Hello everyone,
I wanted to ask if anyone has a preferred software for the purpose of creative writing.
Libre Office Writer is great of course, but just as software like LogSeq or Obsidian exist for the note taking process, I was wondering if there is anything that is specifically geared toward the creative writing process.
I know that there are federated blog platforms which focus on this in their presentation, but was curious about applications specifically.
FOSS is definitely preferable.
Thanks!
I use yWriter, Scrivener (not FOSS, but worth the little money it costs) and LibreOffice. I feel well prepared for any writing.
I’ve been enjoying novelWriter for a few months now.
It’s FOSS, works on every OS, and is created by a writer who was frustrated with the other options available. She and another writer co-designed it initially, and there’s a respectably sized community built up around it at this point. It’s got the kinds of features that writers actually need, and avoids bloat. So they say, and in my experience that’s certainly been the case.
Now this is what I was thinking of. Incredible and glad to see that it exists. Thank you!
I also like Novelwriter. It’s very organized, and I think more stable than Manuskript, which has similar features.
NeoVim
Celtx used to be a great Foss desktop screenwriting application, based on Firefox. Eventually they tried to go web based, and I had to move over to the closed sourced, industry standard, final draft when my work started getting produced.
Now there are a thousand open source screenwriting tools, and not one that I like.
Apostrophe for offline use, and, unfortunately not FOSS, overleaf (latex) for online use. I really need to find a FOSS replacement…
Huh? What’s wrong with Overleaf?
If you “only” need beautiful PDF and it doesn’t have to be online, you can also use Typst with vscode and tinymist as editor locally. Not as powerful as TeX, but I know few people for use TeX even remotely to its fullest. The upside of Typst is, that the “core” syntax for content writing is very markdown-like, so you can focus on writing instead of the underlying language.
Holy shit, thank you! I had no idea overleaf was open source; you have cleared my conscience. Typst seems interesting, but I am a bit of a typesetting nerd and quite used to latex anyway. Transition now would be difficult. I’ll check it out though, it might be nice for drafts and such. Thanks again!
I’m definitely going to share Typst with non-tex-addicts though, it does seem really cool.
I am also a former TeX addict, but I was always more in favor or ConTeXt over LaTeX. And Typst is basically ConTeXt, but a lot faster (as in you get real time preview as you type).
Another tool is yWriter.
This isn’t a tool for everyone, because it is research-first focused.
What I mean by that is that it’s a little clunky because background/research data is meant to go into it first, and then you are supposed to lean on that content to write your book second.
So for a non-fiction book, you would add all the data and facts and references, for a fiction book you would put in all of the important characters and plot points and things that the characters interact with.
This is so you always have a body of references to work off of so you don’t introduce inconsistencies.
Some people might find this software useful because assembling and fleshing out the underlying data is loads of fun and/or how they prep. Others might need this feature just to keep track of everything that goes into their book, as they might not be able to keep track of things like character quirks very easily in their head.
YMMV.
This is actually really neat and I could see it being great for nonfiction. Thanks!
I really like QuollWriter.
On the simple side, Ghostwriter is a markdown editor with no frills.
NeoVim i write in a text file open in libreoffice and resave in the format i wantedn
I also write my books in Vim. I use Pandoc to convert markdown to other formats.
I use a text editor called micro for most writing tasks. It’s simple enough that it doesn’t distract me, but flexible enough that I can use it for most things. Creative writing, code, notes all the same application.
Before I heard of micro, I was just using nano. Same thing, different key bindings. Though until recently I didn’t know it could be setup to show line numbers. Which is why I liked micro when I found it.
I’m writing a novel in Obsidian and it works great. Currently closing on 70k words and it’s just as fast as a file with 50 words in it. I also like that it’s a simple markdown file which I can easily back up anywhere and open with anything. It can also organize multiple files and link to them if needed, which is nice when starting out if you use the snowflake method.
That’s interesting. What does the structure of that looks like? New notes per chapter and then back-linking them together, or everything in just one note?
I started with a single file that had bullet points for each story beat, then those grew into chapters. I then had files/notes for specific things that I needed to remember but didn’t want in the novel itself (character backstories, etc). After a while I found the single file overwhelming so I split it into one file per chapter, that way it was easier to focus on one at a time; when I felt they were all in decent shape I put them back together in one file. I use headings for each chapter title so that I can jump to each one in the table of contents. I’m now doing a final pass for tone and for minor fixes; when something needs attention I highlight it so that I can find it later.
I tried a LOT of different apps but Obsidian was for me the best combination of being very responsive, not too distracting, easy to navigate, and not locking me into a proprietary format.
I also love iA writer but it doesn’t work on Linux, or with Wine…
A program I have used to help with outlining is Manuskript. It has a series of questions it will ask you to help with character and world building. It also has a section to write the novel in and keep track of chapters.
It is a bit on the older side, with the last update about a year and a half ago. It is available on Flathub if you want to take a look: https://flathub.org/apps/ch.theologeek.Manuskript
I just started a novel project a few weeks ago and have been using scrivener because it’s just what I saw recommended the most. But now I’ve switched to linux and have been looking for FOSS linux-native alternatives so this is perfectly timed. I tried anytype briefly but it feels like it’s designed for programmers. By which I mean it’s extremely powerful and flexible, but just doing simple shit like creating a bunch of pages in a tree structure requires an hour of hunting and watching tutorial videos.
I like the look of novelwriter that someone else linked, gonna give that a shot.
