I was never convinced by special writing software for your computer.
I'd used one or two programs over the years, but found they hindered rather than helped the writing process.
Things have moved on, however, and there are now several good pieces of software you can easily download to help guide you, especially in structuring your fiction.
By far the best of them is Newnovelist.
Unlike other 'DIY' computerised writing systems (which seemed to have been written by people whose reading consisted of steamy potboilers by Sidney Sheldon and Jackie Collins) Newnovelist is based on serious, academic study of the conventions and rules of novel writing.
Specifically, the designers have drawn on the creative writing theories and models developed at the prestigious University of East Anglia, the hotbed of creative writing which discovered writers like Ian McEwan, Tracy Chevalier, Kazuo Ishiguro and many others.
It's simple, yet intelligent system basically lays out the structure of your novel for you, leaving you free to concentrate on the really creative work of realising great characters, writing brilliant dialogue and mapping out a suspenseful plot.
I've seen it at work and was very impressed.
I may well use it on a new novel project I will begin in 2009 with a serving member of the Royal Marines.
It is a very writer friendly tool and seems to understand our little foibles.
For instance, it saves you the stress and organisation of keeping together all those clippings, hastily written notes and scraps of paper that you accumulate when you are germinating the idea for a book.
With Newnovelist you simply drop in each idea as it comes to you leaving the software to prompt you at times when it might be good to bring it in.
You don't have to take my word about its quality, of course.
Newnovelist is supplied to schools in the UK and supports the national curriculum and it has been enthusiastically reviewed by The Sunday Times too.