If you want to write a book, you’ll need book writing software that’s up to the task. Yes, you can invest in dedicated book writing programs. But you don’t have to: a great writing tool is likely already at your fingertips, if you know how to write a book using Microsoft Word.
There’s a lot of book writing software out there. Many of these programs claim to offer intuitive use, help with organization, and even say they’ll keep you from distraction. The options can be overwhelming.
There’s still one tried and true option if you’re not interested in all that (or can’t afford the fancier programs): Microsoft Word.
I write most of my books in Microsoft Word, not to mention short stories. Here’s the rundown of how to write a book using Microsoft Word, and why that might be your best choice.
The Benefits of Microsoft Word for Book Writing
You most likely already have it. And so does everybody else. Word is the standard, accepted across platforms, and is easy to access for non-writers (your beta readers). It’s been around forever, so most people know how to use it.
There are book formatting templates. A ton of them. They have them for short story format and for manuscript format. Personally, I don’t use those templates, but they’re a nice baseline for beginners, or even old hats that just want to hurry up and write without setting up their document first.
It’s simple and uncluttered. There are a ton of apps and programs out there that will allow you to keep your plot structure notes close at hand, to rearrange your chapters with the click of a button, and to keep detailed character profiles right in the program. That’s all a little too much for me. I prefer handwritten notes and nothing else blocking my screen while I’m typing and Word gives me that.
It is worth noting that if all that sounds appealing to you, you can do those things in Word as well, it just won’t be as fancy as other programs.
Hey writer: the first step to writing a book is coming up with a great idea. The second step is figuring out the structure of your book. If you have an idea but you need help with the structure, check out our new book The Write Structure. In it, we’ll teach you how to apply timeless story structure principles to write a great book. Get The Write Structure »
How to Navigate Your Book in Microsoft Word
When you have a 90,000-word manuscript, navigating becomes daunting. Luckily there are ways to do it in Word that make it easier if you know where to look.
Chapter Headings
Word doesn’t divide your book into chapters for you like some other programs. There will be no easy way to click and drag to rearrange chapters.
What I recommend is using headings. On Word’s Home page, there are already standard headings listed. Definitely mess with them and change their formatting to something simple.
No one needs giant blue words as their chapter headings. (You can set your simpler formatting as your default style as well, so you don’t have to change it every time.)
Make the title or number of each chapter a heading. Then you can easily bounce around to different chapters through the navigation pane (check the Navigation Pane box under the View menu).
Bookmarks
These basically work the same way as headings, but they’re for anywhere in your document. Have a specific scene you need to do more research on? You can bookmark it and jump back to it later.
Bookmark by going to the Insert menu and clicking Bookmark. Name your bookmark and voilà. You can delete them easily from the popup menu as well.
Find and Replace
CTRL+F brings up a simple search option to find words and phrases in your document. CTRL+H brings up the full gambit. From that dialogue box, you can search, replace certain words with others (i.e. Jennifer now becomes Julia all through the manuscript), and go to any page, section, heading, bookmark, etc. that you need to go to.
Microsoft Word is Great for Editing Your Book
Word has a ton of options for editing your story, including comments, tracking changes, and comparing documents. All of these are under the Review menu.
I use the comments feature to make notes to myself where I need to recheck facts or add description later. It’s easy to navigate through the comments with the search feature or the buttons under the Review menu. Don’t forget to remove them all before saving your document as a PDF or sending it off to an editor.
Tracking changes is awesome and a lot of editors (for short stories anyway) will use this feature to collaborate with you during the editing process. You can accept or reject changes or even revert back to the original.
Finally, make sure you have grammar and spellcheck on! Grammar check even allows you to check style issues (like how to use an ellipsis correctly) and passive voice. It’s invaluable.
Pro tip: To keep you on track while you’re writing, turn off some of the more fine-tuning features of grammar check. There’s nothing that will ruin your flow more than a bunch of underlining you feel like you need to take care of immediately. I recommend running the full check when you’re done (or at least done for the day).
Formatting Your Book in Microsoft Word
Make sure you’re familiar with standard manuscript format for novels and formatting short stories. Take a look at those links and follow their instructions. You don’t want to get rejected out of hand because you tried some weird formatting that’s hard to look at.
One of the biggest gripes I see from editors is writers using spaces to indent paragraphs. Don’t do this. It makes it super hard on them when they’re putting a book together. Instead, use the ruler in Word (under the View menu) or the paragraph settings (under the Home menu) to adjust your tabs. A half inch is standard.
Despite what most of us were taught in school, the standard is now one space after periods, not two. This is another sticking point with editors, so don’t do it. If you’re used to two, there’s a grammar check feature in Word you can turn on to highlight every time you use two spaces.
Finally, use the page break option to break for a new chapter, not enter or a million spaces. You can find the page break under the Insert menu.
Pro tip: When in doubt about your formatting, you can turn on the Show/Hide option under the Home menu (looks like a paragraph symbol) to see all your formatting symbols.
Now That You’ve Mastered Microsoft Word, Go Write Your Book
Don’t let choosing writing software stagnant your writing. Don’t overthink it. You don’t need to keep up with the Joneses with the latest writing technology that’s trotted out on tech forums and in writing chats.
The important thing about writing a book is actually writing it. No fancy book writing software is going to help you with that.
So get writing!
Ever used Word to write a book? Do you have any more tips for how to write a book using Word? Let me know in the comments!
PRACTICE
Take fifteen minutes to write. Just write. Don’t worry about page setup, formatting, or which program you’re going to use. Open up Word or get out a pen and paper if you’d like!
When you’re done, share your writing in the comments. Don’t forget to comment on your fellow writers’ work!
Sarah Gribble
Sarah Gribble is the author of dozens of short stories that explore uncomfortable situations, basic fears, and the general awe and fascination of the unknown. She just released Surviving Death, her first novel, and is currently working on her next book.
Follow her on Instagram or join her email list for free scares.
Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms. She writes weird books for teens in lots of weird genres like, fantasy (Blood of Kings trilogy), science fiction (Replication), and dystopian (The Safe Lands trilogy). Find Jill on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or on her author website.
This week I had to typeset Tinker (RoboTales, book one) for printing. I love creating new books. It’s always an exciting time. I opened a template I made a few years back and got to work . . . and couldn’t remember how to do it. Thankfully I had created a handy tutorial a few years back to help other authors, so I downloaded a fresh copy from my website, printed it out, and I was set!
This got me thinking that others might like this information too. So I decided to blog about it.
Now, I realize that few of you need to know how to typeset a novel at this very moment. And even if you do, there are easier ways than doing it in Microsoft Word. You can buy a template to paste your book into, which is a lot less work. But, if you like to have complete creative control and don’t want to purchase Adobe InDesign and learn how to use it, knowing how to typeset in Word might be of interest to you. If you have no need of typesetting today but think you might in the future, bookmark this post or click here to print out a version of these instructions to save for later.
1. Save a copy of the document so that your original will be untouched in case you need to start over. Save your new file with something that you’ll instantly recognize as the typeset document, for example Title_typeset.doc or Name_of_Book_final.doc.
2. I also have a file where I keep all my self-published typeset documents, so you might want to create one of those too.
NOTE: If there is any strange formatting in the manuscript—odd paragraphs, weird font changes, anything you may have changed but it keeps coming back—open the document in file in WordPad. Since this is a program with very little formatting options, it will rid the file of anything unusual without removing italics, indentions, etc. Save the document from WordPad, then open it in MS Word and continue.
3. Track Changes. Check to make sure track changes is off and that any lingering changes have been accepted. You may want to do a quick glance to see if any editor comments remain in the manuscript.
4. Font colors. “Select All” in the document (CTRL A) and remove highlighting and make all the text black.
5. Trim size. Change the page size to the trim size of your final book. Keep in mind that you can choose anything here. You are the designer. But be sure to choose one of the industry standard trim sizes. Most trade paperback books are 5.5 inches x 8.5 inches, so that’s what I’ve used in my example.
a. Click on “File,” “Page Setup”
b. Margins: Top .75, Bottom .75, Left (inside) .75, Right (outside) .5
c. Mirror Margins = yes
d. Paper Size = 5.5” x 8.5” (width x height)
e. Click “OK” and “Save” your document
6. Style. Adjust the style to make get rid of any special style formatting and chance everything to your normal Word style settings.
a. “Select All” (CTRL A)
b. Click “Normal” on the Styles toolbar or in the “Styles” dropdown menu.
7. Font. Change the font to whatever you want. Do keep in mind that you want something legible for the text. Most books are typeset in two fonts: one for the body and one for chapter titles. Don’t worry about your chapter headings for now. Simply make everything in the font you want to use for the body of the book.
NOTE: If you’re not sure which size font to choose or want to see how the chapter titles look, you can print out ONE page of your typeset novel to look at it. Use scissors to trim it to 5.5” X 8.5” and set it inside a book from your shelf to get an idea of how the final page will look. Be careful not to print your whole book.
a. “Select All” (CTRL A)
b. Click on the “Font” dropdown menu and select the font of your choice. If you’re not sure which font to use, some recommended fonts are: Garmond, Century, Century Schoolbook, or Times New Roman. I used Garmond for my books.
c. While all the text is still selected, click on “Font Size” in the “Font” dropdown menu and select your font size. If you want your font to be bigger or smaller, you can change this. I used size 10 for the Go Teen Writers book. But I used size 12 font for my Chokepoint novella to make the book a little longer and to make it match the book that Jeff typeset since I wanted them to look identical.
8. Front matter pages. You have to add pages to the front of the book for the copyright page and title pages. Here is what I recommend, but if you want more or less, it’s up to you. Do keep in mind that the first page of chapter one should start on an odd numbered page.
a. Hold down “CTRL” and the “Home” key to move your cursor to the very beginning of the document.
b. Click on “Page Layout,” “Breaks,” and select “Next Page” section break. This will allow you to restart your page numbering. (Any time you want to restart your page numbering throughout the book, you’ll need to insert a “Next Page” section break.)
c. Hold down “CTRL” and the “Home” key to move your cursor back to the very beginning of the document again.
d. Now click on “Insert,” “Page Break” as many times as you want, making sure that the section break page is on the page before chapter one starts. If you can’t see where the page breaks are, turn on the paragraph marks by clicking on ¶.
e. You should now have four or six blank pages before your first chapter/prologue. If you want to add a table of contents, you will need to add more pages. Below is an example from the Go Teen Writers book.
9. Formatting the body. If you haven’t already, select the paragraph mark in the “Home” toolbar (Show/Hide ¶) so that you can see all the behind-the-scenes formatting like paragraphs (where you hit enter), tabs, line breaks, extra spaces, and so on.
a. Place your cursor at the beginning of the first page of the manuscript (chapter one or prologue). Be sure you’re at the beginning of the first line even if it is blank.
b. Hold down “CTRL” and the “Shift” key and the “End” key to select all of the manuscript body text.
c. While the text is selected, double check your chosen body font and size.
d. On the “Home” toolbar, bring up the “Paragraph” menu. On the “Indents and Spacing” tab…
i. Justify selection
ii. Special Indent First Line = .3
iii. Line Spacing, Exactly 14 points
iv. Do not set a left or right indention or before after spacing—delete any settings that exist.
e. On the “Line and Page Breaks” tab …
i. Deselect all of the checked boxes except for “Suppress Line Numbers.” Leave that one checked.
f. Click OK
10. Find and Replace. You can use the “Find and Replace” function to seek out things that need changed in your document.
NOTE: While the “Find and Replace” box is open, click on “More” to bring up more options. You can use the “Special” button to show a list of things you can search for in the document. If for some reason the “Find and Replace” search isn’t bringing up things that you know exist, you might check here to make sure the “Match case” option is off.
a. Deselect your text and hold down “CTRL” and the “Home” key to place your cursor at the beginning of the document.
b. On the “Home” toolbar, click on “Replace.”
i. Tabs. Type ^t (shift 6, lowercase letter t) in the “Find” box. Leave the “Replace” box empty. Do not put anything in there, not even a space. Click on “Replace All” to remove the tabs throughout your document.
ii. Spaces. Delete the ^t from the “Find” box and type in two spaces. In the “Replace” box, type in one space. Click on “Replace All” to remove the double spaces in your document. Do this again and again until the window tells you it has made 0 replacements.
iii. Spaces and Paragraphs. Delete the two spaces in the “Find” box and type in ^p and a space. Type ^p with no space in the “Replace” box. Click “Replace All.” This will remove any extra spaces (false indents) that appear at the beginning of a new line. Click “Replace All” until the window tells you it has made 0 replacements.
iv. Manual Line Breaks. Delete the ^p space and type in ^l. Click “Find Next” to search for any line breaks in your document. (These happen when you hold down “Shift” and hit “Enter.”) These forced returns will keep the following paragraph from indenting. Replace these manually throughout your document by deleting the manual line break and hitting Enter to get a new paragraph. Watch the ¶ marks so you can see how things change. Check the following paragraph to make sure it is properly indented properly without any leading spaces. (Spaces are noted with a dot in the show ¶.) Delete any leading spaces.
v. Column Breaks. Do a search for any column breaks (^n) and remove them manually by clicking “Find Next” and making sure you don’t want them.
vi. Hyphens. Type two hyphens (–) into the “Find” box and type an em dash (—) into the “Replace” box. You can either paste a proper em dash in the “Replace” box by finding one in your document and copying it. Or you can select it from the “Special” list when you click on “More.” Click “Replace All.” Then do a search for spaces around your em dashes. In the “Find” box, replace the double hyphens with a proper em dash, then add a space before it. Put only an em dash in the “Replace box.” Replace all of them. Do the same for a space trailing the em dash. Do this until there are 0 replacements.
vii. Find and replace the misuse of en dashes (–) with em dashes (—). Check the leading and trailing spaces as well.
viii. Ellipses. Decide how you want to format them in your manuscript. You can either use the auto format ellipses (…) or you can use the period space period space period one (. . .). If you use the period space one, you’ll need to do a search for (. . .) once your manuscript is formatted to make sure that none of them ended up at the end of a line and got cut in half. These you will have to fix manually by rewording the sentence so that the ellipses falls together on the same line. If you want to use the auto format ellipses, this won’t be a problem. So, if you do choose the auto format ellipses, do a “Find” for any that might not be picking up the format. Type three periods into the “Find” box without any spaces between (…) and paste an auto formatted ellipses (…) into the “Replace” box. Replace them all. Then do a search for the auto ellipse with leading and trailing spaces and make them the way you want them. You will also want to do a “Find” for two periods (..) and period space period (. .). This should help you make all your ellipses consistent.
ix. Quotes and Double Quotes. Do a “Find and Replace” of all the quotes to turn the straight quotes into curly quotes. You’ll do this four times. One for “, one for ”, one for ‘, and one for ’. Paste the same thing into both boxes and click “Replace all.” Sometimes this will cause a quote to turn the wrong way when there is an em dash or ellipses there, but hopefully you or your proofreader will find those before you upload for printing.
x. Underlines and Bold. Search for underlining by clicking in “Find” box and type “CTRL” “U” at the same time. Then click “Find Next” to see where you’ve used underlining. If you used underlining for italicized thoughts, you’ll need to replace the underlining with italics. You can click in the “Replace” box and type “CTRL” “I” to do this faster, but I recommend taking your time to check each one before you replace so that you’re sure you want to italicize. Once you’re done, do a search for “CTRL” “B” for bold to see where you’ve bolded things in your document and remove any you don’t want.
11. Asterisks. Do a “Find” for a single asterisk. This is where you will format your scene breaks. Make sure you format them the way you want them to look in the print book. If you want to use a fun image or dots like ●instead of plain asterisk, replace them manually. I like to get one scene break formatted the way I want it, then copy it. Then I use the “Find” function to go from asterisk to asterisk and paste in my formatted scene breaks. If you want to insert an image, go to “Insert” “Picture” and find the image you want to use. Resize it, center it, then you can copy it and paste it in all the right places.
12. Page Breaks and Chapter Headings. Additional page breaks should only occur between chapters and maybe at the end for your acknowledgements and about the author pages.
a. Do a “Find” for manual page breaks (^m) and section breaks (^b) and remove any that don’t belong.
b. You can format your chapter headings anyway you want to. Do a “Find” for the word “chapter” or if you didn’t use the word chapter, you’ll have to search for each number “1,” “2,” “45,” etc. or manually scroll through the document to find them all. Make sure they’re all the same font, size, and start in the same place (count the ¶ marks to be sure). I like to format one and copy and paste it, then go in and change the number or chapter title. You can keep chapter headings plain or get fancy. Below are some examples of chapter headings I’ve done.
13. To add pages to the end of the book. One of the best things about typesetting your own book is that you are in control of what you put in the back. You can cross promote yourself however you want. And you should. Someone finished your book and loves it wants to see what else you’ve written. So put in a list of the other books you’ve written, create JPG ads for your other series and put a few in the back. Maybe even put an ad for your author website, inviting the reader to come connect with you online.
a. Press “CTRL” “End” to get to the end of your document.
b. Click “Insert,” “Page Break” to insert a page. Insert as many extra pages as you’d like and make sure you end on an even page number.
14. Headers and Footers. Go back to the very beginning of your document and double click on the page somewhere in the header or footer area. This will bring up the Header & Footer Tools menu.
Here’s how it works. Headers and Footers are connected unless you unconnect them. You can only unconnect them where you’ve placed a section break. So, if you want no page numbers in the beginning, lowercase Roman numerals for the table of contents, numbers for the book, then no page numbers at the end where the acknowledgements and ads are, you will need to insert three section breaks. If you want to change the chapter heading in each chapter, you will need a section break between each chapter.
This can get very complicated. Unless you’re publishing a nonfiction book, I recommend leaving your headers the same throughout the body of the book and even letting the page numbers go through the acknowledgements and ads in the back. But it’s up to you.
Here’s an image of the Header & Footer Tools menu.
I put a yellow box around the buttons that will take you from one section’s header or footer to the next. The button at the bottom, “Link to Previous” is the button that controls whether your headers and footers stay the same of change. If you want them the same, link your headers and footers. If you want them to change, unlink them. You link or unlink on the first page of each new section.
To make things easy, simply center your page numbers and headings and put the same heading on each page, for example: Chokepoint by Jill Williamson. If you’d like to have the title on the right-hand page or above the odd numbers and your author name on the left-hand side or above the even numbers, check the box in the Header & Footer Tools that says “Different Odd & Even Pages.” If you want to have no page number on the very first page, check the box that says “Different First Page.”
If you get stuck on page numbers, I have a video tutorial on the subject at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UOuihsC7SyY
And there are many others video tutorials out there too.
Insert a page number by double clicking in the footer area and selecting your choice from the “Page Number” menu. Choose whether you want your page numbers on the left, center, or right. Once the number appears, you can highlight it and change the font or size.
For the headers, simply double click in that area of the document, type what you want, and format it.
Here are some sample instructions for how it could be done. If you try it this way as a method of training, you will learn the basic concept. Then you can make changes however you’d like.
a. Header. Go to the very first page of your document and double click in the header. The header in section one will have nothing in it as these are your front matter pages. Click the show next button to look at the header in section two.
i. Deselect “Link To Previous.”
ii. Check the boxes in the Header & Footer Tools menu that say “Different First Page” and “Different Odd & Even Pages.”
iii. Deselect “Link to Previous” again as it may have reselected itself. If you accidentally leave this on, it will mess up your numbering.
iv. Click on “Show Next” in the Header & Footer Tools menu. This will take you to the even page header.
v. Deselect “Link To Previous.”
vi. Enter your author name, font Garamond size 10, centered, with one return after the name. Adding a return will give a little space between the name and the body of the page and is easier than adjusting the header and footer margins.
vii. Click on “Show Next” and do the same for the title of the book on the odd page header. Don’t forget to deselect “Link to Previous” before making any changes.
viii. Click on “Show Next” to see section three. The acknowledgements and author bio page has no header or footer. You will probably need to deselect “Link to Previous” to keep the headers from showing up.
b. Footer. Go back to the first page of your document and click in the footer. The footer in section one will have nothing in it as these are your front matter pages. Click the show next button to look at the footer in section two.
i. In section two, deselect “Link to Previous.” Click on the “Page Number” dropdown menu and select “Format Page Numbers,” which will bring up the Page Number Format box. Here you can click the button “Start at” and enter a “1” so that your first page will start at one. Click “OK.”
ii. Click on the “Page Number” dropdown menu and select “Bottom of Page,” and then select the page number that is centered. The number should appear in your footer. Highlight it and change the font to Garamond, size 10.
iii. Click on “Show Next,” deselect “Link to Previous,” and insert a page number for the even page footer. Format it as you did before.
iv. Click on “Show Next” and do the same for the odd page footer.
v. Click on “Show Next” to deselect the “Link to Previous” for the acknowledgements and author pages in the back. Delete any page numbers if they exist.
15. Embed your fonts. Once your document looks just how you want it to, you need to embed your fonts. This allows you to use fonts that the printer might not have. Embedding the fonts with your file saves that font information in the file so that it’s available to the computer that opens your file. If you don’t embed your fonts, the computer that opens your document to print it or read it will choose a substitution font, and that might mess up your formatting. Simply printing or saving to PDF will not embed fonts.
a. Click “File,” “Options.”
b. In the “Options” window, click “Save.”
c. Under “Preserve fidelity when sharing this document,” check the box “Embed fonts in the file.” Make sure that the “Do not embed common system fonts” box is also checked.
d. Click “OK.”
16. Save to PDF. Now you’re ready to save your document.
a. Click “Save as.” Enter the name for the file. And under the “Save as type” dropdown menu, select PDF.
b. Click the “Options” button. Ensure that the “Document structure tags for accessibility” box is checked. Click “OK.”
c. Click “Save.”
Congratulations! You have just formatted your manuscript for publication.
Any questions?
A novelist is a weaver who skillfully intertwines storylines into an object of beauty. The reader is surprised and delighted: challenges are overcome, relationships develop, conflicts are worked through. The novelist creates believable characters who change and grow; they design compelling worlds to explore.
Writing a novel is a big job. According to Manuscript Agency, they’re typically 60,000 to 100,000 words in length, maybe longer. The Reedsy blog estimates that it takes most authors six months to a year to complete a book, though that depends on how much research is required and how much time the novelist devotes to writing each day. It could even take years, according to Kindlepreneur.
Not everyone focuses on research. Some prefer to dive in and start typing, seeing where the story takes them. Others spend more time researching than writing. Tolkien famously mapped entire worlds and created new languages in the process of writing his fantasy series.
How do you keep such a gigantic undertaking organized? Dedicated writing software can make the task easier. The best tool for you depends on your experience and workflow. Would you appreciate tools to develop your novel’s background material? How about guidance in what to write, or help polish your writing so that it’s readable and engaging? Do you need a tool to output a high-quality printed or electronic book?
This article is a comprehensive look at the novel-writing tools available to you. Our two favorites?
Scrivener is the Rolls Royce of writing apps. It includes the formatting features writers need—and then gets them out of the way when it’s time to write. It empowers you to outline your research and ideas, track word count goals and deadlines, rearrange your novel’s pieces, and compile the final result into a book.
Squibler, on the other hand, is much easier to learn and use. It’s designed to make writing easy. It’ll guide you through how to set up your project and what to write in each chapter. It helps you catch typos and identify where your writing is hard to read. It will also create an ebook at a click of the mouse.
While these two apps are the winners of our roundup, they’re not your only options. We’ll cover a range of alternatives, describing their strengths and weaknesses. Read on to discover which novel-writing app is the best for you.
Table of Contents
- Why Trust Me for This Buying Guide
- How the Right Software Can Help You Write a Novel
- Writing the First Draft
- Proofreading & Revision
- Editing & Publishing
- Best Novel Writing Software: The Winners
- Best for Experienced Writers: Scrivener
- Best for New Writers: Squibler
- Best Novel Writing Software: The Competition
- Ulysses
- Storyist
- LivingWriter
- Novlr
- Bibisco
- Shaxpir
- Dabble
- The Novel Factory
- Novelize
- Atticus
- Free Alternatives
- SmartEdit Writer
- Reedsy Book Editor
- Manuskript
- Manuscripts
- Wavemaker
- yWriter
- ApolloPad
- Best Novel Writing Software: How We Tested
- Does the Software Work on Your Computer or Device?
- Does the Software Offer Features That Help You Focus on the Writing Task?
- Does the Software Help You Develop Your Novel’s Backstory?
- Does the Software Help You Structure and Rearrange Your Novel?
- Does the Software Keep You On Track?
- Does the Software Help You Proofread and Revise Your Novel?
- Does the Software Help with Editing and Publishing?
- Feature Summary
- How Much Does the Software Cost?
Why Trust Me for This Buying Guide
My name is Adrian Try, and I’ve been a professional writer and editor for over a decade. I’ve tested and used countless writing apps, word processors, and text editors over those years.
I haven’t (yet) written a book or novel. However, I just checked my stats in Ulysses, the app where I’ve done most of my writing over the last five years. It tells me I’ve written enough text to fill seven novels. I use as many features as I can to structure and rearrange what I write, keep track of my words, and export them to useful formats.
But my favorite app might not be yours; writing for the web is certainly different than writing a novel. I kept that in mind when choosing our winners. The apps we include offer enough variety to appeal to a wide range of authors.
I also took the time to make this chart that summarizes the major features that each app offers. See the “How We Tested” section for more.
How the Right Software Can Help You Write a Novel
Writing a novel is a mammoth undertaking. The right writing app will split it into achievable pieces. The process involves a series of very different tasks, and there are apps out there to help with everything.
Writing the First Draft
Writing the first draft of your novel is a huge job requiring months of typing, imagination, and wrestling. Many apps provide a distraction-free interface to help you focus on the creative process. Often, there’s also a dark mode that’s easier on your eyes, especially at night.
They will also help you create your novel’s backstory, identify and develop your characters and locations, think through plot points, and keep track of your ideas. They will split your novel into an outline of chapters and scenes, then let you rearrange them with ease.
You may have deadlines to meet and word count requirements for each chapter. A good writing app will keep track of this for you, notifying you when you meet your goals and warning you when you’re behind schedule. They’ll also give you a clear indication of how many words you need to write each day to finish on time.
Proofreading & Revision
As proud as you are of your first draft, it’s just the starting point—it’s you telling the story to yourself. To make your novel more compelling, you may need to rearrange its structure, add or subtract sections, and improve its wording. You should also fix any spelling and grammar errors.
Half of the apps we cover include tools that help you achieve these tasks. Alternatively, you can use third-party specialized software like these:
- Grammarly Premium is an accurate and helpful spelling and grammar checker that will also improve your writing. We believe it’s the best grammar checker available.
- ProWritingAid is a similar product that is also worth considering. It can create detailed reports that show you in detail how you can write better.
- AutoCrit is designed for those who self-edit. It’s an editing platform for writers. The app uses artificial intelligence to offer step-by-step recommendations for improving your manuscript. After analyzing millions of published books, the software will show you how to best match the language for your genre and audience.
Editing & Publishing
If you intend to work with a professional agency or editor, you’ll find that they have specific software requirements. Usually, they prefer Microsoft Word (or possibly Google Docs) because of the powerful track changes feature that shows you suggested edits and lets you act on them.
For that reason, many writing apps opt not to offer editing and collaboration features. In fact, just two of the apps in our roundup do. They’re good options if you plan to self-edit, along with AutoCrit.
However, most apps on our list allow you to create ebooks and print-ready PDFs. Some offer more control over their appearance than others, while others focus on ease of use. Some even help you sell and distribute your finished novel.
Best Novel Writing Software: The Winners
Here are our recommendations along with a quick review of each of them.
Best for Experienced Writers: Scrivener
Scrivener 3 is “the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists.” It’s a full-featured writing app with a learning curve that runs on Mac, Windows, and iOS, and the best app overall for serious authors. Read our full Scrivener review.
$49 (Mac) or $45 (Windows) from the developer’s website (one-time fee). $44.99 from the Mac App Store. $19.99 (iOS) from the App Store.
Features:
- Focused writing: Distraction-free, dark mode theme
- Research: Freeform
- Structure: Outliner, corkboard
- Progress: Word count goals, deadline
- Proofreading: Spell check, grammar check (Mac only)
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Powerful Compile feature
Like several other programs included in our roundup, Scrivener was developed by an author who couldn’t find a software tool that suited him. So he created the perfect writing tool for him—and possibly for you, too.
When you open the program, you’ll find a writing pane on the right. This is where you’ll spend the bulk of your time typing the content of your novel. On the left is an outline of your novel’s structure. This splits your writing project into manageable chunks that can be rearranged via drag-and-drop. The outliner can be viewed in more detail, including columns that display the status of each section.
At the bottom of the outline, you’ll find a Research section. This is where you can develop the background material of your novel. You can list and describe key characters and locations. You can store other ideas that come to you. This is all displayed in its own freeform outline, which you can organize in a way that makes sense to you.
Some authors might prefer an alternate app that offers more guidance, like prompting you to develop your characters by describing their history, personalities, and relationships. Storyist, Bibisco, Dabble, and Novlr all do this. Scrivener is also weak at proofreading, revision, and editing, which some other apps excel at.
The Corkboard is another way to get an overview of your novel. It displays each section on an index card along with a brief synopsis. Those cards can be reordered via drag-and-drop. Those cards can be reordered via drag-and-drop.
Scrivener allows you to set goals, such as the word count requirement for your novel (and even specific sections), as well as a deadline. This information can be tracked in a more detailed outline view.
Once your novel’s writing stage is complete, the app will create an ebook or print-ready PDF for you. The Compile feature offers a selection of layouts in a wide range of formats. Alternatively, you can export your novel as a DOCX file if you intend to work with a professional editor or agency.
Alternatives: Ulysses and Storyist are two alternate, powerful desktop apps that run on Mac and iOS. Manuskript and SmartEdit Writer are powerful free alternatives. If you prefer a writing app that guides you through the development of story elements, consider Storyist or Dabble.
Best for New Writers: Squibler
Squibler is “a text editor that conforms to you” and “makes the writing process easy.” It’s a quality writing app that takes a very different approach to Scrivener:
- It works online rather than being a standalone app
- It offers a guided approach to writing your novel
- It automatically suggests how you can improve your writing
- It lets you collaborate with others
If Scrivener seems too hard to use or doesn’t fit your writing workflow, Squibler might be a better choice. This is especially true if you appreciate a less complex app, help with initial setup, and guidance through the writing process.
Sign up for a free 14-day trial on the official website (a credit card number is required), then pay $9.99/month for continued use.
Features:
- Focused writing: Distraction-free
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Outliner, corkboard
- Progress: Word count goals
- Proofreading: Spelling and grammar check
- Revision: Auto-suggested grammar improvements
- Collaboration: Other writers but not editors
- Publishing: Book formatting, export to PDF or Kindle
When starting a new project, you can select from several book templates, including general fiction, romance novel, children’s book, historical novel, fantasy fiction book, thriller novel, 30 chapter novel, mystery, and more. This will give you a head start by setting up chapters, metadata, and a daily writing goal.
Chapters are pre-filled with helpful information to guide you through building your novel. For example, in the 30-chapter novel template, Chapter 1 introduces the main character, and you’re given a list of questions that should be answered as you write.
With Squibler, the guidance you’re offered is right there in the text. Other apps do this in a separate reference section, where you individually develop each story element on index cards. If you prefer to jump right into typing your novel, this app may suit you better. Those who love planning would be better served by an app like Storyist, Bibisco, Dabble, or Novlr. Notes and comments can be left in the margin.
As you type, spelling and grammar errors are flagged, and suggestions for improving your writing are made. This feels very similar to Grammarly Premium.
A distraction-free mode is available. It simplifies the interface to promote focus. You can also enable dark mode, which is easier on the eyes.
You can invite team members to help with the novel, though each one will cost an additional $10 per month. You can designate each person to be either a member or administrator.
When your novel is complete, you can download it as a PDF, text file, Word file, or Kindle ebook. Unlike Scrivener, no formatting options are offered.
Alternatives: Novlr and Novelize are online writing apps with freeform reference sections. LivingWriter, Shaxpir, and The Novel Factory are online alternatives that offer guided development of story elements. Free online writing apps include Reedsy Book Editor, Wavemaker, and ApolloPad.
Best Novel Writing Software: The Competition
Here is a list of options that are also great for consideration.
Ulysses
Ulysses is “the Ultimate Writing App for Mac, iPad, and iPhone.” It’s my personal favorite writing app, though it’s not quite as powerful as Scrivener for writing novels. It runs on Mac and iOS.
Rather than working in an outline, each section of your novel is a sheet. These sheets can be grouped together and combined to export a complete ebook. Ulysses’ strength is its simplicity, including a distraction-free interface, the use of Markdown for formatting, and a single library of all your work.
I find it easier to focus when using Ulysses than any other writing app. Its writing goals keep track of your progress; an indicator turns green when each section meets the target. It will also let you know how much you need to write each day to meet your deadline. In the Ulysses vs Scrivener article, we compare it in detail with our winner.
Download it from the Mac App Store for a free trial, then subscribe for $5.99/month or $49.99/year.
Features:
- Focused writing: Distraction-free, dark mode
- Research: Freeform
- Structure: Sheets and groups
- Progress: Word count goals, deadline
- Proofreading: Spelling and grammar check
- Revision: Style check using the integrated LanguageTool Plus service
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Export to PDF, ePub
Storyist
Storyist is “a powerful writing environment for novelists and screenwriters.” It runs on Mac and iOS and includes many of the same features as Scrivener. Storyist has two strengths that our winner doesn’t: it correctly formats screenplays, and it has a greater focus on guiding you through the research and planning stage of your novel.
The Storyboard displays index cards that give you an overview of your novel and shows each character’s photos. Story sheets are dedicated pages that let you develop a character, plot point, or scene.
Storyist also offers robust goal-tracking features. There’s also a Book Editor that lets you format the appearance of the final product. It’s not as flexible as Scrivener’s Compile feature. We also compare it in detail with Scrivener in a separate article: Scrivener vs Storyist.
Purchase for $59 from the official website (one-time fee) or download for free from the Mac App Store and choose the $59.99 in-app purchase. Also available for iOS and costs $19 from the App Store.
Features:
- Focused writing: Distraction-free, dark mode
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Outliner, storyboard
- Progress: Word count goals, deadline
- Proofreading: Spelling and grammar check
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Book editor
LivingWriter
LivingWriter is “the #1 writing app for authors and novelists.” It’s an online app that guides you through the process of developing your story elements. An outliner helps you plan your chapters, a corkboard gives you an overview, and a sidebar lets you jot down notes.
Outline templates from successful stories and movies are included; Smart Text automatically types character and location names as you type. This feature also makes every story element a hyperlink that lets you quickly access your notes. Where was Frodo born? Just click on his name to find out.
Writing goals help you keep track of your progress. At any point, you can share what you’ve done so far with a friend or editor, giving them read-only access or letting them edit. They’ll even be able to see your notes and research.
Start your 30-day free trial at the official website (credit card required), then subscribe for $9.99/month or $96/year.
Features:
- Focused writing: Distraction-free, dark mode
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Outliner, corkboard
- Progress: Word count goals, deadline
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: Other writers, editors
- Publishing: Export to DOCX and PDF using Amazon manuscript formats
Novlr
Novlr is “novel writing software built by writers for writers.” It’s an online app with an offline mode, and it’s the next best thing to Squibler.
It doesn’t guide you through developing your story elements but offers a free-form notes section to store your research. Like Squibler, it includes an advanced grammar checker that offers writing style suggestions. There are also short writing courses that take less than 10 minutes a day.
When you need help, Novlr can put you in touch with free and paid-for professionals who can proofreader, design, edit, and publish your novel. Alternatively, you can share it (read-only) with friends and editors.
Sign up for a 2-week free trial on the official website (no credit card required), then subscribe for $10/month or $100/year.
Features
- Focused writing: Distraction-free, night and evening mode
- Research: Freeform
- Structure: Navigation pane
- Progress: Word count goals
- Proofreading: Spelling and grammar check
- Revision: Writing style suggestions
- Collaboration: Read-only access for editors
- Publishing: Export to ebook formats
Bibisco
Bibisco is “novel writing software that helps you to write your novel, in a simple way.” It’s available on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Although a free version is available, serious writers should spend 23 euros on the Supporters edition (28 euros recommended).
This app will helpfully guide you through the process of creating the elements of your story. It enables you to create your world, interview your characters, and visualize their story in a timeline. Your novel is broken into chapters and scenes, which can be analyzed according to length, time, and location.
You can write in a distraction-free environment, set your own writing goals, and export your finished work in ePub format. In the Scrivener vs Bibisco article, we compare it in detail with Scrivener.
Download the free Community version from the official website, but serious writers should purchase the Supporters edition.
- Focused writing: Yes
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Corkboard, timeline
- Progress: Word count goals, deadline
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: It manages scenes revision
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Export to PDF, ePub
Shaxpir
Shaxpir is “software for storytellers” and works online, on Mac, and on Windows. William Shakespeare was famously inconsistent on how he spelled his surname, but this version is the most creative I’ve seen.
The software includes a manuscript builder that allows you to rearrange your novel using drag-and-drop. It also includes a world-building notebook that keeps track of your story elements—characters, places, and themes. You can add concept art, take notes in the margins, set goals, and track your progress.
Sign up for a free 30-day trial on the official website. Shaxpir 4: Everyone is free, but for everything you need to write a novel, you’ll need to subscribe to Shaxpir 4: Pro for $7.99/month.
Features:
- Focused writing: Custom themes
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Outliner
- Progress: Word count tracking
- Proofreading: Spelling and grammar check
- Revision: Writing style check
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Export to ePub
Dabble
Dabble is a cloud-based writing tool that operates both online and off. Versions are also available for Mac and Windows.
It aims to offer most of the functionality of our winner in an easier-to-use package. Overall, it succeeds. It lacks some of Scrivener’s more advanced features, but many authors who never felt at home with Scrivener found success with Dabble. For more details, refer to our comparison article of Dabble vs Scrivener.
Sign up for a free 14-day trial on the official website, then choose a plan to subscribe to. Basic $10/month, Standard $15/month, Premium $20/month. You can also purchase a lifetime license for $399.
Features:
- Focused writing: Distraction-free, dark mode
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Outliner
- Progress: Word count goals, deadline
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: No
The Novel Factory
The Novel Factory is “the ultimate novel writing software.” You can use it online or download a Windows application. It focuses on planning your novel in advance—the research phase—so it’s a good fit for very organized authors. It lets you plan out sections, characters, locations, and items, offering a wide range of statistics on your progress.
Try the online or Windows version free for 30 days. Then purchase a Windows desktop license for $39.99 from the official website, or subscribe to the online version from $7.50/month.
Features:
- Focused writing: No
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Storyboard
- Progress: Word count goals
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: No
Novelize
Novelize helps you “focus on writing” and “finish your novel.” It’s an online tool developed by a family of writers. They’ve aimed to create a streamlined tool that won’t distract you from writing.
The app operates in three modes—outline, write, and organize. A grammar checker is omitted, though the software is compatible with Grammarly and ProWritingAid. A notebook is always available on the side, so you can keep track of your thoughts as you write.
Sign up for a free account and a 17-day trial on the official website (credit card required). Then, subscribe for $45/year.
Features:
- Focused writing: Minimizes distractions, dark theme
- Research: Freeform
- Structure: Outliner
- Progress: No
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: No
Atticus
Atticus is a newer tool, envisioned as the ultimate writing, formatting, and collaborating program for writers. If Scrivener, Google Docs, and Vellum all got together and had a baby, its name would be Atticus.
While not as complex as Scrivener, the layout is delightfully intuitive, and it provides advanced features when it comes to formatting. Once your book is written, all it takes is a few clicks of the button, and you can have a beautifully formatted eBook and PDF ready for publication. And the best part is that it runs on virtually all platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebook.
As a writing software, Atticus has everything an author might need. It’s got most of the text editing capability that you would expect from any word processor, but also adds writing goal features to track your word count and improve your habits.
It has a one-time cost of $147, and this covers all future upgrades which you will get at no extra cost.
Features:
- Focused writing: No
- Research: No
- Structure: Navigation pane
- Progress: Word count goals, deadline
- Proofreading: Spelling and grammar check
- Revision: Coming Soon
- Collaboration: Coming Soon
- Publishing: Export to PDF, ePub, Docx
Free Alternatives
SmartEdit Writer
SmartEdit Writer (formerly Atomic Scribbler) is “free software for novel and short story writers.” It started life as an add-on for Microsoft Word and is now a standalone Windows app that helps you plan, write, edit, and polish your novel.
Download for free from the official website. The Word add-on is still available for $77, and a Pro version of the add-on costs $139.
Features:
- Focused writing: Dark theme
- Research: Freeform
- Structure: Outliner
- Progress: Daily word count
- Proofreading: Spell check
- Revision: SmartEdit helps improve your writing
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: No
Reedsy Book Editor
Reedsy Book Editor is “a beautiful production tool that takes care of the formatting and conversion before you have even finished writing.” It takes you through the entire process of creating a novel, from writing to editing to typesetting. However, it lacks strong proofreading and revision tools, so self-editors will need to use third-party tools.
Get started by signing up for a free account on the official website.
Features:
- Focused writing: Distraction-free, evening mode
- Research: No
- Structure: Navigation pane
- Progress: No
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: Other writers, editors
- Publishing: Typeset to PDF and ePub, sales and distribution
Manuskript
Manuskript is an “open-source tool for writers” that includes a helpful novel assistant that helps you grow your ideas and develop characters, plots, and a detailed universe. It offers many of the features of our winners, but is free and looks quite dated.
The app is free (open-source) and can be downloaded from the official website. If you’d like to support the app, you can contribute in various ways.
Features:
- Focused writing: Distraction-free
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Outliner, corkboard, storyboard
- Progress: Word count goals
- Proofreading: Spell check
- Revision: Frequency analyzer
- Collaboration: Other writers, editors
- Publishing: Compile and export to PDF, ePub
Manuscripts
Manuscripts is “a writing tool like nothing you have seen before” that lets you “plan, edit, and share your work.” It seems designed for academic documents, but it can be used to write novels as well.
Manuscripts is a free (open-source) Mac application and can be downloaded from the official website.
Features:
- Focused writing: No
- Research: No
- Structure: Outliner
- Progress: Word count
- Proofreading: Spelling and grammar check
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Creates publication-ready manuscripts
Wavemaker
Wavemaker is “novel writing software” in the form of a progressive web app that allows you to write online or off. It’s free, though you can optionally support the developer with a donation via PayPal or Patreon.
Access the software online from the official website and install it with the press of a button.
Features:
- Focused writing: No
- Research: Freeform
- Structure: Outliner, corkboard, timeline, planning board, mind maps
- Progress: Word count
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Export as ePub (experimental feature)
yWriter
yWriter is “powerful novel-writing software” for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android and was developed by a writer. The software and website look quite dated, and the database nature of this app requires some learning. For a detailed comparison with our winner, refer to our article Scrivener vs. yWriter.
Find and download the latest version for your operating system on the official website.
- Focused writing: No
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Outliner, corkboard, storyboard
- Progress: Word count, deadline
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Export to ePub and Kindle
ApolloPad
ApolloPad is “a feature-packed online writing environment that will help you finish your novels, ebooks, and short stories.” It’s a web app with an offline mode and is free to use while in beta. It lets you add to-do items to your notes, develop characters, locations, and objects, and track your progress on a dashboard.
Register for a free account on the official website.
- Focused writing: Distraction-free, dark themes
- Research: Guided
- Structure: Outliner, corkboard, timeline
- Progress: Word count goals
- Proofreading: No
- Revision: No
- Collaboration: No
- Publishing: Export to PDF and ePub
Best Novel Writing Software: How We Tested
Here are a few things that we take into consideration when evaluating the best software and apps for novel writing.
Does the Software Work on Your Computer or Device?
You obviously need to choose a program that runs on the computer or device you own. Some run in web browsers, while others are desktop or mobile apps developed for certain operating systems.
Online:
- Squibler
- LivingWriter
- Novlr
- Shaxpir
- Dabble
- The Novel Factory
- Novelize
Mac:
- Scrivener
- Ulysses
- Storyist
- Bibisco
- Shaxpir
- Dabble
Windows:
- Scrivener
- Bibisco
- Shaxpir
- Dabble
- The Novel Factory
iOS:
- Scrivener
- Ulysses
- Storyist
Does the Software Offer Features That Help You Focus on the Writing Task?
How do most writers procrastinate? By fiddling with the formatting of their text, they’ve already written instead of writing something new. Most writing apps offer a distraction-free mode that hides the toolbar and other windows from view. Many also offer a dark mode, which reduces strain on your eyes, especially at night.
These apps offer a distraction-free mode:
- Scrivener
- Squibler
- Ulysses
- Storyist
- LivingWriter
- Novlr
- Dabble
While these offer a dark mode or theme:
- Scrivener
- Squibler
- Ulysses
- Storyist
- LivingWriter
- Novlr
- Shaxpir
- Dabble
- Novelize
Does the Software Help You Develop Your Novel’s Backstory?
While some writers prefer to dive in and start typing, almost all writers can use somewhere to record their ideas and develop their thoughts. Your research shouldn’t count in your manuscript’s word count or be exported in the finished document.
Some writers prefer a freeform approach, developing ideas and structuring them as they like. Here are the apps that allow you to work that way:
- Scrivener
- Ulysses
- Novlr
- Novelize
Other writers appreciate more guidance. The app may offer specific areas to work on your characters, locations, and plot ideas. They may go even further by asking questions that prompt you to develop them more fully. Here are apps offering that extra support:
- Squibler
- Storyist
- LivingWriter
- Bibisco
- Shaxpir
- Dabble
- The Novel Factory
Does the Software Help You Structure and Rearrange Your Novel?
Most apps provide some way to get an overview of your novel and rearrange its pieces, such as an outline, corkboard, storyboard, or timeline. Some apps offer several.
Outliner:
- Scrivener
- Squibler
- Storyist
- LivingWriter
- Shaxpir
- Dabble
- Novelize
Corkboard or index cards:
- Scrivener
- Squibler
- LivingWriter
- Bibisco
Storyboard:
- Storyist
- The Novel Factory
Timeline:
- Bibisco
Other:
- Ulysses: Sheets and groups
- Novlr: Navigation pane
Does the Software Keep You On Track?
Authors often need to work to a deadline and meet word count requirements. Here are the apps that let you set word count goals:
- Scrivener
- Squibler
- Ulysses
- Storyist
- LivingWriter
- Novlr
- Bibisco
- Dabble
- The Novel Factory
And these let you stay on top of your deadlines:
- Scrivener
- Ulysses
- Storyist
- LivingWriter
- Bibisco
- Dabble
Does the Software Help You Proofread and Revise Your Novel?
Apps that offer suggestions on how to improve your writing are helpful but rare. Here are those that help:
Squibler: Auto-suggested grammar improvements
- Ulysses: Style check using the integrated LanguageTool Plus service
- Novlr: Writing style suggestions
- Shaxpir: Writing style check
Does the Software Help with Editing and Publishing?
Are you writing as part of a team? Only two apps allow you to collaborate with other writers:
- Squibler
- LivingWriter
Just two allow you to collaborate with editors:
- LivingWriter
- Novlr (read-only access)
Most offer some way of publishing your novel as an ebook or print-ready PDF:
- Scrivener: Powerful Compile feature
- Squibler: Book formatting, export to PDF or Kindle
- Ulysses: Export to PDF, ePub
- Storyist: Book editor
- LivingWriter: Export to DOCX and PDF using Amazon manuscript formats
- Novlr: Export to ebook formats
- Bibisco: Export to PDF, ePub
- Shaxpir: Export to ePub
Feature Summary
This chart summarizes the major features that each app offers. Green means that it does the job well, orange that it is not as full-featured in that area, and red means that it lacks that feature entirely.
Key:
- Focus: DF = distraction-free, DM = dark mode
- Structure: O = outliner, C = corkboard, S = storyboard, T = timeline
- Progress: W = word count goal, D = deadline
- Proofreading: S = spelling check, G = grammar check
- Collaboration: W = writers, E = editors
How Much Does the Software Cost?
Most of the apps we cover are affordable. Many are subscription-based, but there are some quality programs you can purchase outright for a reasonably low price.
Purchase outright:
- Bibisco: $17.50 (actually 15 euros)
- The Novel Factory (for Windows): $39.99
- Scrivener: $49 (Mac), $45 (Windows)
- Storyist: $59
- Dabble: $399 for a lifetime license
Subscription (per month):
- Novelize: $3.75 (actually $45/year)
- Ulysses: $5.99
- The Novel Factory (online): $7.50
- Shaxpir: $7.99 (free plan also available)
- Squibler: $9.99
- LivingWriter: $9.99
- Novlr: $10
- Dabble: $10 (Basic), $15 (Standard), $20 (Premium)
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There’s a lot of great novel-writing software out there to help you streamline the process of writing a novel. The best of the bunch are Scrivener (for drafting) and Autocrit (for editing). That said, there’s one piece of software you’ve probably been using for years: Word. Word remains an excellent tool, especially if you like to keep all of your writing in a single document and just pick up where you left off with your story each day. If you want to stick to the basics, here are some tips on how to organize your novel in Word.
- The master folder for a novel: I keep this on my desktop. It is labeled with the novel’s title, and anything I write for the novel goes into this folder.
- The current draft file: This file is the current draft in Word, labeled with title and date.
- Research file:
- Notes file: This is the file where I type any notes to myself that I’m not putting on the physical manuscript (more about physical note-taking later). For me, this file is fairly wide-ranging. Each time I type a note, I give it a heading, such as “Idea for wedding scene” or “Add to the piece about time.” The headings are in bold. The idea is to be able to easily scan the file with my eyes and see what’s there. I also try to keep the headings specific enough that I can do a search and find what I’m looking for. I have a Notes file for each draft–and the file is named Notes along with a date. You could also call it Notes Draft 1, Notes Draft 2, etc. I just do it by date because I write so many drafts, having the date in the title makes it easy to see what is more recent, older, etc.
- Cuts file: These are scenes, paragraphs, and even sentences that I’ve cut during any stage of revision that I think I might want to add back in later. I don’t put everything I cut here! Something are just deleted and gone. This is for scenes, paragraphs, and sentences that have value and I don’t want to send into the ether. I title this Cuts-Date, so by the end I have several Cuts files.
- Once I begin revising, I make a new document for each major revision, labeled by date.
That’s really all you need to organize your novel in Word. If you want a lot of features to help you organize your research and move chapters around with ease, consider Scrivener (read my review of Scrivener here).
Although life without Word would be discombobulating, Word is pretty bare bones when it comes to organizing, so it’s a good idea to supplement it with other software like Scrivener and Autocrit. See my post on the best novel-writing software.
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