What is good software for creative writing that lets me write more freely and creatively than Microsoft Word?

Putting in another good word for Scrivener—it's quite good at formatting scripts in addition to your usual prose and poetry; has an intuitive system for organizing your writing (you have a project where you can stuff PDFs and images into a 'Research' or 'Notes' section, your actual text into the 'Draft' section); a full-screen mode that can be modified to be entirely distraction-free or with panes for images and notes for quick reference; tons of writer-friendly features like a graphical corkboard-and-index-card view, a nice outliner, a space to synopsize the current bit you're working on… I've been using it for about four years now. The Mac version is beautiful. The recently-released PC port isn't fully mature, but definitely worth trying out. It's been built with novel-writing in mind, so there are quite a few thoughtful features that you might appreciate. Writeroom (Mac-only)  feels to me like a pared-down version of Scrivener's full-screen mode, but depending on how you write it may be a good option. I usually pair Scrivener with Notational Velocity (Mac) + Simplenote (iOS + online) for on-the-fly snippets of dialogue or prose when I'm out. Simplenote is pretty much plain text only, but helpful for catching ideas and referring to them later. The nvAlt fork of Notational Velocity also supports Markdown.

Ommwriter (http://www.ommwriter.com/) might be a good choice. It's gives you a fullscreen, distraction free writing environment. It even plays soothing music to you while you write (though it can be turned off if you find it distracting). There is a free version. Another good choice is WriteRoom (http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom), which performs similarly to Ommwriter but without the music and themes. A license costs $25. I haven't used either Ommwriter or WriteRoom extensively, since I prefer to do all my writing and programming in TextMate (http://macromates.com/). A license costs $60. However, if you're just looking to do writing, TextMate is probably overkill since it has so many markup, programming, and project related features.

There are many different ways to craft words on the Mac. I have moved to Nisus Writer Pro as my general goto word processor. It's very full featured when you want it to be but the interface has been designed to be very customisable and I mostly use it in a  minimal pared back manner. There's something in how it feels that is just pleasurable, can't quite put my finger on it.  I like it.  You may too. http://www.nisus.com/ It, along with other recent software, features a Full Screen mode which echoes early word processors from the mid-Eighties, all amber text on black background, nothing but words to push around, everything else hidden.    I'm a big fan of it I have to say.  You'll find full screen mode in all of the tools I mention here. Apple's Pages continues to impress.  it does a better job than most of importing Word docs and exporting them too.  I primarily use it when  have to add significant layout to a document.  As an easy to use but reasonably featured page layout tool, it's knocks everything, and I mean everything, out of the park.  I rarely lift major tools like InDesign anymore for smaller documents, preferring the speed and ease of Pages.  I've used Pages to create designs for posters and flyers and printed thousands of them using it.  http://www.apple.com/iwork I've taken to using Scrivener (recently PC too)  for scriptwriting, having had enough of Final Draft to last me a lifetime.  Scrivener is great for drafting and macro level writing where you need to work with the big picture, - I use folders to define sequences - for working off an outline written elsewhere - keeping options available to you from other drafts. - bundling in research and notes, pdfs etc. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/ MacJournal (also has a PC version) is my tool for blogging.  An old and venerable Mac program, it's a journalling tool, and has bundles of features, depending on your creative writing style, you may find it suits.  You can create different journals for different projects or have one huge database of all your writing.  I primarily like it for the the following: -  full screen mode for actually writing - automatically backs up via MobileMe - the fact that I can manage my three blogs using it, updating without having to launch either a website or a web design tool. - again with the web in mind it handles HTML and Markdown beautifully. http://homepage.mac.com/dschimpf/ All of these have trials to check out.  I recommend them all.   I do like a few other simple text tools.  Writeroom, TextMate and TextWrangler all have their merits too.

I'm glad to see some Notational Velocity users here (I prefer nvALT, but it's just a fork of NV). I use that for notes, bits of data, and all manner of things I know I'll need later. But for anything longer, I prefer Pages. It has a nice full screen mode. The iCloud sync is handy (though I prefer Dropbox, which is also an option, since you can save locally). Google Docs is a a comparable option, but I actually enjoy writing in Pages more. It has to do with the simplicity of the the interface and the full screen mode. iPad version is handy for writing/editing on the go.

I'm going to throw out two suggestions heretofore unmentioned: Google Docs Easy, clean, free, and perpetually backed up and accessible from anywhere. Same reasons Evernote is great too. OpenOffice OpenOffice is great as a free Microsoft productivity suite replacement. The real trick for distraction free, clean writing is to click View -> Full Screen (or alternatively Cmd Shift J). This makes the page take up the entire screen and eliminates the formatting bars or anything else on the screen. Works like a charm for eliminating distractions.

Consider Scrivener, which has been enormously popular on Mac, and is now in beta on Windows: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/

I write 100% of my notes and drafts in Evernote. http://evernote.com/ One of the greatest benefits is that everything in Evernote is automatically synced in the cloud. Although it a program existing on your computer, you have a web-based version you can access from any machine. It is free and available for Mac and PC.

Writers Cafe is a piece of software which enables you to create and interlace multiple storylines. A great writing planning tool: http://www.writerscafe.co.uk/. I've used it for a couple of years and highly recommend it.

Are you up for a fairly radical change? Do you have 2 to 4 weeks to invest in, with 8 hours up front? If so, download VIM (VI improved) http://www.vim.org/download.php What you'll get... Huge Learning Curve Assumes you think like an engineer text interface If you can get over the hump, you'll find the best text editor you've used and you'll use nothing else... 30 years of development.. amazing..