Hiveword Is Here! An Interview with Creator Mike Fleming

I am happy to announce that Hiveword, a new online fiction organizer for writers has officially launched! It's completely web-based, which means you can organize and work on your stories anywhere, anytime. Be sure to check out the amazing features of this program by visiting Hiveword's website. I had the pleasure of interviewing the creator of Hiveword, Mike Fleming. Enjoy!

Q. Tell us about your new program, Hiveword.

MF. Hiveword helps writers organize novels and short stories. Each story can have characters, settings, and scenes.

The character data sheet is fairly comprehensive. Writers can enter as much information as they want (or perhaps nothing but the name). There’s also a handy list of characters which includes an “At a Glance” section that succinctly displays critical information about each character for easy reference. Here’s the at-a-glance snippet from a character in the Hiveword sample story “Harry Porter and the Guitar of Fire”:

Aliases: 'Arry Age: 21 Eyes: Dark Hair: Long and black Height: 6' 1" Weight: 170 lbs. Appearance: Harry is a slender yute with long, straight black hair like an 80's rockstar. In fact, a rockstar is what Harry intends to be much to the chagrin of his butcher father. Harry frequently wears black pants, shirt, and a long flowing cape. He often straps his guitar to his back which makes him look... Occupation: Butcher's apprentice Wants: To rock!

Setting tracking is simple at the moment—it’s just a section for notes and a way to track aliases. Setting aliases allow the writer to annotate the setting with other names by which the place is known. For example, the “New York City” setting might have an alias of “Big Apple.”

Scenes, of course, are the critical piece of any story. Writers can type a summary for each scene as well as sort them. One of Hiveword’s most useful features, I think, is that characters and settings can be linked to scenes such that writers can track a scene’s setting, POV, and the characters in it. This is very convenient because it’s easy to see these important scene details without having to read a lot of text. Furthermore, it’s easy to find the scenes in which a character appears or has the POV. The same thing goes for the setting.

Because Hiveword is on the web you can access your information from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Q. Where/when did the epiphany strike to create Hiveword?

MF. I had the idea for Hiveword in late 2008. I wanted an environment for writers that combined the organizer and word processing functions in one online application. Mobile apps were starting to take off and it seemed like good timing.

Unfortunately, I was working on security software at the time and didn’t have the bandwidth to pursue Hiveword. Eventually, I realized that the market opportunity for my security software had passed. That was a sad time after having put so much work into it but it freed me up to work on Hiveword. I started working on it during my Christmas break in 2009 and thought I’d finish it in three months. Silly me. The writing component was more difficult than I had expected and sucked up a lot of time. Ironically, it’s no longer available in Hiveword. Why it’s not is perhaps a story for another day...

There was also the mini-epiphany of doing a search engine for writers. I knew it was a good idea but simply put it on my list to do later so that I could focus on the organizer piece. Then Elizabeth Spann Craig wished she had some way to search her tweets and the rest is history.

Q. How do you feel your program will better benefit writers (in terms of how it differs from other software)?

MF. Most fiction organizers are still desktop-based and haven’t changed significantly in years. Hiveword is online and is thus available from anywhere. Updates will happen frequently and don’t require installing new software.

I also believe that your data is yours. Hiveword will never hold your data hostage. You can easily export your stories with one easy-to-find link.

Q. What should writers anticipate from you and Hiveword in the future?

MF. Lots of things!

Seriously, my feature list is a mile long and includes things that (to my knowledge) haven’t been done before and will make writers swoon. ;-) It’ll take a while to get there but the Hiveword of today is the first step on the path to where I want it to be. Stay tuned!

About Mike Fleming
Mike Fleming is a software engineer with a penchant for riding his mountain bike in the woods. At night. He also maintains the Writer’s Knowledge Base which is a search engine for writers.

To keep in touch with Mike, e-mail him at mike@hiveword.com. You can also follow Mike on twitter. Find the best writings on writing at Writer's Knowledge Base, and sign up for a 30-day trial of Hiveword at Hiveword.com.

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About Krissy Brady

Krissy Brady is a freelance writer located in Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada. If you have a writing-related question, would like to write a guest post, or have a content suggestion, e-mail Krissy at info@krissybrady.com. You can also keep in touch with Krissy through RSS, facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn.