There’s no single best app for all writers because not all writers work the same way or have the same productivity goals. After all, someone writing scripts for movies that will be made into multi-million dollar productions has very different needs compared with someone writing young adult fiction.
No matter what type of writer you are, you won’t have trouble finding an excellent writing app that speaks your language. Consider your writing process, intended genre, and ideal writing environment before deciding. Think about what you intend to do with your finished work too. Do you want to publish it online, send it to an agent, or shoot a film?
Writing apps are different from word-processing apps in that they have spaces where you can organize and access your notes, outlines, previous drafts, and references while your work. The exact set of features varies depending on what you’re writing. Apps that support novelists, for example, have dedicated sections where you list and describe your characters, summarize the plot, and keep notes about what must happen in each chapter. Apps for screenwriters have different tools that help you keep track of each scene’s setting and tally up the number of dialogue lines for each character. A few writing apps work for several genres; they offer templates and stylesheets for novels, graphic novels, dissertations, and even radio plays.
How Much Do Writing Apps Cost?
Apps for writers tend to be less expensive than other kinds of software. Many sell for a one-time fee, although a few require a subscription. In addition to the cost of the desktop app, you should also factor in the fee for a service’s mobile app, which is often sold separately.
There are three types of writing apps in this story:
- Low-cost, lightweight apps that cost between $10 and $30
- Writing apps for long-form writers (such as book authors) that either cost between $50 and $60 to own outright or between $50 and $60 per year when sold as a subscription
- Screenwriting software, which costs anywhere between about $70 and $250
Some writing apps include storage, but many don’t. To make sure you never lose your work, you should back up your work early and often. A cloud storage service, such as Dropbox or iCloud, is often the most convenient solution. The good news is that pages of text don’t take up much space, so you may be able to store a few works in your existing cloud storage account without paying for more space. Just keep in mind that you could eventually end up having to pay more for storage.
The Best App for Screenwriting
As a genre, screenwriting has unique requirements. Scripts for movies, television, and the stage must clearly distinguish between action, scene descriptions, spoken dialogue, and so forth. Scripts do this through formatting. For example, lines of dialogue are always centered on the page, while the name of the character who speaks them is always centered and in all caps directly above the lines. The rules of formatting are standardized so that all the people involved in creating the final product—actors, film crew, editors, directors, among others—can understand the script and do their jobs.
Because the formatting for screenwriting is exceedingly precise, it helps tremendously when a writing app applies the correct formatting automatically. Most professional screenwriters use Final Draft, which is the industry standard. In addition to suggesting the correct formatting, Final Draft has a beat board where you can map out the beats of your story and view them on a timeline above your script as you write. Fade In is a great, low-cost alternative to Final Draft, while Script Studio offers sample scripts to help you structure your work.
The Best Writing App for Long-Form Works
Book authors spend a lot of their time simply organizing their manuscripts. Whether it’s for fiction or nonfiction works, many authors put an incredible amount of effort into outlining their chapters and sections, moving them around, and trying to structure everything into one cohesive piece. The same can be said for other types of long-form works, such as dissertations, graphic novels, and so forth.
We have two favorite apps for long-form writers. One is Scrivener, which has templates and tools for a variety of genres and forms. The other is Ulysses, which is better for writers who find themselves distracted by toolbars, menus, and options; it has a great distraction-free mode.
Writing for Medium, WordPress Blogs, and More
Book authors and screenwriters aren’t the only types of writers, of course. Many writers create shorter pieces that they publish directly online; these works never pass through the hands of an agent, publisher, or movie producer. If you’re publishing on Medium or WordPress, it sure is handy to have a writing app that can seamlessly export your work to those platforms.
Ulysses and iA Writer both integrate with Medium and WordPress. Like Ulysses, iA Writer is a distraction-free writing app, but it’s much more pared-down. It has some neat functions, such as text transclusion, which allows you to use inline commands to import and order sections, files, and images. Using this method, the text of your document could be all of four sentences long, but might whip together a piece that, when exported, is 25 pages long.
Writing Apps That Support Markdown
If you’re after minimalism, getting an app with a distraction-free mode or view is a great place to start. You may also want to write in Markdown language.
Markdown is a very lightweight set of codes that you use to apply formatting instead of the rich-text formatting options that are common in word processors. If you’ve ever typed asterisks around a word to make it bold *like this*, that’s Markdown. The idea is that by removing menu options and toolbars for formatting, you won’t get distracted by them, and instead, you’ll focus on your writing.
Ulysses, iA Writer, and Byword all support Markdown natively and focus on delivering you a distraction-free interface. A few other apps allow you to write in Markdown, but don’t emphasize it or minimize distractions.
Your Writing, Your Choice
Every writer has unique needs and desires. Do you need an app that works on both Windows and macOS, or how about one that’s web-only, such as Novelize? Is learning a new way to format text a deal-breaker? Does your final submission need to meet industry standards the way screenplays and teleplays do? The range of software dedicated to writers is impressive.
If nothing tickles your fancy in this roundup, check out our summary of other apps for novel writers. Finally, if you decide that a dedicated writing tool just isn’t for you, and you’d rather just use a plain old word processor, we’ve rounded up the top office suites, too.
