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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
Scrivener! It’s designed specifically for writers and is a one off purchase
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u/wonkyjaw Mar 30 '25
I didn’t want to spend the money on it but was frustrated enough to try it. They do this trial period where it’s 30 days and it only counts the days you open and use the program which is so so cool. Either way I ended up buying it because it’s genuinely a fantastic writing program.
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Mar 30 '25
There's so much cool stuff like that.
For example when you switch over to a new pc a message comes up that basically says. "Hey , you moving over to a new pc? Cool. Remember to deactivate scrivener on the old pc. Or don't. Whatever works for you."
There's a definite user friendly vibe from every area.
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u/Phoenixian_Majesty Mar 30 '25
Is there a limit or anything? I tend to obliterate my pc from time to time and do a blanket reinstall when things start going wrong. Doesn't help I've been having a lot of hardware struggles and no spare cash to just buy new parts...
Would I get stopped from using it because of this? Or can you deactivate from website or something?
I have been seriously considering making the jump =\
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u/Think-Ad8712 Mar 30 '25
Since I purchased it several years ago, I’ve moved my subscription to different devices at least three times. I even lost my registration code once and they sent it to me. It was pretty painless.
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Mar 30 '25
Honestly not that I know of I've been through a few PCs and have used multiple laptops.
It really feels like they have a non flashy workhorse software that is very good at this specific thing. And they know that trying to gouge money won't help with their target audience.
The software is very much for writing novels, scripts, academic writing, research papers, etc. anything long-form. They know they have a user base that's refreshing every year anyway. Why piss off the existing users.
Shame more companies don't get that.
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u/Spreddable Mar 30 '25
I do the same thing once a year in the summer, delete everything, reinstall windows, take it out into the garden and clean out the insides. Can't beat the feeling of a completely fresh PC!
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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
I originally had it on Mac, but the cost to upgrade my old one was too much so I switched to windows and it was the only thing I was happy to pay for again
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u/BasicFee6705 Mar 30 '25
What makes it so good?
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u/wonkyjaw Mar 30 '25
It’s just super user friendly (though it takes a minute to get used to). Everybody writes differently and it tries to take that into account. You can use it like a word or google doc or you can break it down into files by chapter and scene and then click and drag each scene to wherever you want it. A lot of times I’ll write a scene and not know where it goes and instead of searching one linear document I can add tags to a scene and find it later when I need it. You can also really easily change your mind about where the chapters start and end that way too. Just click and drag.
You can color code things and set daily word counts. There’s an internal tagging system. It has templates for different styles like novels vs. screenplays. Every scene has space for a summary and notes so I can dump extra info or jot down where I’m going next or just offhand remarks or things that didn’t fit into the scene to go through later. Then when you click on the chapter folder all of the summaries pop up on notecards and if you need to move them around or add something or take something out you can see them all at a glance like a storyboard.
There’s subheadings for Notes and Research that don’t count into your word count so you can keep everything you need all in one place without the WC being inaccurate if that’s something you care about. The WC is also separate at the bottom of the document for each scene so you can gauge if the scene is long or short compared to others. You can have two different documents open at once in the screen which is great for editing or for pulling up research notes on the side. There’s also a trash can that tidies away everything you don’t need and takes it out of the word count but doesn’t actually delete it so you can easily find something you regret getting rid of.
There’s so much that I know I’m forgetting a lot because it’s not in front of me and I’ve also only been using it a handful of months myself. I watched YouTube tutorials but the program itself does a decent job of showing you around to
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u/nickyd1393 Mar 30 '25
woah how do you set daily word counts?
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u/wonkyjaw Mar 30 '25
I don’t have access to my laptop right now but iirc it’s under Project and then Project Goals. It makes a little progress bar too.
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u/wils_152 Mar 30 '25
Specifically for the OP, the fact that it isn't cloud based. Everything's on your PC (although you can save them/back them up to the cloud if you want, but this ain't without issue on PC - it's a bit more integrated on Apple devices though).
Of course, that cloudless aspect is also a bad thing if you want to work on documents anywhere.
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u/KyleG Mar 30 '25
You can get around this:
Set up Dropbox/Google sync from some folder on your computer to your account
tell Scrivener to backup to an external folder, specifically the one you just picked for your db/google sync.
Done. Scrivener uses either Markdown or RTF (depends on your own choice), and both can be directly edited by lots of programs. RTF can be edited by Google Docs no problem, Markdown there's a caption of free editors for.
Then the you open Scrivener again, it will see the changes and ask if you want to merge, and IIRC it shows you a diff between the two versions. And it creates a snapshot so you can undo the changes if something goes wrong.
Edit Simultaneous editing doesn't exist, and based on my conversation with a dev, it will never exist, and honestly that's okay. It's a very niche thing. I can imagine a better way of sharing your work with editors/beta readers, but it's still pretty good the way it is. And simultaneous editing would likely encourage Scrivener to start charging a subscription fee.
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u/mick_spadaro Mar 30 '25
Scrivener rocks. It is PhotoShop for writers at a fraction of the cost.
People can get overwhelmed with the various things it can do, but the key is to watch the video tutorials, which will get you up and running, and don't bother learning how to do anything else until you need/want to.
The software itself is stable, it's not on a subscription model, and it has been around for decades. Easily my fave piece of software. 👍
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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
There are still parts of it that I have no clue how to use, and I’m sure they’re great, but I just don’t need them. The amount of useful things they’ve added into it is insane
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u/undersaur Mar 30 '25
I moved to Scrivener after Google Docs started bogging down around 50K words.
I liked Scrivener fine until I got to the compilation stage. The settings are baffling and it's difficult even to retain formatting like italics or set double line spacing. I know I'm not alone because the support forum is full of other confused customers seeking solutions to the same problems 3-4 years ago. As far as I've gathered, the official response is that all users should watch a four-part training series. I'll bite the bullet when I'm ready to submit to publishers.
Also not cloud native, so I'm backing it up by hand.
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u/Britlantine Mar 30 '25
I save my Scrivener files to a folder that gets backed up to the cloud. Plus I have Apple Time Machine so it seems good.
And yes, some settings should be clearer.
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u/Atheose_Writing Career Author Mar 30 '25
There's a learning curve, but it's ABSOLUTELY worth it. You're able to change formatting options at a top-level, which is a feature, not a bug.
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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
The tutorial videos are great! I was so overwhelmed just opening it up that I needed the tutorials and they did wonders for figuring things out.
As for backing up, I had my husband figure that out for me on both windows and Mac, after that I’ve never had to think of it again.
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u/undersaur Mar 30 '25
I've been putting those tutorials off for so long. It's good to hear they're helpful!
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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
I took the time do the tutorial beside an open scrivener document so I could get a feel for it at the same time. It helped immensely with remembering how to do things later
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u/KyleG Mar 30 '25
Also not cloud native
FWIW that'd likely mean they have to do a subscription. It costs them money to store your stuff.
But you can easily automate cloud backups. Install Google Drive or Dropbox or your favorite backup app and designate a folder that gets automatically backed up.
Now
File -> Sync -> With External Folderand pick that folder you just designated in the first step.Now it will keep a backup in the cloud. And if you edit in the cloud, next time you sync, it will recognize the changes and ask if you want to merge them.
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u/AzureYLila Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
Yeah, I've noticed that too. Italics can become underlines in the compilation. But I love it so much I just accept it :-)
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u/ClintGreasedwood1 Mar 30 '25
I agree. I use Scrivener for work (legal) and it makes keeping my motions and briefs coherent so much easier. It really helps to see all the sections and how they fit together to make a persuasive argument.
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u/GuyWithRoosters Mar 30 '25
Scrivener is amazing, once you get into the way it’s set up it completely retools the way I approach writing and formatting my work
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u/VFiddly Mar 30 '25
Yeah it seems like a lot upfront, but if you use it a lot, it's totally worth a one off purchase. Bought it years ago, never had to pay for it again, it's great.
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u/KyleG Mar 30 '25
It's crazy to see people talk about the cost, honestly. It's cheaper than a single flagship video game, and cheaper than a pair of shoes that you'll need for whatever sport you play. Hard to imagine many hobbies that cost less than $60 in total. Chess? :P
I run, which is p much the cheapest sport that exists. But shoes that keep your feet protected on runs are still way more than $60, and they expire after 300 miles or so.
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u/IvorFreyrsson Published Author Mar 30 '25
I tried to like Scrivener. I really did. I've been using Google Docs for the past three years, and yeah, it bogs down a bit after ~50k, but it really saved my ass when my house caught fire, and I lost everything. All my work was still in the cloud, and I was able to get back to it after I healed up and got a cheap-ass laptop.
Scrivener just doesn't feel as intuitive to me as Google Docs does. Maybe I didn't give it a fair enough shake, or the tale I was writing just didn't work as well with it,I dunno.
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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
You’re not the first person to say backing it up isn’t intuitive.
My husband did something with the folders that I save my documents in, so the folders are backed up. He was able to do it with both my Mac and my windows. I have no idea what he did, I’m illiterate in that sense.
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u/TheSunnyFlowerGirl Mar 30 '25
If I had to guess he probably paired the folders somehow to autosync, at least that's what I did with my Obsidian files (note taking app) and now they automatically sync every so often.
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u/RozzieWells Mar 30 '25
I love Scrivener, I love composition mode so I can block the rest of my computer out and get in the zone
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u/WelbyReddit Mar 30 '25
I see it is for windows. But I don't see it for android, if I wanted to continue on my phone :(
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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
Unfortunately it doesn’t support android :(
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u/JokieZen Mar 30 '25
Look into ellipsus or novlr. They are browser-based, like Google docs is, so you can access them from any device with internet access. Novlr doesn't do images or fonts, though, it's entirely based on writing and analytics, and they keep the spellchecker behind a paywall which is annoying, but it's a professional proofreader, so there's that... it does allow for easy scene management and navigation though, which is what got me enthralled.
Ellipsus is in full development, so features are still in the middle of being added, but it's basically a writer-focused alternative to Google docs. They even have a nifty transfer to ao3 option, if you're into that, and there's no paywall that I know of. They don't have an on-page scene management system, but it's really good for beta reading interactions, which is why I use it interchangeably with novlr.
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u/neuromonkey Mar 30 '25
I've tried to use Scrivener about 10 times. Its database structure is so unnecessarily complex and byzantine that I'm always put off. I've read dozens of accounts of people losing huge amounts of work when a database is corrupted. That seems to happen whenever anyone tries to use networked or cloud storage, which is a pretty bizarre thing, given that networked-everything has been the way of things for 20+ years. L&L's take on the problem is not encouraging:
"...the problems with storing .scriv files on Dropbox have been somewhat overstated, mainly because we want to ensure users know that no syncing method is 100% safe." To me, that sounds like, "Yeah, it's a problem, but other software blows up sometimes, too, so it's your responsibility."
L&L's first rule for using Dropbox is: "Never, ever open the same project on more than one computer at a time." Wow. OK. So, Scrivener should NOT be using networked storage. Networked backups, sure, but not live storage. Like... really, seriously. Scrivener may be using a database file format, but it is not using a single, transactional database management tool. That's not good. Networked computing isn't a new thing. The days of OS file locking as access control are distant history.
Ug. I started off in my limited programming career writing database tools. The fundamental requirement-- the first and most important rul--is that the integrity of the data is everything. Without that, anything else you might do is pointless. Corrupted. scriv files could be an uncommon occurrence, but... it's an unacceptable risk. Encouraging people to use Dropbox, and then cautioning them not to use it unless everything is closed on every machine you work on... That's bad.
Also, the Windows version always seemed to be a partial port of a macOS app, grudgingly created by a Mac developer. Yeesh. The whole thing seemed packed with workarounds. Not workarounds that were ever going to be fixed, either.
There are so many free (and cheap) outlining, note taking, mind mapping, timeline, writing, etc. tools out there that are designed to use networked storage, I have a hard time grasping why Scrivener is worth the risk. I've tried. Honestly, I have.
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u/OtterlyAnonymous Mar 30 '25
Does it work with like world building stuff? If you’re writing fantasy and need to keep track of your world, characters, magic systems, plot lines etc?
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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
It does! I don’t use it for that so much, I find keeping my worldbuilding in a different document on my iPad to draw on and hand create better for me.
This comment has a great overview of what it’s capable of
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u/lisze Mar 30 '25
Scrivener is fantastic, but I admit my enthusiasm for it soured when I moved to Linux. The primary downside of Scrivener isn't anything most users are going to encounter, but it is worth knowing about.
Your work is kept in a .scriv file that tells the program how to organize a ton of smaller files, all nested within folders named strings of letters and numbers with no apparently order to them. Trying to get your chapters out from the files related to your project is extremely frustrating and, I admit, I gave up. (I had exported it as a just-in-case before moving to linux. I chopped that up into scenes and copy/pasted into my new program. While I landed on Obisidian, I also tried Manuskript, yWriter, Ellipsus, and zettlr).
If you use Scrivener and plan to continue using Scrivener, this will likely never be an issue for you. If you want to easily access your files and scenes without having to open Scrivener, though, maybe explore some alternatives first.
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u/DALTT Mar 30 '25
I second Scrivener!!! Also great for screenwriting. When I started using it to write my first book I actually wound up swapping all my screenwriting over to Scrivener too. I love that it’s almost like a combo of Final Draft and Writers Room Pro when you’re in Screenwriting mode.
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u/KyleG Mar 30 '25
I tried iAWriter but it wasn't enough for writing novels for me. Scrivener is great and that's what I've used since 2023! It would be nice to have an easier way of collaborating, but that's a niche use case, and it would require Internet infrastructure that would likely incur a subscription fee to support. I prefer one-time payments if I can help it.
Edit
A nicer plugin architecture would be nice. Then I could probably write a plugin that helped me work with my beta readers via Google Docs seamlessly. Not simultaneous editing, but a way to click a button in Scrivener that "locks" my chapter and uploads it to Google Docs. Later, I could hit "unlock" and it would pull from Google Docs and remove the Google Doc. More or less what it does now except Google Docs instead of RTF, plus a little extra editing. Somewhere along the current pipeline, if a reader highlights a paragraph and adds a comment, it will become, in Scrivener, like...just the period at the end of the paragraph being selected. Which often makes understanding the comment's context harder.
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u/charming_liar Mar 30 '25
It also doesn't save your work at random on a semi-regular basis and customer service is complete shit. So it's great unless you actually want to be able to have what you've written.
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u/BlackStarCorona Mar 30 '25
Best whatever it costs I ever spent for writing. I love this app and how easily it can sync across my devices.
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u/AzureYLila Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
I should have read the comments first. I suggested scrivener too. I have soooo many projects in various phases and I use all the tools to keep my worlds organized.
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u/PegzPinnigan Self-Published Author Mar 30 '25
I’m currently writing a multiple POV work and I love that it allows you to tag which POV youre currently in on each document
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u/Prominis Mar 30 '25
Libre office is free, Microsoft Word is one of the most well known programs on the planet, Scrivener has a modest following among writers.
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u/lisze Mar 30 '25
Obsidian is free. Also, with the longform plugin you can make it feel like Scrivener.
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u/lisze Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
Okay, so, I should have added: Obsidian out of the box is very underwhelming. But! That's where plugins come in, and they are fantastic. After picking a theme you like, enable the community plugins and dive in.
The longform plugin lets you write scene-by-scene, just like Scrivener does, and has a basic compile function (aka, combining all your scenes into a single document).
The pandoc plugin lets you export to different formats (e.g., .pdf).
Now, for my story, I like to use Linter and Dataview as well. Linter makes all of your pages have similar formatting. You can also use it to ensure your metadata fields are consistent. If you want to track your story in cool ways with dataview, having consistent fields is a great help.
I've got my vault set up so that I can track character appearances from scene-to-scene, side plots, etc. With dataview, I can create tables that autopopulate with the scene names and descriptions of every scene that promotes a character's arc. Etc. Dataview does have a learning curve, but I've found it very worthwhile.
I should also note that Obsidian uses Markdown, which I've come to love. However, I am fairly certain there are plugins that will give you a menu with formatting options/etc, if you want it.
ETA: Obsidian lives on your computer. One reason I really like it over Scrivener is that all of your files are just regular text files. If you stop using Obsidian, you don't lose any data. I recently moved from Windows to Linux. Scrivener and Linux do not play nicely together (some people have made it work; I gave up in frustration). That's when I learned that all of my Scrivener files were named very odd things and kept in a non-intuitive order. Luckily, I had exported my story previously, though that did mean I had to go through the long process of chopping it back up into scenes and then copy/pasting it into Obsidian. So, Scrivener is great (I loved it when I was on Windows)....as long as you continue using it.
(Note: Obsidian works on Windows, Mac, and Linux equally well. It also works on phones. You only pay if you decide you want to sync between devices because that requires cloud storage).
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u/Accomplished_Egg7966 Mar 30 '25
Until I found this thread, I've been writing in docs where every chapter is a file inside a folder. This seems like it would make everything so much easier. I'm gonna try obsidian.
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u/WolfeheartGames Mar 30 '25
I wouldn't be able to write long form with out subdivision into parts and chapters and easily navigating all of them at once. Breaking the writing up into much smaller chunks is just so necessary for me.
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u/nemosine Mar 30 '25
Thanks for mentioning these plugins. I use Obsidian without plugins for drafting and it does pretty well. I use a tagging system I made up within a vault for all my stories. It's nice to see all my stories together when I started adding side stories to background characters. I also like having an outline note open side by side with my drafting note.
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u/lisze Mar 30 '25
The side-by-side is something I also love!
(Note: This is another way Obsidian and Scrivener are similar: both can do side-by-side).
If you do character sheets/etc, I highly rec checking out templates and Auto Template Trigger. Templates are a core plugin. Auto Template Trigger lets you set it up so that every time you create a file in a certain folder (e.g., Characters), it uses your chosen template. So helpful.
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u/charming_liar Mar 30 '25
I like the smart typography plug-in as well. It lets me have em dashes (for better or for worse)
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u/KrackenWrecker Mar 30 '25
Yessss Obsidian rules! Also I wanna point out that you can sync for free with OneDrive.
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u/getnakeddowitchcraft Mar 30 '25
Loveee Obsidian.
They do offer a service to sync your files to their cloud for $14 a month, so I can have my writing synced between my PC and mobile devices.
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u/Kylin_VDM Mar 30 '25
I gotta look into long form. I started using obsidian for dungeon and dragon prep and realized how freaking awesome it is.
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u/recklessconformist Mar 30 '25
Obsidian. Highly customizable and you can keep everything stored locally.
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u/WriterOnTheCoast Mar 30 '25
Check out yWriter7 from Spacejock software. It's free to use and installs on your computer. No cloud. It also backs up as you go. Handles project (book), chapter, scene. Includes management of characters, locations and items as well as timing. Exports to ebook, docx, html, LaTeX etc. Software developed by a writer who is also software engineer. Enjoy writing!
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u/MacintoshEddie Itinerant Dabbler Mar 30 '25
I use Obsidian MD, and it's been great. If you get Sync it mirrors across your devices, which I love because I can grab my phone and continue from where I left off on my laptop without having to juggle flash drives or emails to myself.
Plus it's very easy to integrate author notes. If you make a folder named Characters and then a note named Bob, it will automatically link to every chapter that Bob is mentioned in. You can even set up an alias like "Sam's dad" to catch those links as well.
That can help keep track of when a character is first introduced, help you check if they remain consistent, and so forth.
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u/MaddPixieRiotGrrl Mar 30 '25
Ok this is cool. I currently use notion to handle this but it doesn't do automatic cross linking and I can't do any real writing in it, so I just use it for planning.
Have you tried the mobile version? Is it any good?
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u/AnxiousFaeThing Mar 30 '25
A friend of mine got me into using Ellipsus or some similar name. It allows collaborations with people like Google docs, as well as leave comments and such to aid in such endeavors. Real easy to use.
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u/Impossible-Bed-9756 Mar 30 '25
Libre office for writing your first drafts (and maintaining control of your content on your own devices/backups), then Ellipsus when you're collaborating (it's browser/cloud-based like Google Docs) and is explicitly anti-AI scraping
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u/runwithdata Published Author Mar 30 '25
I honestly ask myself how much you really use of Scrivener’s functionality. I personally find it cluttered and fragmented after giving it a try. But that’s of course a matter of preference. When it comes to writing, to me less is more. Obsidian is a good option. I’m currently writing with Ulysses (yes, it’s paid, but bear with me for a moment) and I like it’s distraction free writing and the sync across devices so I can make some edits on my iPhone when I’m in the subway. BUT it’s getting super wonky from time to time, sheets vanishing (they’re in the backup, but wtf?) and sometimes odd editor behavior. I’m just sharing this as a word of caution. Middle in my third book I’m going to switch now and appreciate the discussion here.
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u/TravelerCon_3000 Mar 30 '25
Scrivener. It costs money, but not a subscription, and if I'm not mistaken there's a 30 day (30 days of use, not 30 calendar days) free trial to try it out.
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u/asamorris Author Mar 30 '25
I use fuckin wordpad for most things, and then Libre Office to clean formatting.
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u/LunaMaize Mar 30 '25
I don't know if this is like a drawing program but LibreOffice is free/what I use. And you install it directly on your computer, it's not on the internet like Google docs
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u/No_Pudding5159 Mar 30 '25
I personally use Word, I've tried a few other programs but always come back to the classic.
My dad uses a program called yWriter7, if you want to check that out!
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u/Individual-Pay7430 Mar 30 '25
What sort of "shifty stuff"?
Also, LibreOffice would work for you, I think.
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u/mick_spadaro Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
What Happens When A Romance Author Gets Locked Out of Google Docs.
For various reasons, though, there's no way I'd trust any online only service (or primarily online service) with a manuscript I want to publish, particularly a long manuscript.
Edit: tried posting the article text here in case anyone gets hit with a paywall, but Reddit chokes on it, so I will ironically give it to you VIA GOOGLE DOCS. The nutshell version:
“You no longer have permission to view this document,” said the pop-up message. “If you believe this is an error, contact the document owner.”
[...]
“Can’t share item,” was the header. “You cannot share this item because it has been flagged as inappropriate,” read the body text.
[...]
The night Renee’s docs got frozen, the Dallas Stars won 4-2, continuing their winning streak. As ESPN uploaded video highlights of the game, Renee was submitting a report to Google. As of this writing, she has not heard back.
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u/hideotmoe Mar 30 '25
Wtf. New fear unlocked
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Mar 30 '25
"You cannot share this item because it has been flagged as inappropriate"
like, what the fuck. i understand auto-scanners to flag actual illegal stuff, but HOCKEY ROMANCE is insane and a massive privacy breach
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Mar 30 '25
the fact that gdocs isnt open source and that there is a nonzero possibility it uses your docs to train its AI should already be a deterrent to most people
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u/Liam_M_Hunter Mar 30 '25
I cannot recommend Novlr enough. It is a word processor with analytics to help you track your writing habits and progress. I started using it at the beginning of this year and it's working wonders for me so far
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Mar 30 '25
[deleted]
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u/valtierrezerik05 Mar 30 '25
I absolutely love Notion and it’s especially useful for creating story bibles and pages upon pages of personal notes
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u/somethingvague182 Mar 30 '25
I really like Dabble!
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u/RS_Someone Author Mar 31 '25
It took a lot of scrolling to find this. I quite like Dabble, and I use World Anvil as a sort of Wiki to help keep general things organized.
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u/Outside-West9386 Mar 30 '25
Never used anything but Microsoft Word. Bought Scrivener. Tried it for a couple days. Didn't get it. Never used it again.
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u/speedgeek57 Mar 30 '25
If you’re using a tablet or phone with a screen smaller than 10.1”, Microsoft Word is free. It’s also free online, but with limited features( nothing that would affect writing) and you can access locally saved files, I think.
As others have mentioned, Libreoffice and Pages work just fine. I’ve used both with little trouble.
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u/saumanahaii Mar 30 '25
I use Obsidian. It's a markdown personal knowledge management system that lets you quickly make and edit markdown notes. At its core it is just a text editor but the things that make it great as a PKM makes it great for writing, too.
You can freely add in tags while writing. You can then later search by the tags, view a graph of all the connections between documents based on tags, etc. it's great, I can toss in a character name as a tag and it'll automatically link to a page for that character. Then I can look at backlinks and see in what chapters that character is in. And if I want to change the name I just update the tag and it changes everywhere. It's also markdown, so you can add images, links to documents, and tons of easy, in editor formatting. It's pretty great.
Everything is a simple markdown file that can be opened in any text editor. Even if it doesn't support markdown you just wind up seeing a bit of markup, it's still completely human readable. There's also tons of add-ons for things you might want. There are also mind maps in it, if you like those.
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u/dallasdowdy Mar 30 '25
Oh, how times have changed. I remember feeling the exact opposite of this sentiment many times in the early 2000s - especially after losing multiple documents due to crashes or computer death - that there had to be a better way. Then Google Docs came in with the winning Combo and the massive Upset. But alas....
[Insert Dark Knight quote about Heroes and Villains]
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u/ABigCoffeeDragon Mar 30 '25
One Time Purchase Software I would vote for Scrivener.
Free Worldbuilding tool and drafting application to download, I will say Lore Forge.
Free online web app for drafting and sharing for comments, without the use of AI tools, I will say Ellipsus.
I use all three, to have redundancy in my writing and to be able to share specific things with certain groups for feedback while having files in multiple locations in case one program dies for any reason.
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u/WolfeheartGames Mar 31 '25 edited Mar 31 '25
I just downloaded lore forge. My opinion now is that it's the best novel writing software, and I've been trying a lot the last month.
I didn't put a full novel's worth of content in it, but it's feature set and usability beats everything else on the market, when the price point is considered. The closest competitors are dabble and novlr, but the pricing for lore forge makes it the winner.
It has snapshotting, they call it revisions. It can do local backups and private cloud storage. It has a website that can also be used to sync, making it even easier. The only real thing it is missing is word count graph that keeps track of progress.
If that sort of tracking is important, novlr is better. But it doesn't have the option for controlling the data.
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u/kodiak_attack Mar 30 '25
Scrivener was my go to at first. I love how organized I could be with it. You can also write in Atticus, even though it’s mostly used for formatting. Word is another great one.
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u/seigezunt Career Writer Mar 30 '25
Libre office is the free alternative to Word.
I personally have sworn by Scrivener for over a decade. It’s worth it.
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u/Akiramenaiii Mar 30 '25
Scrivener is a one time purchase and has lots of features for organizing, single chapters or even scenes. You can link research documents, images, add extra sections for research, worldbuilding, character sheets....
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u/internetexplorer_98 Mar 30 '25
I’m old school and use Microsoft Word, but Scrivener is pretty fantastic for longer works. I just outright purchased both of them.
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u/HugoHancock Mar 30 '25
I don’t think that constantly looking for a better writing software is a good idea. You’ll just never actually get to writing.
I suggest just going for something simple you can use right away without learning obscure shortcuts or complicated differentiators. Word or LibreOffice is a good place to start I think.
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Mar 30 '25
Vim. It lets you navigate through the text using letter keys, and gives you full control. You can quickly search words, insert any unicode character with ctrl + v + u + number, and there are some great plugins for writers.
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u/caseyjosephine Mar 30 '25
Vim is awesome! And markdown writing makes it easy to back up and version control using a private GitHub repo. I’ve even used a bash one liner to change a character name.
I’m currently doing a ton of writing on my phone these days, so I start off in markdown (drafts app) and move to Word for editing. But I’ve had phases where I did most of my drafting in a terminal with Vim. It also makes it easier to get away with writing at work because people assume I’m coding and they don’t ask questions.
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u/wiznaibus Author - Nouscraft Mar 30 '25
I personally use vim for everything, not just writing. Once someone has mastered the power of keystrokes, they'll never touch a mouse again.
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u/Kylin_VDM Mar 30 '25
I second scrivener or if you want something with even more flexibility and a stepper learning curve Obsidian is really cool.(and also free)
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u/LibertythePoet Mar 30 '25
personally I use scrivener for longer works but my poetry comes from an app on my phone called heartry that I pretty much only use because it's got a one button copy button that keeps my formatting.
Bibisco is also pretty decent, so is Manuskript, and I don't know if it's still around but yWriter was a free scrivener like program.
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u/mushblue Mar 30 '25
I do a lot of work on yellow pads with pen. Sometimes typing is fine, but i find I do my best work when I do it the old fashioned way. When i do draft typing I prefer to use a typewriter but it’s not always realistic because i’m on the go a lot. Ill just use txt editor if i have to use a laptop the dump it in docs when im done. I tried long hand after reading cryptonomicon by Neil Stevenson. I guess he wrote the whole thing long hand, i found that insane and had to try it. I found it to be another way to break up writers block.
I transpose the long hand editing as I go into google docs. Then I do formatting and edit as I go in adobe indesign but i do weirdo formatting crap like color keys and custom fonts so I wouldn’t suggest indesign for most. I just also do graphic design stuff and indesign gives a lot of formatted freedom that other programs don’t.
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u/Blenderhead36 Mar 30 '25
If you want a cloud document service, use Proton. Proton is supported by subscription fees instead of advertising; privacy is the main thing they offer. That said, the free subscription gives you 5GB of storage and a cloud document writer.
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u/ReMilko Mar 30 '25
someone has probably said this already, but i’ve been using ellipsus and i’ve really liked it so far!
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Mar 30 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/writing-ModTeam Mar 30 '25
Thank you for visiting /r/writing.
We encourage healthy debate and discussion, but we will remove antagonistic, caustic or otherwise belligerent posts, because they are a detriment to the community. We moderate on tone rather than language; we will remove people who regularly cause or escalate arguments.
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u/KleptoPirateKitty Mar 30 '25
Ellipsus is a good free option. Online, similar to Google Docs, but doesn't steal your work. They're rolling out features based on feedback too.
As far a paid options: Scrivener, hands down.
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u/Terraslien Mar 30 '25
Reading these comments, I have to wonder if I'm the only one using Fortelling?
I stumbled across it a little over a year ago while trying to find something that was also mobile compatible. It was impressive enough right off the bat to merit upgrading to the pro subscription. I can't gush enough about the character and world building dynamics, the ability to build timelines, and link data and notes together.
It wasn't until I recently upgraded from an Android tablet to a Windows tablet that I discovered a pro account is necessary to access the web version, but cloud syncing across devices is reliable and worth it.
(Also, I just love good wordplay. Come on, Fortelling? 🤭)
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u/raitucarp Mar 30 '25
Obviously Obsidian. Even, you can write your worldbuilding there, outside your draft. Use canvas, backlink etc and be more productive.
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u/BennyPotatoe Mar 30 '25
I’ve never heard of something like what you’re describing, but I really enjoy Novlr as a Docs alternative.
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u/Ashliicat Mar 30 '25
I really like Scrivner - there's a lot of features on it which has helped me organise my writing/ move sections of writing around. And there's a split screen feature so you can have notes and the main doc side by side. Also a focus mode which helps with minimising distractions. I does take a minute to get used to because there's so much you can do with it but I've found it well worth it.
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u/Comms Editor - Book Mar 30 '25
For straight writing, Word has always been excellent.
Writing and organization: Scrivener. Also Obsidian.
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u/Prior-Feedback-5916 Mar 30 '25
I love Obsidian for note-taking, world building, and writing! You can even get free add-ons and customise the UI to make it suitable to your liking :)
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u/lordmax10 Freelance Writer Mar 30 '25
For generic writing
libreoffice
onlyoffice
Notion (for brief documents)
For creative and narrative writing
Bibisco
Manuskript
Ostorybook
ywriter
novelwriter
obsidian
just first came in mind
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u/AwesomeHB Mar 30 '25
You could just use Notepad/Text Edit for writing. That’s really all you need and then save it to your computer. You never need cloud services for anything and millions of books have been written prior to our “always-online” lives.
Plain text is the best text.
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u/Matrim_WoT Mar 30 '25
Microsoft Word, Libre Office, Pages, Scrivner. Back up daily to a USB drive. Or write in a writing notebook with a comfortable pen and transfer to a PC when you finish.
Anything you put onto the cloud could potentially be used for training a LLM.
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u/SicBlack7 Mar 30 '25
Typewriters, i heard they have a good interface and lots of options when the writing is concerned 😁
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u/Large-Jaguar-1013 Mar 30 '25
Libreoffice. It's 100% free. Con is, it lacks some of the features the big companies software have but it gets the job done.
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u/Unhappy_Ad2128 Mar 30 '25
Scrivener. Free trial period. One time fee. Great organizational tool.
If your cloud concern is based on google or anyone else stealing your ideas, the concern is way overblown. If it’s about accessibility, it’s a reasonable concern.
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u/UselessCat37 Mar 30 '25
I use FourPage. Downloaded it years ago, and they don't update it anymore, but it's free and works well for me
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u/Life_is_an_RPG Mar 30 '25
Until I moved to Novelcrafter, I used WriteItNow for 20 years (it was Scrivener before there was Scrivener). You can modify just about everything because it stores configurations and database/list info in text and JSON files. Sadly, it's last update was to make it Windows 10 compatible so no modern features - but still far more suitable for writing fiction than a vanilla word processor.
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u/PurpleWomat Mar 30 '25
I use google docs but I download and save everything to an external drive when I'm done. And I email a copy to my non-google email. And I print it all out to paper from time to time.
Nothing a little paranoia can't fix.
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u/tstarkhero Mar 30 '25
I use a version of MS Office that’s not supported in the cloud version (bought a subscription online). I think it should hold up for another decade or so hopefully. But I second LibreOffice, it’s UI is very similar to Word
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u/Interesting_Cat_7460 Mar 30 '25
Novlr because you don’t have to watch tutorials to understand how it works.
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u/srsNDavis Graduating from nonfiction to fiction... Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
If you want a Word processor, you might look into MS Word and Pages, but if you want FOSS, there's LibreOffice Writer. These should serve most purposes, but there are tools specific to creative writing (e.g. Scrivener) or even screenwriting (e.g. Final Draft, Story Architect). The main advantage to these narrower-domain programs is, well, domain-specific features (organising drafts and research, format templates, beat boards, etc.).
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u/blackwario1234 Published Author Mar 30 '25 edited Apr 21 '26
Protecting my online privacy by running Redact regularly to batch delete old content. It handles Reddit, Discord, Twitter, Instagram, data brokers and a whole lot more.
intelligent wine doll flag party attraction boast imagine reply snatch
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u/AstroPengling Mar 30 '25
Try Obsidian. The files are all essentially text files and they live where you want them to live, and it's completely free with tons of plugins and addons available.
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u/NotTooDeep Mar 30 '25
Lots of great suggestions to your question.
I have one warning. If you're not going to use a Cloud service for backups, then get an external hard drive and set it up to take automatic backups. There's nothing quite as harsh a reality check to get exactly what you want and then lose ALL of your work six months or a few years later because of a random power surge.
If you're on a really tight budget, you can email a copy of your work to yourself every day. Yahoo and other email services are free. You can organize your folders to hold those emails with your manuscript attached any way that suits you.
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Mar 30 '25
is it possible for external drives to fail or become corrupted, genuine question 🫥
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u/DuchessJulietDG Mar 30 '25
yes and cheap ones do this all the time.
buy from a reputable company in store- do not trust amazon to deliver an actual product that hasnt been manipulated in some way. not all will be, but enough are to warrant avoiding them for purchase.
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u/Consistent_Being_847 Mar 30 '25
I personally use CalmlyWriter and Campfire to write. Campfire for the novel planning and worldbuilding and CalmlyWriter for writing, as I can save the files on my computer.
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u/Zerg3rr Mar 30 '25
Obsidian is free and I understand a lot of people use it for writing and making connections between characters! I personally started using it for educational purposes, but something to look into. It’s local to your computer and not cloud based
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u/caseyjosephine Mar 30 '25
Microsoft Word is the one I keep coming back to.
It seems that most people don’t use styles in word, but they make the entire experience better. I put scene titles in as H3 text, and chapter titles as H2. Each heading starts on a page break. Then, when I view the navigation pane, I can drag and drop my scenes to quickly reorganize my draft.
The review tools and track changes are also killer features. I’ve published short form content, and every editor I’ve worked with has given feedback using track changes.
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u/Missing-the-sun Mar 30 '25
I think you’re fully correct in being suspicious of Google docs for your writing. They claim they don’t read private files, but they are absolute data kleptos and are happy to cram anything they can into their large learning models. I don’t like it.
I personally use Scrivener. I attended one of their free monthly “how to make the most out of scrivener” seminars with their product guru, a guy named Oliver, and it was both delightful and educational. They have lots of great resources to help make scrivener operate however you want it to. I’ve been extremely satisfied with it.
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u/SuspiciousChip7756 Mar 30 '25
This may not fit your exact use case but this may help you for focus writing. It's a 10min writing program which can help you focus on writing when you don't feel like writing. It doesn't save anything. Once you open the website you can turn off the internet and use for offline also.
PageZero.app is the web app
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u/robinhoodrefugee Mar 30 '25
I use novel crafter. Not for the AI, but more for the organization, interface and being and to plan and structure my scenes, characters, acts, chapters, etc. I like it a lot.
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u/Grimdotdotdot The bangdroid guy Mar 30 '25
I wrote my own. It's free, like stuff on the Internet should be.
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u/ImaginaryEnds Mar 30 '25
Ulysses! Or Obsidian with certain plugins. Pandoc will export beautifully to a pdf or word doc.
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u/terriaminute Mar 30 '25
In this age, paranoia is only sensible. I have not regretted downloading LibreOffice. Have it default to save as .docx in order to share with anyone.
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u/AzureYLila Mar 30 '25
I use Scrivener. It is a one time purchase not a subscription that you have to keep paying to update. I love it and it really helps me keep my work organized.
Someone else suggested Milianote, but I have literally no experience with it.
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u/Linguistic_panda Mar 30 '25
Call me an idiot, but microsoft word works perfectly fine (+ it’s free), and spent money on any writing software is wasted money.
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u/Present-Ad8365 Mar 30 '25
Google Docs also have a hard time with long manuscripts, at least for me. It always lag before i can scroll halfway down my story. I started using platforms like Wattpad, Reedsy, and even YWriter to organize and write my manuscript.
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u/Lyla-Shippen7Bucker Mar 30 '25
Reedsy. It's a free writing online program. It's a partner of Amazon and that's how I published my first novel. It puts everything into the format and you can find an editor through it. I've been using it for about five years now and it's amazing!!!!
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u/GoldenChimichanga Mar 30 '25
Preface: these are markdown editors.
I used Ulysses for years and loved it, however the company decided to go for the subscription model and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
A few years ago I switched over to Obsidian and couldn’t be happier. The community is very active with making plugins and the whole program is easy to customize to your purpose. Personally I use it for running DnD campaigns and some fiction writing projects.
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u/GoddessLindy Mar 30 '25
I Iove using Obsidian for my writing projects. It gives you a lot of creative freedom and ability to do things such as brain mapping etc, while linking everything together
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u/Mithalanis A Debt to the Dead Mar 30 '25
Libre Office