26 Best Apps For Writers That Every Aspiring Author Needs

Every aspiring author has to start somewhere, right? From thinking of ideas, getting down to writing, to sharing your stories; all writers have different needs.
These 26 apps offer the best solutions for every aspiring author! Reach your word count goal. Make editing a smoother process. Say goodbye to crying over lost research. And actually get around to publishing!
Friedrich Nietzsche points out, “A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.”
For you, the aspiring author, let these apps be your best friends!

Best Apps for Publishing

“If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.” — Wally Lamb

Commaful

Create immersive stories through multimedia fiction. Challenge creativity in choosing the best visuals to use in your picture book. Novels aren’t the only literature out there! Aspiring authors can experiment with short-form fiction like flash fiction and poetry through Commaful.

• Jump into the action and always think about how your story can be interesting with a 195-character limit per page. Practice concise storytelling and hone your writing voice!
• Think of your story visually through deciding on the appropriate images from Commaful’s gallery, uploading your own, or playing around with GIFs. Multimedia fiction, like an Instagram of stories, makes writing a familiar process for new authors.

Wattpad

Publish books online. Get Featured. Build a readership. Win awards and be discovered by the best people in the industry.

• Gain exposure through an updating list of curated books. From Editor’s Choice to Wattpad’s Hot List, there are many ways to get noticed by readers, traditional publishers, and entertainment producers.
• Lost? Explore the wide variety of resources to increase audience engagement and be a social writer!
• Learn healthy competition from Wattpad’s overflowing library of books! After all, aspiring authors need a tough spine to stay in the industry.
• Meet people from other writers to readers. Reply to comments, recommend other stories, and join groups! Wattpad merges socializing and storytelling in the best way possible.

Webnovel

Share your novels to the web and its global audience. Build excitement with chapter-by-chapter releases. No limit is the limit. And earn for your hard work on the way!

• Wuxia? Xianxia? Publish your Eastern and Chinese fantasy novels to an audience that loves them.
• Learn the tricks of the trade by reading the Book of Authors written by the best editors of the web novel industry.
• Get discovered quickly. There’s New to Webnovel for any fresh authors, New Ongoing Releases for authors on a roll, and so much more!
• Proud of your masterpiece? Try your luck with Power Ranking. Readers vote for you to level up!

Write.as

Publish independently. Highlight your stories. Write anonymously or as much as you’d like. Curate your own publication and accept submissions. All of that, free of ads and unwanted clutter!

• Simple to navigate and easier to publish. With a minimalist and distraction-free interface, put your stories into a permanent home and under a personal domain.
• Don’t worry if white isn’t your color. Write.as gives you full creative control. Design your site to look like an actual novel or create a picture book like Commaful by playing with media!
• Engage your readers with newsletters. Let them know when you update or send them a warm hello!
• Any writers trying out different genres? Or starting a new series? Under a single account, create a blog for each of your novels. Separate your collections to build an individual brand.

Tumblr

Your personal corner of the internet. Host your own domain. Publish anything from long-form fiction to a couplet. Reblog GIFs once in a while. Tumblr caters to you!

• Take Tumblr as it is. Aside from searches and tags, the possibilities of content are endless. Stories, like yours, are treasures to be discovered like these.
• Share works in a non-competitive space. Do you have a drabble you randomly came up with? Or a special extra chapter for your novel? Any and all are welcome to be posted!
• Build an online presence by being active on Tumblr. New authors with published stories, whether on this site or others like Wattpad, can gain and engage with their audience. Tumblr can be where your readers find you and wait for more!

Medium

What you say matters. Be an independent writer. Publish fiction and non-fiction pieces. Join publications or create your own. Become a Medium Partner and earn!

• Share long-form content for an audience that puts in the time to think. Be the worthwhile reading pause the audience needs, away from the trending 8-seconds of entertainment.
• Focus on content knowing Medium has got format covered. Minimalistic and uniformed, your readers know to just look at your stories. Though, you can add images here and there!
• Understand engagement metrics to improve your writing! Medium measures how many people have viewed your work and how many have done so until the end.

Best Apps for Brainstorming

“Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” — Stephen King

Evernote

Access your ideas from all your devices. Organize your research with labels that make sense. Remember those lines of random dialogue you thought of on the commute? Or that cool building you want as a reference? Evernote has a place for everything, especially aspiring authors like you!

• Forget forgetting! From your phone to your laptop to everywhere else, Evernote syncs your notes and automatically saves your drafts.
• No internet? No worries. Go ahead with your writing trip to the woods or inspiring hike up the mountains! Evernote works offline so you can work offline too.
• Find that source in the haystack. Search using tags, keywords, images, dates, and even your handwriting. Suggestions pop up for you.
• Take notes without having to type. Bookmark web clippings and annotate screenshots. Or attach important PDFs and other documents. Your ideas can come from anything!

Pocket

In the middle of something? Focus on one thing at a time! Close those million unread tabs. Just save for later interesting articles, videos, and links. Check out those bookmarks across all your devices. With Pocket, there’s no pressure in story research!

• Again on that motivational trip in the wilderness with no Internet? Pocket syncs and saves your links to be opened and read offline. Get back to them again and again for those references. No refresh needed.
• Re-discover your important research and your favorite sources with Highlights and Interest. Need that adorable dog video for inspiration to write? Pocket cares about aspiring authors’ user experience.
• Share your saved links to anyone and through anything. With more than 500 integrated apps, Tweet that helpful video to your fellow writers and keep your social media updated with your discoveries.

Dragon Anywhere

Aspiring authors can be unsure about how to write. Practice your writing voice by speaking! Narrate your stories while multi-tasking to save up time. Dictate in complete sentences to get used to prose. Dragon Anywhere saves everything you say!

• Creating a glossary of fantasy terms? Or sci-fi jargon? Add custom words and substitute placeholders for your magic schools and floating cities.
• Talk as long as you want. Dragon Anywhere listens and improves accuracy over time.
• Use your hands for other tasks like walking the dog and cooking. With dictation, edit the format by applying bolds and underlines, and select words to delete.
• Your thoughts can go anywhere. Save the most important ones to the cloud, send them through email, and attach them to note-taking apps like Evernote.

List for Writers

Thinking of a high-intensity argument between your characters but you get stuck forgetting the name of their really important dragon? Focus more on the big plot points. Fill in the blanks with listed prompts for story elements. Leave the details to List for Writers!

• It’s time to take a break from scouring websites for baby names! Or spending hours on Google maps! Instead explore listed prompts for names and character traits, plots and settings, and all the corners and crevices of your story.
• Pluck out descriptive words and easily add them when building your story. List for Writers is its own thesaurus for aspiring authors by defining every term you’re interested in.

MindNode

Connect one crazy thought to another through clean linear lines. Build your ideas into a visual map on an infinite canvas. MindNode clears out the distraction and impossibility from the minds of aspiring authors!

• Is it important to know the sun and moon rising sign of your chosen one? Yes! Smart Layout automatically handles the inception of your ideas with nodes and branches that remain organized and easy to read. Bring it on!
• Color your canvas and use Mindnode’s 250+ stickers to keep your mind active and your ideas beautiful.
• Burning the midnight oil? Keep your eyes happy and switch to Dark Mode.
• Rest assured, your map will make sense even when you share it. Export to various formats such as Docx, PDF, image, and more!

Brainstormer

Battle writer’s block by spinning wheels of fortune for fantastic prompts. Fight creative fatigue by shaking the slot machine for creative concepts. Brainstormer uses numerous plot ideas into at least 45 different categories to make nearly endless and all amazing combinations for aspiring authors to use!

• Discover random and interesting pairings of conflict, setting, and characters. Aside from the Classic wheels, try the World Builder, Character Builder, Creature Builder, and Sci-fi Brainstormer for any of your concept needs.
• Not an English speaker? Fluent in emoji language? Brainstormer supports international languages with non-Latin alphabets like Japanese and Mandarin as well as emojis for brainstorming fun.
• Put your random ideas to good use. Create your own brainstorming wheels by personalizing the word lists from your phone and your laptop.
• Play Brainstormer on your Apple Watch. There’s no better time to excite your imagination than now!

Ayoa

Know what to do and how to start your story with the powerful combination of a mind map and task manager. In one clean space, arrange your ideas across branches and turn them into tasks. Prioritize your workload visually. With Ayoa, your ideas make sense and your thoughts take action.

• Better differentiate and categorize your ideas with flexible formatting. Change the colors, adjust the branch sizes, and customize a Mind Map that fits your writing style.
• Sometimes, words aren’t enough. That’s alright! Attach your own photos or choose from the Unsplash gallery as well as important documents and web clippings. Ayoa is your personal research hub.
• How do you relate your alien protagonist to a ghost out for revenge? It’s no problem with the Idea Bank. Store any and all random ideas and concepts there then when you’re ready, place them easily into your Mind Map.
• Brainstorm with other aspiring authors and invite them to your Mind Map. Vote and thumbs up to any great idea that stands out! Set your Mind Map to public and link your thoughts to even non-Ayoa users.

Milanote

Can’t figure out how your story world works? Display your ideas and collect sources on one visual board. Move around things until they click for you. Keep these thoughts private or share them with whoever you want. With Milanote, it feels like working on a wall in a creative studio. But cooler!

• Check out your drafts, characters, worlds, and everything in between with a birds-eye view. No need to be overwhelmed with information. Connect your ideas with mind maps and combine texts with images and videos to see the big picture.
• Give your protagonists and antagonists personality with Milanote’s Character Profile Template. Aspiring authors can work and practice fleshing out backstories and adding dimension to characters and relationships.
• Don’t stress the outline! Milanote’s Story Outline Template organizes your story into a basic structure. Drag and drop cards to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Best Apps for Writing

“I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them — without a thought about publication — and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.” — Anne Tyler

Grammarly

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes with this real-time writing assistant. Find the perfect word choice. Write in a consistent tone and style. With Grammarly, aspiring authors sound as good they want to be!

• Focus on building your story, knowing Grammarly makes writing effortless. It functions everywhere through your browser and learns the best suggestions to give you the more you use it.
• Oh, you’re not like other writers? Then play around, tweak the grammar rules, and add your own terms to the dictionary. It listens to your language.

Ginger Software

Write with confidence and without mistakes. Revamp how you construct your sentences. Listen to what you’re writing. Improve your English all around with Ginger Software!

• Never stress with Ginger Software’s cross-platform syncing. Use it wherever and whenever you write.
• Focus on writing your story, knowing that Grammar and Spell Checker catch any mistakes. It uses a very special learning program for accuracy!
• English isn’t your first language? Write fluently through an English Personal Trainer that practices the language with you.

Hemingway App

Write in earnest (pun intended). Know which sentences work and why they don’t. Break down the way you write, word per word. Aspiring authors learn more about their writing styles through the Hemingway App.

• Alternate easily between two modes: writing and editing. Let the words overflow on the minimalist interface. There are no page breaks or print layouts to stop you. Just basic format options above. Then switch over to editing and watch how Hemingway App colors your draft with suggestions and potential problems.
• Keep an eye on your progress when editing through your readability grade, reading time, word count, and more.

Living Writer

Write a novel. Drag and drop anything between folders or across the board. Save time with smart text and auto-suggest. Take out your favorite author’s outline templates for a spin. Meet your new word processer, Living Writer!

• Write for something by setting chapter goals and story goals. Be it a passion project or Nanowrimo (a writing event perfect for aspiring authors!), go above and beyond your word count with short- and long-term deadlines.
• Don’t worry, everything you’ve written automatically saves and syncs through the cloud. Continue working from your laptop to your phone with bank-level security. Your special novel stays secret until you’re ready!
• Keep the momentum going. Write in dark mode all through the night, knowing Living Writer can handle 100,000 of your words and more without lag.

IA Writer

Get your thoughts on paper faster than MS Word can load. Keep your fingers on the keyboard with auto-markdown and eyes on the prize with Focus Mode. Hashtag documents and smart search them later. IA Writer prioritizes what all aspiring authors should: nitty, gritty (but incredibly convenient) writing!

• Don’t underestimate the plain text format. Minimal weight and universally readable, your writing flow never break and your stories only deepen.
• Control how you write with editable Content Blocks for tables, images, and connecting documents while staying in plain text the whole time.
• Actually enjoy writing from IA Writer’s little improvements! The typical typewriting font is tweaked not just to look pretty but also to be written and read better. And there’s Syntax Highlight that spots any of your stylistic errors with bright colors. This is more than a notepad.

Ulysses

How many times has your mind wandered away from writing? Is that the third dog that has passed your house? Never mind all that. Focus by being immersed in the clean text. Increase your productivity with clear goals. And keep your ideas in order in the Ulysses’ unified library.

• Never worry about being lost with the three-pane windows bringing the answers to your every need. From the library to your assortment of documents, to the actual word processor, Ulysses simplifies the writing process for aspiring authors.
• Apple users rejoice! Sync completely through iCloud and easily pick up where you left off across all your OS devices.
• Pursue your goals using a user-friendly progress meter. Adjust it according to your writing requirements. Your set deadline is broken down with words per day where you can still add some needed day off’s. There’s no pressure in writing. Instead, Ulysses is cheering you on!

Google Docs

Work in a familiar environment. Write with styling tools. Access your documents from anywhere. Keep them private or collaborate in real-time. It’s simple yet effective with Google Docs.

• Still on that trip with no wifi? Write assuredly, Google Docs has an offline mode. Just sync up your edits online.
• Say goodbye to regrets by viewing your revision history. Load back up that villain’s monologue from yesterday or compare your description from a specific timestamp to now.
• Don’t worry. Your document, your rules. Friends, or beta readers and editors, can go on View Only, Edit, or Suggest mode. It’s up to you!

Scrivener

Start writing with every tool made for aspiring authors. Keep writing on an interface that’s flexible and customizable. Scrivener is ready for writers of all kinds!

• Write the way you want. Go chapters long in one document or divide them into smaller sections. The Scrivenings mode pieces them all back together!
• Forgot what happened a thousand chapters before? Work on up to four documents at a time to view how your story unfolds or tweak a little here and there.
• Play around in the corkboard when something doesn’t fit right. Each virtual index card is connected to a section of your story so never worry about messing up your manuscript.
• Focus on your writing needs by choosing your own tools. Edit the toolbar and move around the windows. Make your thought process a virtual reality!

Novelist

Complete an entire novel just from your phone. Use templates and categories at your disposal. Or create your own from scratch and customize. Schedule your writing sessions. Aspiring authors can real-time preview their works in all its novel glory.

• Go Empty or go Standard. The two templates (one, blank, and one, with basic items) are completely customizable whether you’re working on a stand-alone novel or a many-part series.
• Type away with Novelist’s Rich Text Editor. Go for some advanced formatting or plain writing, it automatically saves the progress of your story.
• Experiment with structure. Add parts, acts, chapters, and subchapters to your writing heart’s content. Drag and drop scenes and see where it sticks.
• Track writing time and progress by setting goals and deadlines. Easily check out the total word count of your novel and its chapters.

Day One

Starting is a challenge but writing consistently is harder! Journal daily. Recount what you saw and how you felt. Capture your experiences in real-time. Set a passcode to keep your thoughts and ideas a surprise. Start with Day One.

• Focus on the moment with a minimalist interface and markdown tools. Want to use that gorgeous ocean view for your story world? Add images, videos, drawings, or audio recordings to keep the memory vivid.
• Practice writing every day, aspiring authors! 365 days is no limit with an unlimited number of entries.
• Remember the best references from the past with On This Day.

Wrabit

Build a writing habit. Reach your goals. Have a healthy mental state. Practice creative and unfiltered self-expression. Write with Wrabit!

• Fill in the welcoming blank space, using a simple text editor. Be it journal or a chapter a day, aspiring authors can write about anything.
• Stay motivated with writing by keeping up your streak and personalizing your writing sessions.
• Be proud of your progress through word count statistics and entries calendar.
• Rest assured everything stays encrypted!

Inkvite

Start small with no pressure. Collaborate with your ideas. Test your creative limits. Be surprised with the craziest stories. Try something new with Inkvite. Most of all, have fun!

• Build a story with only 280 characters from a random title generator. Press submit and see how it ends!
• Experiment with strangers! Aspiring authors can loosen up by writing with up to four collaborators.

How are you, aspiring author?

What part of the writing process are you in? Explore these apps and discover the best ones that work for your needs! Be it you are still on the journey to being an author or literally a click away from publishing that story.
Neil Gaiman reminds you, “The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can.” The greatest app, after all, is YOU!
(But really, make it easier with these 26 amazing choices!)