hand panel shows summary and notes for each section.
You can tag what characters, locations, and items happen in each scene, mark the revision status of each section, and add a “Badge” that shows up in the left-hand navigation. These badges are completely customizable, so you could use them to flag where your theme shows up, to visually track plot elements, etc.
There is an analytical tool meant to help you track POV, status, etc. across multiple chapters, but it is hard to read and the “Set POV” feature seemed glitchy. I couldn’t figure out how to set the POV and an erroneous html string of text showed up in the analytical screen where POV should have been.
Plume Creator allows you to export in a basic selection of formats, and to choose whether to include synopsis and notes when you do, and it allows you to preview your manuscript before completing the export.
Plume Creator does a good job of autosaving files.
Plume Creator is FREE! You can access it here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/plume-creator/. Plume Creator’s official website is located here, though it contains very little information other than to refer you to the download link above.