What Software Do Novelists Use to Write a Book?

Software is a workbench. A good workbench makes the job easier. It doesn’t build the cabinet.

A new writer in a big self-publishing group had her novel scattered across the notes app on her phone. She asked what software novelists use, because she needed somewhere to add chapters, sort everything out and get the book ready for print.

Dozens of writers answered. Word won by a mile. Google Docs, Scrivener and Reedsy were next, with Atticus, NovelCrafter, Vellum, LibreOffice, Ellipsus, Storyist, Novelium, a Notion planner and Adobe InDesign behind them. One writer said Google Docs and her tears. Another said Google Docs, the notes app, napkins and the shower.

A few commenters were selling their own apps in the replies, and a couple of accounts posted links to Telegram groups under other people’s comments. Ignore those. The useful answers were the ones that said why. Knowing why a writer picked a tool tells you more than the brand name.

What software do most novelists use to write a book?

Microsoft Word. That was true in the thread and it’s true across the industry.

I write my novels in Word, and it works very well. It’s powerful, it’s on almost every computer, and every editor, agent and publisher accepts a Word file. Track Changes is the standard way editors mark up a manuscript, so if you work with an editor you’ll end up in Word at some point anyway. One commenter pointed out that Amazon KDP provides free preformatted Word templates for paperbacks. Those make print layout much easier.

I’ll admit my reasons are personal too. I started on WordPerfect many years ago and moved to Word when it first came out, and I’ve used it ever since. I know the layout and the keys so well that I’m blazingly fast in it. That speed is worth more to me than any feature a newer app could offer.

It also works just about anywhere. The free version that runs in a web browser is nearly fully capable. Word ties into the other Microsoft programs online and offline, and the subscription isn’t expensive.

It has everything I could want or need for a novel.

Word’s weakness is organization. A 90,000-word novel in one long document gets hard to move around in. Headings fix most of that. Put each chapter title in a Heading 1 style and you can jump to any chapter, or drag chapters into a new order, from the pane on the left. Word is also a subscription now for most people. You have good free choices.

What is the best free software for writing a novel?

Google Docs and LibreOffice are the two free choices most writers in the thread named.

Google Docs runs in a browser, saves as you type and lets you share a chapter with a beta reader in seconds. Several writers said they draft in Docs and switch to Word when it’s time to edit or format. That’s a sensible pattern. Docs is weak at print layout, and it can struggle with very long documents, so many writers keep one document per chapter or per act.

LibreOffice is a free, open source office suite that reads and writes Word files. One commenter called it a pretty good Word substitute, and another said any good word processor that exports cleanly to PDF will do. They’re both right. A print-ready PDF and a clean Word file are what most of the publishing process needs. Reedsy’s Book Editor is free too. It also formats the finished book.

Is Scrivener worth it for writing a novel?

For some writers, very much. Scrivener breaks a book into small pieces, scenes or chapters, and lets you rearrange them in a binder or on a virtual corkboard. You can keep character notes, research, images and setting descriptions in the same project as the manuscript.

The writers who loved it said exactly that. One said she likes breaking her writing into small sections and reorganizing them easily. Another said it keeps notes, character descriptions and scenery in one place. He called it ideal for writing several books in a series.

The trade-off is the learning curve. Scrivener does a lot, and getting a finished, formatted book out of it through its compile feature takes some learning. Many Scrivener writers draft there and export to Word for editing.

NovelCrafter came up for a similar reason. It’s built around a codex of characters, places and backstory that you attach to the scenes where they appear, and it’s designed to keep continuity straight across a whole series. One user warned it’s overkill for a single book. If you write long series with a big cast, try it. It also connects to AI tools, and I’ve written about using AI as an assistant in AI writing assistants.

What software formats a novel for print and ebook?

The thread got practical here, and a new writer can save a lot of grief by listening.

Reedsy’s free Book Editor got a lot of love. One writer said it creates chapters and scene breaks easily, builds the front and back matter, and exports print-ready PDFs and EPUBs. Another drafted in Google Docs, moved to Reedsy near the end, and said he couldn’t be happier. He’d looked at the paid options but only planned one book, and he said that normally there’s a catch when something is free, but with Reedsy he didn’t find one.

Atticus was the paid favorite. It’s a writing and formatting tool in one, it runs on most computers, and it produces the print and ebook files you need. Its users praised the formatting and the support staff. Vellum came up as the formatting step after Word. It’s a Mac program that turns a finished manuscript into polished print and ebook files. Adobe InDesign is the professional page layout tool designers use.

It’s powerful and far more than most novelists need.

If you write in Word, you can format in Word too, with a KDP template or a template that matches your trim size. Many authors do. I covered what goes into a properly formatted book, inside and out, in the formatting guide. Whatever you use, check the output. Look at the PDF page by page, and open the EPUB in an ebook reader. Software makes formatting easier.

It doesn’t make it automatic.

How do you move a novel from a notes app into real writing software?

Copy it out one chapter at a time. Pasting the whole novel in one block makes a mess.

Create a new document in whatever you choose. For each chapter, type the chapter title, set it as a heading, and paste the text under it. Notes apps carry odd formatting, so paste as plain text, or use “keep text only” in Word, and fix the italics afterward. If your notes aren’t in order yet, paste them in any order. With headings in place, you can rearrange the chapters later in seconds.

A commenter asked how hard it is to move a manuscript from Word into Reedsy or LibreOffice. Not hard. LibreOffice opens Word files directly, and Reedsy imports Word documents and can split them into chapters when your chapter titles use heading styles. That’s one more reason to use headings from the start.

And back it up. A novel that lives in one place lives in danger. Keep a copy in the cloud and a copy somewhere else.

Should you handwrite the first draft of a novel?

If it gets the book written, yes. A first-time novelist in a fantasy writing group said she loves drafting by hand in a pretty notebook, and her writer friends called her weird. Plenty of writers in the thread do the same.

The reasons were practical. One writer drafts on public transportation and likes that a notebook doesn’t need to boot up. Another can’t think straight staring at a screen. Several said typing up the handwritten pages works as a first round of editing, and one said it refreshes the whole story in a way editing on screen doesn’t. Another writer goes further, with nine point-of-view characters and a separate leather-covered notebook for each one. She tried rewriting on the computer, stared at the screen, made the character a notebook, and the words came.

The objections were practical too. Handwriting is slow, and a 100,000-word draft means a lot of transcribing. Some writers can’t read their own cursive once they get going. One lost six handwritten chapters when a batch of pages went missing. Arthritis ended handwriting for another.

Many land in between. They keep notes, outlines and stuck scenes in a notebook and draft on the computer, or they print chapters and revise them with a pen. If you draft by hand, type the pages up every chapter or two, so a lost notebook doesn’t take the book with it.

Can you write a novel on your phone?

Yes. The writer who started the thread had already done most of a novel in her phone’s notes app, and she isn’t unusual. Google Docs, Word and Ellipsus all run on a phone, and a phone is always with you. Plenty of novels get drafted in ten-minute bursts on a bus or in a waiting room.

The phone is a fine place to draft and a poor place to finish. Revising a chapter on a small screen is slow, and you can’t judge print layout on one at all. So draft wherever the words come, then move the book to a computer for revision and formatting. Use an app that syncs, so the draft on your phone and the draft on your laptop are the same draft.

The notes app is the one to outgrow first. It has no chapters, no headings and no real export, and a lost phone can take the whole book with it.

Does the software you write in matter?

Less than people think.

Look at the thread again. Dozens of writers, a dozen different tools, and plenty of finished, published books from all of them. Some wrote in Word for years. Some wrote on napkins first. The tool matched the writer, and the writer did the work.

If you’re new, start with what you already have. Word if it’s on your computer, Google Docs or LibreOffice if it isn’t. Write the book. When it’s done, pick a formatting tool. If you outgrow your setup, because you’re juggling a series or a big cast or a lot of research, try Scrivener or NovelCrafter then.

You’ll know what you need by then.

The danger is the opposite. Some writers spend weeks comparing apps, watching tutorials and setting up templates, and never write chapter one. That’s procrastination with a better excuse. I wrote about it in why writers procrastinate, and about getting to the end in finishing is a separate skill from writing.

Once a draft is done, an editing tool helps more than a fancier word processor. I use ProWritingAid to catch weak phrasing and tighten sentences, and it works inside Word and Google Docs.

The writing hub has more on the writing process from first draft to finished manuscript, and how to write a novel walks through every stage. If you’d like help getting your book out of the notes app and onto the page, my book coaching covers that. Pick a workbench, any workbench. Then build the cabinet.

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