creative writing words app

Even the best writers run into blocks sometimes. Hubspot's Blog Topic Generator can help you when it feels impossible to come up with new content.

Hubspot's Blog Topic Generator Simply input three nouns into the generator and get a week's worth of topics in seconds! Now, THAT was easy!

As writers, we don't just have to worry about the words we put on the page (or screen). Many of us have to create images for our work, whether that's a cover photo for a blog post or a graphic to promote your book on social media. Canva is an amazing, powerful free tool to help create beautiful images.

Canva's drag and drop templates can help you create everything from a Pinterest graphic to a book cover. If you're hesitant to learn Photoshop, Canva is an amazing alternative to help you create rich, high-quality graphics.

Milanote is an easy-to-use tool to organize your ideas and projects into visual boards. As a writer, visualizations can help you keep track of everything from character relationships to the order of scenes.

Milanote's flexible interface allows you to do things like:

• Write notes and to-do lists (handy for keeping yourself on track with your book writing plan)
• Upload images and files (useful for keeping visual inspiration for everything from scenery to character outfits)
• Save images, texts, and links from the web
• and even more!

LibreOffice is an amazing word processor option for people who are looking for a free alternative to Word.

LibreOffice has a number of great features, including a clean and sophisticated word processing layout and support for a vast number of file formats. You can create everything from a simple memo to a complete book using the online editor, which makes it a great choice for people looking for a word processor for all types of projects.

Do you need to create beautiful layouts for your words? If so, Scribus may be for you!

Scribus is a free, open source platform that allows you to create rich, professional layouts for everything from one-pagers to magazines. While it takes a bit of learning to get started, Scribus is both easier to use and cheaper (since it's free!) than tools like Adobe InDesign.

Distraction is Enemy #1 to many writers. Facebook never looks as enticing as when you're on a tight deadline or trying to meet a goal. If this sounds like you, FocusWriter is here to help.

FocusWriter minimizes your work into a clean, distraction-free word processor interface, so you can simply write without worrying about the clutter on your computer screen. FocusWriter isn't the best tool for going through your second or third draft, but it's great for getting through that first run so you can do the in-depth editing elsewhere later.

Evernote is an amazing "second brain" which allows you to flexibly take notes and capture ideas in a variety of areas.

You can do just about everything in Evernote, from creating to-do lists and checklists to drawing out specific notes to capturing receipts for tracking business expenses. Evernote offers up to 60 MB of space on its free plan, which is plenty if you're just using plain text notes. If you'd like to add more graphic or larger files, you can upgrade your storage for small fees.

Your life is precious, and if you’re the documenting type, you want to remember every moment, good or bad. Diaro is an advanced diary application, but it can be used for keeping a journal or simply writing notes.

Use Diaro to help you keep your thoughts and memories organized and well documented. Attach photos or locations to your entries and share with others via email and social networking sites. With Diaro, you never have to worry about others stumbling across your deepest darkest secrets, because your diary will be password protected.

The best writers are able to organize and prioritize their work. Todoist is a task management application that helps you create to-do lists and custom schedules so you can work more effectively.

With Todoist, you can create recurring tasks (e.g. "Write every day at 7 p.m.!") to help yourself set and achieve goals. Never worry about forgetting an important task again!

With Colorcinch you can instantly create, edit and turn your photos into artwork. It is the #1 photo editor & cartoonizer designed to be simple, beautiful, and free.

You can go from photo to cartoon in one click. Turn your photos into truly unique art using the cartoonizer, sketcher, and hundreds of other specialty filters and effects.

Make Writing Apps Work for You

These apps are never going to replace you as a writer, editor or designer. But they'll definitely help you become a better one. Without the right app, writing is harder than it needs to be. Simplify your life and kickstart your success with these writing apps.

Improve Your Grammar with These Sites

Whether you're a native English speaker or an English language learner, English grammar can be tricky to master. Take the examples below:

• The young boy loved cooking, his dog and going outside.
• The young boy loved cooking his dog and going outside.

Eek! With the simple omission of a properly placed comma, that sentence goes quickly from cute to macabre.

No matter how long you've been writing, you can always freshen up your grammar skills. Thankfully, there are numerous sites online that exist purely to help you write correctly. Here are 10 of our favorites.

From quick lessons on commonly misspelled words to in-depth examinations of pleonasms , the ProWritingAid blog is a great place to dive into the intricacies of the English language.

Here, you'll find articles, videos and quizzes that teach and examine common grammatical errors, with plenty of contextual examples to help you learn.

Practice always makes perfect, so once you're done perusing the blog, hop over to ProWritingAid's Editing Tool and input your work. ProWritingAid's in-depth reports will check your work and see how well you've mastered your study.

The Writing Forward blog , created by a passionate writer, offers tons of posts on creative writing, grammar and more. The "Grammar Tips" section will walk you through tons of pesky grammar rules, from whether or not you can end a sentence with a preposition to figuring out subject-verb agreement.

The blog also offers great advice about every part of the writing process from plotting to publishing, so be sure to check out the rest of the site's informative content.

What 5 Minute English lacks in style, it more than makes up for in quick, useful lessons. 5 Minute English's lessons are designed for non-native speakers, so they cover some of the trickiest language topics, such as parallel verbs and reflexive pronouns.

Visit 5 Minute English if you're looking for a fast, fun review of some of the most complex and confusing English language topics.

Winner of the 2017 "Best Education Podcast" Award, Grammar Girl (aka Mignon Fogarty) exists to help "you do things better." Like grammar, for instance.

Articles on Grammar Girl cover all sorts of topics (such as the weird history of oxymorons or the meaning of the phrase "in the doldrums") so you can visit to not only brush up on your grammar skills, but get a lesson in English language history. The articles are snappy and fun to read, so you don't feel like you're engaging with boring material.

A self-described "fun, convenient way to learn grammar," Daily Grammar is a comprehensive teaching tool for anyone needing to polish up their English grammar skills.

Daily Grammar is more a course curriculum than a blog, with over 400 free lessons and over 80 free quizzes for you to learn and then test your knowledge. You can visit the site to access topics or have them delivered to your inbox through their complimentary email service. By visiting Daily Grammar, you'll be on your way to grammar mastery in no time.

Lousy Writer's main goal is to help you become a better writer, fast. Lousy Writer focuses on how to communicate effectively by breaking down word usages and sentence construction into clear, easy-to-understand tips.

Of particular use on Lousy Writer are the cheat sheets, which help you understand tricky concepts like possessive nouns or homonyms. These cheat sheets are great refreshers on difficult topics for English language speakers and English language learners alike.

The Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) offers over 200 free resources on writing, teaching writing, grammar and mechanics, English as a Second Language, and style guides. Sponsored by Purdue University, this website is a great resource for people looking to teach and learn.

In addition to their grammar lessons, you can find formatting guides for styles such as MLA and APA, as well as suggestions on how to avoid plagiarism in your work.

One of the best ways to learn English grammar is to hear English being spoken aloud. FluentU's library of real-world English houses videos that are timely, fun, and useful for people looking to master the English language.

While FluentU does have a subscription fee, you can access a limited free trial to see if you like the service and find it useful before deciding to commit to pay.

Are you one of those people who simply loves learning from a textbook? If so, English Grammar 101 is the site for you!

English Grammar 101 is basically a grammar textbook, only digital, so you don't have to worry about hurting your back lugging it around every day. You'll go through hundreds of in-depth lessons on everything from nouns to capitalization, with quizzes, reviews, and tests for each topic to assess your mastery.

Who says learning grammar can't be fun? With Grammar Ninja , you'll play games that help reinforce the grammar rules you've been learning.

Playing games is one of the best ways to improve your understanding and mastery of concepts, and grammar is no exception! If your eyes are going a bit crossed after studying one of the more serious lessons, pop on over to Grammar Ninja for an exciting, refreshing take on the same concepts.

No matter how tricky or frustrating it might seem, you can master English grammar! The free resources listed in this article will help you become a stronger writer in no time.

Have we missed one of your favorite sites? Tell us in the comments!

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Lisa Lepki is Fictionary CMO and a former ProWritingAid employee. A word nerd, she loves the technical elements of writing almost as much as the writing itself. She is the co-author of The Novel-Writing Training Plan, Creating Legends: How to craft characters readers adore... or despise!, How to Build Your Author Platform on a Shoestring and 20 Editing Tips from Professional Writers.

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The 7 Best Creative Writing Apps for Capturing Ideas on the Go

1. evernote: organize your thoughts with ease, 2. microsoft onenote: capture and share ideas, 3. scrivener: your all-in-one writing studio, 4. google docs: real-time collaboration for writers, 5. ia writer: a minimalistic approach to writing, 6. ulysses: a powerful writing app for mac and ios, 7. bear: a beautiful and flexible note-taking app.

As a writer, inspiration can hit you at any moment. But, when you're on the go, it's not always easy to capture those creative ideas. That's where the best creative writing apps for capturing ideas on the go come in handy. In this blog, we'll introduce you to seven of the top writing apps that will help you organize your thoughts, collaborate with others, and jot down your ideas—wherever you are.

Evernote is a popular app among writers, and for good reason. It's designed to help you capture and manage your thoughts, no matter how big or small. Here's what makes Evernote a top contender for the best creative writing app for capturing ideas on the go:

• Easy organization: Create notebooks and tags to categorize and locate your ideas quickly.
• Sync across devices: Access your notes on your phone, tablet, or computer, ensuring your ideas are always with you.
• Voice notes: Can't type your idea out? Record a voice note and transcribe it later.
• Web clipper: Save articles, images, or entire web pages to reference in your writing.
• Search functionality: Quickly find your ideas using Evernote's powerful search feature.

With Evernote, you can be confident that your spontaneous thoughts and ideas are saved and organized, making it an excellent choice for writers on the move.

Microsoft OneNote is another strong contender for the title of best creative writing app for capturing ideas on the go. It's a versatile tool that offers many useful features for writers, such as:

• Intuitive interface: OneNote's interface is easy to navigate, allowing you to jot down ideas quickly and efficiently.
• Flexible organization: Organize your notes into sections and pages, making it simple to locate your thoughts later.
• Collaboration tools: Share your notes with others and work together in real-time, making it ideal for co-writing projects.
• Handwriting recognition: If you prefer to write by hand, OneNote can recognize and convert your handwriting into digital text.
• Integration with other Microsoft apps: Seamlessly import your notes into Word, PowerPoint, or Excel for further editing and refinement.

Microsoft OneNote is a fantastic app for writers who want a versatile and powerful tool for capturing and sharing their ideas on the go.

Scrivener is a popular choice for many writers and is often considered one of the best creative writing apps for capturing ideas on the go. It's an all-in-one writing studio, offering a wide range of useful features, such as:

• Outlining tools: Scrivener's intuitive outlining tools help you plan and structure your writing projects with ease.
• Corkboard: Visualize your work using the corkboard feature, allowing you to rearrange and organize your ideas effortlessly.
• Research folder: Keep all your research materials, such as images, PDFs, and web pages, in one place for easy access.
• Templates: Choose from a variety of templates for different writing projects, like novels, screenplays, or academic papers.
• Writing goals: Set word count or deadline goals to keep you on track and motivated throughout your writing process.

Scrivener is an excellent option for writers who want a comprehensive writing app that can help them organize and manage their work from start to finish. It's especially helpful for capturing ideas on the go, ensuring you never lose inspiration when it strikes.

Google Docs is a powerful and user-friendly choice for writers who want to capture their ideas on the go. This cloud-based app is perfect for individuals and teams alike, as it offers real-time collaboration features that make it easy to work together on any writing project. Here's why Google Docs is one of the best creative writing apps for capturing ideas on the go:

• Accessibility: Google Docs is available on various devices, including smartphones, tablets, and computers, allowing you to access and edit your work from anywhere.
• Collaboration: Share your documents with others, allowing them to view, comment on, or edit your work in real-time. This is perfect for writers working with editors, beta readers, or co-authors.
• Version history: Google Docs automatically saves your work and keeps track of all changes, so you can easily revert to a previous version if needed.
• Add-ons: Enhance your writing experience by installing various add-ons, such as grammar checkers or writing style guides, to improve your work.
• Offline mode: Even without an internet connection, you can still access and edit your documents, making it perfect for capturing ideas on the go.

With its versatility and ease of use, Google Docs is an excellent choice for writers who want a reliable app for capturing and organizing their ideas, no matter where they are.

iA Writer is a fantastic option for those who prefer a clean, minimalistic writing environment that allows them to focus on their words. This app is designed to eliminate distractions, making it one of the best creative writing apps for capturing ideas on the go. Here's why iA Writer stands out:

• Focus mode: This unique feature dims everything but the current sentence you're working on, helping you concentrate on your writing without any distractions.
• Markdown support: iA Writer supports Markdown, a lightweight markup language that allows you to format your text easily and efficiently, making it perfect for writers who want to focus on their words, not the formatting.
• Universal library: Organize all your documents in one place, making it easy to find and access your work across different devices.
• Export options: You can export your work in various formats, such as PDF, HTML, or Microsoft Word, ensuring compatibility with other platforms.
• Available on multiple platforms: iA Writer is available on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows devices, so you can capture your ideas whenever and wherever inspiration strikes.

For writers who value simplicity and a clutter-free writing experience, iA Writer is an excellent choice for capturing ideas on the go and staying focused on the creative process.

Ulysses is a robust and feature-rich creative writing app designed specifically for Mac and iOS users. It offers a seamless writing experience, making it one of the best creative writing apps for capturing ideas on the go. Here's what makes Ulysses stand out:

• Organized workspace: Ulysses allows you to create folders and subfolders to keep your work organized and easy to find, so you can focus on writing rather than searching for your documents.
• Markdown support: Like iA Writer, Ulysses supports Markdown, which enables you to easily format your text and keep your writing clean and organized.
• Goal setting: Set writing goals and track your progress to stay motivated and on track with your projects.
• Customizable appearance: Personalize your writing environment by choosing from different themes, fonts, and styles to create a comfortable space that caters to your preferences.
• Export and publishing options: Ulysses offers various export formats and even direct publishing to platforms like WordPress and Medium, making it easy to share your work with the world.

If you're a Mac or iOS user looking for a powerful writing app that can handle large projects, keep your work organized, and help you stay focused, Ulysses is an excellent choice for capturing your ideas on the go.

Bear is another fantastic creative writing app, perfect for capturing ideas on the go. With its visually appealing design and user-friendly interface, Bear is a great choice for writers who value simplicity and functionality. Here's what sets Bear apart as one of the best creative writing apps:

• Minimalistic interface: Bear's clean, clutter-free interface allows you to focus on writing without any distractions.
• Easy organization: Organize your notes with tags, which makes finding and categorizing your ideas a breeze.
• Markdown support: Like iA Writer and Ulysses, Bear incorporates Markdown formatting for a clean and organized writing experience.
• Cross-platform syncing: Bear is available for both iOS and Mac, allowing you to access and edit your work on multiple devices.
• Export options: Easily export your notes to various formats such as PDF, Word, and HTML, so you can share your work in the format that suits your needs.

If you're searching for a beautiful and flexible app that can help you capture your creative ideas on the go, Bear is a fantastic option to consider.

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In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit­hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube­shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ­ the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill ­ The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it ­ and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining­rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left­hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep­set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. This hobbit was a very well­to­do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained­well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.

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Top 7 Writing Apps: Game-Changers for Writers [Inc. AI]

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Chelsea Forsyth

There are days when even the best writers need a little assistance getting into their creative flow. So, when one of those days strikes, you want to ensure you have a toolkit of the best apps for writers to rely on.

Writing apps can provide inspiration, improve your writing style, and help you organize your thoughts. They can also help with research, tracking your progress, and sharing drafts with editors, making them a great resource for both aspiring and established writers. Plus, many apps are even available for free!

If you’re looking for some tools to help streamline your creative writing processes, check out our list of eight handy tools. 

1. Wordtune: Using AI while keeping your content human

What kind of list of best apps for writers would this be if we didn’t start with Wordtune? 

Wordtune is an AI-powered writing assistant that helps you improve your writing by providing real-time feedback on grammar, punctuation, and style. It can be used for everything from academic writing to business emails and blog posts, making it a brilliant tool for a variety of writers. 

Wordtune can also help you to find the right words for your writing. It can provide synonyms, antonyms, and other words related to the topic being written about. It also offers definitions and other contextual information to help writers better understand what they’re writing about. For instance, Wordtune highlights words used in the wrong context, or suggests more suitable words or phrases in its place.

Plus, you can use Spices — these are tools developed to enhance your writing even further. You can ask Wordtune to “explain” the topic you’re writing about to help give your reader further clarification, or “emphasize” to help reiterate your point. These are especially useful if you’re struggling to add further detail to your writing, or if you need some help understanding a topic

Try Wordtune for free > Try Wordtune for free >

2. Scrivener: Best for writers who write long-form

Scrivener is a must-have tool for long-form writers. Both an “outliner” planning tool and a word processor, Scrivener allows you to meticulously plan your novel or screenplay by breaking down your writing into sections and ‘outlining’ what each bit will include. You can also organize notes, concepts, research, and whole documents into its “Binder” for easy access and reference. 

Scrivener differs from other apps on this list in that it won't assist you with your writing style — but it will provide everything you need to keep writing. For instance, if you’re writing a novel or a screenplay, you can write when inspiration strikes without worrying if it's in chronological order, as the drag-and-drop interface allows you to easily move sections to another place at a later date. You can also add synopses and overviews to each chapter, which helps when you want to ‘zoom out’ and look at your novel or screenplay as a whole. Plus, Scrivener allows you to keep all your notes and research in one place, supporting photos and audio files, too.

Scrivener also syncs across devices — whether it’s your Mac, Windows, or iOS device — and you can easily compile everything into a single document when you’re ready to export, with popular formats such as Word document, PDF, Final Draft, and plain text supported.

To get started, download Scrivener from the website for a free 30-day trial. Once this is up, you can either purchase it on Mac or Windows for a one-time payment of $49, or on iOS for a one-time payment of $19.99.

3. ChatGPT: Everyone's using it, but writers use it differently

The AI language model ChatGPT is a great tool for sparking inspiration and outlining ideas — just ask it a question, or command it to write something, and see what text it generates. 

ChatGPT can assist in producing high-quality content that’s grammatically correct and coherent. It also processes and analyzes information quickly, generating text much faster than a human. This can be especially useful if you need to write a large amount of content in a short amount of time — you can ask it to generate an explanation of a complex topic, for example, instead of needing to write this out yourself.   

However, as listed in the image above, ChatGPT’s responses can sometimes be factually incorrect or can include biases. Its creator, OpenAI, has also warned users that ChatGPT’s arguments can be logically flawed. And while the tool is known for its supposed versatility, we don’t recommend using it to generate creative writing. There’s only so much an algorithm can do, and thankfully humans win when it comes to being uniquely creative. 

Overall, ChatGPT is a great tool for quick, surface-level overviews; idea generation, summarizing information, and creating outlines are all made simpler by the tool. However, if you want an all-round writing assistant that helps you to construct your narrative, take a read of our article on choosing the right AI writing tool .

4. Evernote: Saving your wonderful thoughts for reference

Most writers carry a notebook to jot down ideas when inspiration strikes. But in the smartphone era, there’s a much simpler and more efficient alternative to capture fleeting thoughts — enter Evernote . Syncing across all your devices, Evernote automatically saves notes online, allowing you to keep everything that’s on your mind organised and in one place. You can add images, illustrations, and to-do lists, handwrite notes, and tag items with keywords, allowing you to always find anything you need. 

Available for free on iOS and Android devices — and accessible from within your browser — Evernote also provides offline access, so you can access your notes even without wifi.  

Take notes, plan projects, and find whatever you need at the touch of a button. Evernote is the perfect companion to a writer’s messy brain.

5. Daily Prompt: Your inspiration injection

Need a nudge to write consistently? It’s time to try Daily Prompt: Creative Writing .

Available as both an iOS app and as a web-based writing tool , Daily Prompt encourages you to get creative every day with a new prompt every 24 hours. You can let Daily Prompt provide you with a prompt, or you can browse existing prompts. Choose from genres such as horror, adventure, romance, or crime, and opt for different types of prompts like “story starters” (a creative prompt encouraging you to contine the story) or “writing obstacles” (an instruction designed to challenge you to write more creatively). 

You can use a limited version of the app on both your phone or web browser, or alternatively, you can pay a yearly subscription of $19.99. This gives you premium access, with free range over the back catalogue of prompts, early access to new features, and a seven-day money back guarantee if you change your mind. Plus, you get to join Daily Prompt’s community of aspiring authors improving their writing skills on a daily basis, and even read their stories.

6. Power Thesaurus: To find the word on the tip of your tongue

Every writer needs a thesaurus to lean on now and again. While a lot of AI writing tools provide synonyms as part of the package, there’s no harm in having a dedicated thesaurus app to rely on if you need alternatives to an overused word. 

One of the best is Power Thesaurus — available as both an iOS and Android app, and as a website. It’s quick, it’s powerful, and it provides a list of synonyms longer than any other thesaurus I’ve used. Plus, you can find the definition of the word you’re searching for, as well as see it used in a sentence, or choose from a list of antonyms. 

7. Hemingway App: Because readability matters more than you think

Hemingway App is a powerful tool for streamlining your writing style. The free online editor enhances the readability and clarity of your writing by highlighting and correcting grammar, fluency, and sentence structure. 

The platform is ideal for editing shorter pieces. If you tend to write longer sentences, Hemingway will encourage you to be clearer and more succinct in your writing by highlighting sentences that are hard to read, or phrases that have simpler alternatives. 

As well as being online, you can also download a desktop version of the app. This requires a one-time payment of $19.99 on both Mac and Windows. 

Time to write

Using a writing app or two is a great way to enhance your creativity, edit your writing, or just make your writing process more enjoyable (and productive) in general. 

Tools like Google Docs and Scrivener are brilliant for keeping you organized and efficient, whereas an AI writing assistant like Wordtune can help you to level up your language and explore ideas you hadn’t previously thought of.

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The Best 50 Free Writing Software And Free Writing Apps

Writers are spoiled for choice when it comes to free writing software, tools, and free writing apps.

Are you a blogger, author, content writer, or student?

You want the best creative writing tools and software that will do the job for you.

But you don’t want to pay a lot of money to be able to write more effectively. Read on to discover all the choices you have for software, programs, and apps to help you write better and more productively.

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Your free tools and software choices

There is no need for you to spend a penny to get some of the best free writing programs to help you write more productively and accurately.

You can choose and try so many terrific writing programs and tools today. You will find that most of them are unrestricted and will cost you nothing to use.

If you are looking for new apps and tools to improve your writing, you have come to the right place.

This page is regularly updated to bring you the biggest choice of free software and apps for writers.

It includes free writing apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux users.

You can find creative writing apps, grammar checking apps, word processors, mind maps, index cards, book writing programs, and productivity tools.

All of them will help you get on with what you do best, which is writing, of course.

There are also many lite versions of popular premium apps available that can offer you tons of fantastic features.

I have tried almost all the writing tools and apps in this article and use a lot of them every day.

Find the best free writing software and apps for you

You can find lots of writing software online, but you want writing apps that work best for you and your writing process and style.

With online writing software, I always start with a free version to make sure a new app does what I want it to do.

Very often, a free app will do everything I need.

But yes, sometimes I opt for a premium version to get all the features if it is really a fantastic tool.

It doesn’t matter if you are an author, a blogger, or an article writer.

Choosing the best tools for your writing needs will save you time, effort, and lots of money.

Free apps and writing software for students  are a huge bonus.

They will help you at school, college, or university.

For every type of writer, here are some of the very best free-to-use and freemium apps for you to make your choice.

Scan through my list of the best free writing software and apps below.

See if you can find a few new favorites to download for your laptop or to use online.

Please note that all the apps and software listed on this page are free to use.

However, some are a free version of a premium application, and in this case, the free version may be limited in features.

6 Free writing apps for accuracy

The most essential writing app you always need must be a reliable grammar corrector and a spellchecker.

There are a lot of online apps to check, correct, and improve your writing.

For every writer, the options will be different depending on your writing style and needs. There is no one best or better choice.

Some writers might only need a simple online checker for blog posts, articles, or essays.

But for a content writer or author, it is different. You are probably looking for more developed programs and options.

In my case, I always use two programs to check my writing.

I use one for grammar and spelling and another for writing style and readability. It always pays to check and double-check your writing and sentence structure before you publish it online.

Here are six of the most popular free grammar apps to get you on your way. Each one will help you improve the quality and accuracy of your writing.

Try them all to see which one or two work best for you and your style or type of writing.

1. Hemingway Editor – Free

I have a love-hate relationship with the Hemmingway Editor app.

The love is due to how quick and easy it is to check my readability score and grade.

The negative is that it always tells me to simplify my writing. It hates the passive voice, but that’s a good thing.

It is also a great tool for finding overused adverbs and difficult to read sentences.

It’s a simple app. But if you are looking for a free writing assistant, it is one of the handiest tools   a writer can have at their fingertips.

You can choose which Hemingway mode to use – either write or edit.

The online version is very convenient for checking up to a page or so of text. It gives helpful hints to improve your writing.

It’s one of the must-have free apps for any writer.

There is a paid version, but I am not sure it offers much value.

2. QuillBot – Free

QuillBot Grammar Checker is a quick and easy free tool you can use to check your manuscript.

One of the best features is that you can use one-click corrections to fix your grammar, punctuation, and spelling very quickly.

Another advantage is that it has a generous word count limit. I tested it with a text of over 2,000 words, and it quickly analyzed all of my text.

You can probably check one chapter at a time with the tool.

You can check each underlined suggestion and make a quick correction. But it also has a “Fix All Errors” button.

I’m not sure I would trust it for a long text. But it could be useful for a shorter text.

To use the checker, simply paste in your text, or you can use it as an editor and type your text.

When you finish correcting your writing, copy and paste it into your word processor.

Quillbot has other features, but these are only available with the premium version.

However, the grammar checker is totally free to use and is an excellent tool for checking and correcting your writing.

There is also a free Chrome extension you can try.

3. ChatGPT – Free and Premium

ChatGPT has to be on my list of free writing tools, but why is it under apps for accuracy?

Yes, it is a valuable and free tool for writers. You can use it as a writing prompt generator to inspire and generate ideas for new stories or articles.

You need only include keywords or phrases related to the topic you want to write about. ChatGTP will respond with various ideas and writing points to help you.

But you might not know that it can also help you correct your grammar and spelling.

All you need to do is start your prompt with, check the grammar and spelling:  then paste your text.

It will rewrite your text with the corrections.

You can also ask it to do other things. Ask it to change passive to active voice , and it will rewrite your text in all active voice.

Another use is to ask it to rewrite your text in a different point of view. Just ask it to rewrite in the second person .

However, don’t rely on it 100%.

It does an excellent job most of the time, but it doesn’t always get everything right, so make sure you proofread carefully.

AI writing tools are everywhere now, so writers can’t ignore them.

The free version of ChatGPT offers plenty of options with very few limitations.

So it’s probably one of the best tools to start learning how to use AI technology to help you with your ideas and writing accuracy.

Read more about how to use ChatGPT to correct your writing .

4. Grammarly – Free and Premium

Without a doubt, Grammarly is the number one online grammar checker.

For a lot of writers, it’s one of the best writing apps around.

I have used Grammarly for years now.

It is one online writing tool that I always have switched on in Chrome to use with my WordPress editor.

It works with so many sites, platforms, software, and applications. So it is always on and always helping me correct my writing in real-time.

Grammarly has a desktop app. It also has a plugin for Word in Microsoft Office for PC users.

You can use it in any web browser, with WordPress, and even on your social media sites. It also works on mobile devices as well as with an iOS Grammarly Keyboard app.

There is also support for Google Docs, but this feature is still in beta.

No matter what, when, or where you write, Grammarly will always help you write better and more accurately.

The browser version of Grammarly works very well for most users. However, a premium version is available for more advanced features to help you in your writing process.

You can read more in my Grammarly review .

5. Prowritingaid – Free and Premium

Prowritingaid is one of my favorite writing checkers for long-form writing.

You can use the free version of ProWritingAid.

It offers you a lot of functionality to help you write more accurately online using a simple Chrome extension to check your grammar and spelling.

Are you an author? Then you should consider all the editing and checking tools that are available with this app.

It is a superb writing aid for authors and writers of long-form content articles.

The premium version includes over twenty different writing analysis tools and reports. These will give you a wide range of suggestions for improving your writing.

There are also easy to use extensions available for Chrome, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Scrivener too.

It is my number one go-to editing tool when I need to work intensively on very long documents such as long-form articles or book manuscripts.

You can also read my full Prowritingaid review.

6. Grammar Lookup – Free

Grammar Lookup is another good choice for an online grammar-checking app.

I used 3,000 words from one of my book manuscripts to test the app.

It started checking for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors almost immediately. It is a good app for checking short-form writing, such as blog posts and short stories.

If you’re looking for a robust grammar app with a generous word limit, this one is well worth trying.

Again, like a lot of online writing tools, it is ad-supported.

12 Free word processors

The first name writers associate with word processing is almost always Microsoft Word.

Many writers, bloggers, and authors use it as their default writing tool, but it is definitely not cheap.

Depending on your country, the annual license for Office 356 can range from $60 – $100.

If you want to buy the one-time purchase version, which is called Office Home & Student, it can cost you as much as $150.

Microsoft Office is, as its name implies, software for office use. It includes Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, and other programs. You will never use these software programs for creative writing.

Do you need to pay for all these extra programs to have a word processor to write a blog post, article, or short story?

What is the best word processor for writers? Are there any free alternatives equal to Word?

Yes. If you want to write, you can always find great word processors that cost you nothing to use. Often they come with many other options and tools that are better suited for writers.

Most of them will be suitable for your writing goals and any form of short creative writing project.

But you should note that a word processor is not the best app for writing a book. You can find better programs for authors in the next section of this article.

1. Google Docs – Free

Like Microsoft Office, Google Docs is a suite of office tools. The big difference, of course, is that Google Docs is available for free online.

If you are familiar with Word, you will have no problem adapting to Docs, the word processor component.

All the formatting options are very similar, as is the user interface.

Unlike some word processors, Docs has a word count so you can keep track of your word count goal.

I know that many writers, particularly content writers, use Google Docs because of the simplicity of sharing documents online.

Writing projects can be quickly and easily shared using Google Drive, which comes with 5 gigabytes of storage. It is usually plenty of storage space for writers. You can also use Docs offline .

If you write every day and collaborate with other writers, content editors, proofreaders, or editors, Google Docs allows you to collaborate easily.

There is no need to know what file format or program others are using.

As long as each person has a Google account, and who doesn’t, working together is very easy.

2. Apple Pages for Mac Users – Free

If you are a Mac user and all you need is a word processor, Apple Pages can handle everything you could possibly need to do.

It really is the best free writing software for Mac.

Like Word, you can start with a blank document or use the template chooser.

Word processing in the page layout document view is easy to work with. All the text formatting, fonts, and writing tools are easy to find and use.

There is a spell checker, word and page count , and track change with an add comments option.

It also auto-saves directly to your hard drive or your iCloud drive when you are online. There is also the file duplicate function. It gives you very easy version control of your revisions and edits.

It is difficult to think of a standard feature or function in Word that is not available in Pages documents.

Pages also shines in one other area. It has much more control over images than Word.

One other big plus with Pages for authors is that you can export directly to epub. You don’t need to convert your file formats into another program.

Pages is one of the best writing programs for Mac users.

There is also a mobile app for iPad and iPhone. You can download it from the Mac App Store.

Related reading: Can Apple Pages Replace Microsoft Word For Mac?

3. MS Notepad and Mac TextEdit – Free

These two writing programs are already under your noses. They are installed by default on Windows and Apple computers.

They are both ideal little apps for writing blogs or short articles.

However, they are both worthy of mention because of their usefulness in converting to plain text.

Most word processors can add a lot of background code over the time you take to write a long document.

Cut and pasting, saving, deletions, forgotten tabs and spaces, and formatting changes all add up to a lot that can go wrong.

Because of all this code, there is a chance that the text might have issues when used online. This can be especially true if you use WordPress or publish ebooks.

The quickest and easiest way to clean a document, big or small, is to copy all the text into a plain text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit. Then, you can convert everything to plain text.

Then you can copy back the clean text into your blog editor or word processor for ebook formatting.

4. Libre Office – Free

I used Open Office for many years. It is an open-source project and is still available.

However, many writers now favor Libre Office.

These two office suites branched from the same development stable, so they have a lot of similarities.

Learning to work with Writer, which is the word processor, is easy.

However, it uses traditional and straightforward menus, toolbars, and icons but does not have the ribbon function found in Word.

In some ways, this is a good thing because it lets you get on with the writing process instead of hunting in ribbons for buttons.

If you want a word processor, and that’s all, Writer in Libre Office won’t disappoint you.

5. Word Online – Free

Microsoft Word Online is a free web browser version of Word.

You can create, edit, and share Word documents, but it comes with relatively basic features compared to the paid desktop version.

But for students and part-time writers, it’s a handy free alternative.

One benefit is that you can use it on any device with a web browser, including computers, tablets, and smartphones.

You will need to create a Microsoft account, which is free. You also get 5GB of free storage.

Overall, it’s a worthwhile option for users who want a free and easy-to-use word processing software similar to Google Docs.

6. WPS Office – Free Edition

If you have used Microsoft Word or Google Docs, then you can work with WPS Office immediately.

Like other alternative word processors, it has all the standard features you would expect, and it works with most file types.

One of its key features is that it allows drag-and-drop paragraphs, which can be practical at times.

Another time-saving yet straightforward feature of WPS is tabbed documents.

While Excel has had this for years, Word has never had it, so working on two documents simultaneously is much more efficient in WPS.

WPS also has a cloud storage service with 1G for PC and iOS.

7. SoftMaker Free Office – Free

Free Office gets a mention because it can export .epub. It is a convenient tool for self-publishers.

TextMaker is the word processor in this office suite.

However, unless you opt for the premium version, you cannot save in docx format.

But you can open and edit docx files.

Apart from that inconvenience, it has all the advanced features you would expect in a modern word processor.

It comes with advanced formatting options, the ability to create databases for bibliographies and footnotes, as well as track change.

8. Dropbox Paper – Free

All you need is your free Dropbox account to use Dropbox Paper .

It is a word processor, but there is so much more you can do with this app.

The design is clean and simple, but there are so many features at your fingertips.

As well as being a text editor, you can add audio, images, YouTube videos, Slideshare documents, and Trello cards.

It really is a great free writing app for you to create documents and then share them with your team or online.

9. Focus Writer – Free

FocusWriter is a simple, distraction-free writing environment.

It uses a full-screen hide-away interface that you access by moving your mouse to the edges of the screen.

It allows the program to have a familiar look and feel to it. But by getting everything out of the way, you can immerse yourself in your work.

It’s available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.

10. Calmly Writer – Free

Calmly Writer has been designed to help you focus on writing.

As you start typing, all the distracting options disappear from the interface.

Calmly also includes a “focus mode” option, which highlights only the paragraph you are editing at the time.

If you are a writing minimalist, it could be a good choice for you.

It is a browser-based app, and there is a Chrome extension available.

11. Zoho Writer – Free

Zoho Writer is an online alternative to Microsoft Word.

You can sync between your PC or Mac, iPhone, Android, or iPad.

Almost everything you do in Word, you can do with this word processor. There are even collaboration tools.

You can import your existing Word documents and get to work.

There is also a plugin to link your Zoho documents to Word.

That’s not a bad deal for at all a gratis online writing tool.

12. Scribus – Free

Scribus is an open-source program for desktop publishing.

It gets a mention here because it is such a feature-rich cross-platform program.

Scribus is a page layout and desktop publishing program for Linux, FreeBSD, PC-BSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, OpenIndiana, Debian GNU/Hurd, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4, eComStation, Haiku, and Windows.

Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK colors, spot colors, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

Perhaps it is not a choice for most authors and bloggers. But you might have a desktop publishing need one day.

4 Free book writing apps

Are you ready to start writing a book? You need to hunt a little to find good writing programs for writing books and novels.

A writing app or author software for a book is entirely different from a word processor.

The best book writing programs consist of many elements.

You need plot timelines, character builders, and event tracking. It should also include note-taking and research-pinning tools.

Here are four of the best free book apps for writing, formatting, and publishing your books or ebooks.

There is a link to seven more free book writing programs at the end of this list.

1. Shaxpir – Free and Premium

For a dedicated book writing tool, Shaxpir gives you a lot of features in its free version.

The Manuscript Builder uses drag-and-drop tools to rearrange your manuscript. You can change the order and hierarchy of chapters and scenes. So you can find a structure that works for you.

You can set your goals and track your progress. You can also keep detailed notes about your characters, places, and events.

It also allows you to add margin comments as well as collect concept art.

There is also an in-built spellchecker.

As far as a book writing program or author app goes, Shaxpir offers you a   huge range of features.

It is available for Mac and PC with offline and cloud access.

2. Scrivener – Free Trial

Although Scrivener is not free, I have to include It in this list of apps because there is a generous trial available.

Scrivener is one of the best book writing software tools for authors and screenwriters.

It has an outliner for chapters and scenes, a corkboard, and index cards.

There is also side-by-side viewing, word count targets, and a full-screen editor, along with print, export, and publishing tools. It has everything any writer could ever need.

There is a 30-day trial period offered by Scrivener.

However, the trial period is counted by the days that you use the software. So, if you use it every second day, your trial period will last 60 days.

If you only write at the weekend, it will last you for a good few months.

Scrivener is available for download for both Windows and Mac. There are also iOS apps for iPhone and iPad.

To access your trial, click the Download Trial link.

3. Calibre Ebook Tool

Calibre is often called the Swiss Army Knife of ebook formatting tools.

There is so much you can do with Calibre.

But for most new authors, you will use it to convert your Word manuscript to mobi, epub, and pdf.

If you have some technical ability, you can also edit the epub or HTML files of your ebook.

It really is one of the most powerful ebook tools for authors.

It is available for download for PC, Mac, and Linux.

4. Kindle Create – Free

If you are a self-publishing author on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Kindle Create is a must-have app for you to use.

The program has improved a lot over the last couple of years. Initially, it was a little unstable, and its primary function was to help you format a Kindle book.

But stability is much better now, and Amazon has been slowly adding new features since it merged Createspace into KDP.

Kindle Create can now format both ebooks and paperback books. However, this latest option is still in beta.

It is so easy to format beautiful ebooks using Kindle Create.

Do you want more free book writing software?

Are you trying to find the best apps for writing your book?

Do you want the best novel writing tool that can help you work on individual chapters and scenes?

Here are seven choices for apps and free writing programs for you that are specifically designed for writing your book.

Read our review of nine free book writing programs for authors.

7 Free apps for bloggers

Are you a content writer or blogger? You need to work with ideas, keywords, data, headlines, and images all day long.

It pays to stay one step ahead of your competition. You are continually working on improving your content, search engine optimization (SEO), and SERP rankings.

There is no way you can do all this work without having the best tools for the job at hand.

Make your life a little easier with some of these blogging apps to help you write and rank better.

Here is a choice of seven of the best blogging tools for busy content writers and bloggers. All of them will save you hours of work every day.

1. Fyrebox – Free and Premium

You’re writing lots of content for your blog.

But wouldn’t it be great if you could engage your readers a little more in your post topics?

Well, you can with Fyrebox by creating a free interactive quiz.

All you need to do is create your free account, and then you can start designing your quiz in a few minutes.

There are templates to help you get started with pre-made quizzes for you to personalize.

A quiz is a great way to keep your readers on your blog for much longer by letting them participate in your blog post subject.

2. Hubspot Blog Ideas – Free

Hubspot’s blog topic generator is an old favorite for many writers.

All you need to do is enter a few nouns, and it will produce a list of blog title ideas for you.

It is such a handy tool to have when you are looking for new writing ideas.

3. Portent’s Idea Generator – Free

Do you need a cure for writer’s block?

I adore this blog topic generator app.

Portent is an easy and clever way to find new writing ideas.

It is an app primarily designed for bloggers to find headlines and titles, not a genuine headline analyzer. However, writers can use it to discover new ideas for any piece of writing.

All you have to do is input your base word or words, and then you can select a working title for a new writing prompt.

4. ShareThough Headline Analyser – Free

How engaging is your article headline?

Sharethrough must be my absolute favorite little app. Once you have a blog or article title idea, run it through this app to see how effective it will be in attracting readers’ attention.

You can edit as you go, and the app keeps a record of your variations so you can choose the best one.

The app’s blurb says: “Like the lead paragraph in a news story or thesis in an essay, your headline is your one true sentence: the single most important asset for capturing attention in the feed.”

5. Website Grader – Free

Website Grader is a quick and easy app to help you improve your blog.

Checking and optimizing your blog’s performance is essential if you want to increase your site traffic.

You should make sure that your website is easy for users to discover and easy for search engines to understand.

It is a quick app to check your page titles, headings, and meta descriptions.

It only takes a few seconds to run this performance check of your blog to see if you need to make any improvements.

6. Privacy Policy Generator – Free

Privacy Policy Generator is an app to help you write your privacy policy page for your blog.

You don’t even need to register or give your email address.

It is a time and money saver for all bloggers.

Just add your basic information, and the app will create the full text for your privacy terms.

All blogs should have a policy page about privacy to make sure that your site is GDPR compliant.

7. Canva – Free and Premium

Now, this is not an app for writing articles. So it might not truly belong in a list of blog writing tools and programs.

But Canva is a fantastic tool for promoting your writing.

Canva is a free online tool for creating images.

Because Internet images you find on Google images are very often copyright protected, it is a much better idea to create your own unique images.

You can find and use stock images to upload to Canva that you can then design and transform into a unique image.

You can use Canva to create images for social media promotion, blog posts, Facebook headers, and even quick and dirty ebook covers.

While there is a paid option, the free version offers more than enough images, graphics, icons, shapes, and backgrounds for almost any image creation project.

It’s so useful; I sometimes feel a bit guilty because I use this app almost every day.

10 Free productivity apps

There are so many facets to writing. It would be great if all you had to do were to write.

But we all know that a writer’s life consists of lots of tasks and distractions.

You have to be organized to be able to write. Just collecting and collating your ideas takes a lot of time in your day. Then there is your to-do list and probably a long list of pending items.

It would be great if there was an all-in-one help for a writer’s app. But until it ever eventuates, here is a selection of some of the best productivity apps for writers.

Hopefully, some of them will help you stay organized and perhaps save a little time that you can invest in writing.

1. Trello – Free and Premium

Trello must be one of the most popular apps for writers.

There is so much you can do to organize your writing projects, notes, and to-do lists. You can collaborate and assign tasks, start discussions, and so much more.

Trello is a beautiful as well as highly functional app. It is available for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, iOS, and Android.

2. Evernote – Free and Premium

Evernote is a popular application for lots of writers. It is one of the most popular note-taking apps, but it is much more.

Never let an idea escape when you are not at your keyboard. You can organize your thoughts, and create checklists and to-do lists.

There is also a handy web clipper that lets you save parts of web pages to help you with your writing research.

The free version comes with more than enough storage memory to suit most writers.

3. OneLook – Free

OneLook lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept.

Your description can be anything at all: a single word, a few words, or even a whole sentence.

Type in your description and hit Enter to see all the related words.

This little writing app is a thesaurus on steroids.

4. Free Pomodoro Timer – Free

If you are a fan of the Pomodoro technique, to improve your productivity, you will need a Pomodoro timer .

There are many apps to choose from online.

But I like this one because it’s easy to set and to read. Nothing fancy, but effective.

5. Read-O-Meter – Free

How long will it take to read your article?

Find out with Read-O-Meter , and then you can add reading time to your blog post or article.

6. Wordcounter – Free

Wordcounter ranks the most frequently used words in your text.

You can use this browser app to see what words you are repeating too often and then make changes.

All you need to do is paste your text into the box. Then this little app will go to work and list all your repetitions.

7. Quetext – Free

Quetext is an online plagiarism checker.

Many paid apps feature checking plagiarism as a premium option.

But with this browser app, you can check your documents anytime you like.

8. Otter V0ice Notes – Free and Premium

Otter is a dictation-to-text app for iOS and Android.

All you need to do is hit the record button, start speaking, and watch your words appear in the app. It even adds in punctuation.

There are many paid and premium dictation apps, but Otter offers a generous free option of 600 minutes a month.

9. Freemind – Free

If you are into mind maps to develop story ideas, here is a software download for you.

Many authors use mind map apps to help write a book by keeping their ideas connected and logical.

Freemind is open-source mind-mapping software built in Java.

It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

It has a wide variety of features, including location-based mind mapping, collaboration tools, restore sessions, and more.

10. DiffChecker – Free

Do you sometimes get into a tangle when editing different versions of a text?

What and when did you make a change? Is it nearly impossible to remember every edit you make?

Well, with DiffChecker , it is easy to compare two versions of a text and find the differences between them.

It is a browser app, but if you want to save your revisions (Diffs), you will need to create an account to log in.

8 Quick mentions

The following software and writing apps are recent additions to this list.

They are not categorized. But all of them could be worth a look to see if they are a match for what you need in an app or program.

As they are quick mentions, you will need to investigate for yourself to see if they might be worthwhile.

1. Kindle Previewer – Free

The Kindle Previewer application is a free desktop program that lets authors preview how their ebooks will appear on all Kindle devices.

It makes it easy to check your ebooks for different screen sizes, display orientations, and text font sizes.

2. Zotero – Free

Zotero is a free and easy-to-use program to help you with sources and citations.

You can collect, organize, cite, and share your research.

You can create references and bibliographies for any text editor directly with Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs.

3. Reedsy Book Editor – Free

It is also a writing program and editor.

4. NaturalReader – Free

It’s often a good idea to read aloud when you proofread a draft text.

But with NaturalReader , you can create mp3 files from your text and then play them back to you. It makes it much easier to check your text for accuracy as you listen.

There is a generous free daily limit of 20 minutes for access to premium voices.

But if you select free voices, there is no restriction.

5. Bubbl.Us – Free

When you want to mind map your ideas, it is easier with an app.

Bubbl.Us is a good choice if you want free mind mapping. You can share your maps with others and even on social media.

6. Pixabay – Free

You’re right; this is not writing software. But I have to include Pixabay because I use it every day to find great free images for my blog.

There are many free stock image sites, but this one is my favorite because the choice of images is enormous.

7. Pixlr – Free

Again, this is not a writing app. But when you need to edit an image for your blog or ebooks, then Pixlr might do the job for you.

There is a premium version, but the free version can perform most basic photo editing tasks.

8. DramaQueen – Free

If you are writing scripts, this program could be what you are looking for.

With DramaQueen , you can format your script yourself or according to the official rules of the Writers’ Guild.

3 Fun free writing apps

Writers can sometimes be a serious bunch of people. But everyone needs to have a bit of fun from time to time.

To end my long list of apps for writers, here are three little apps to put a smile on your face.

Have fun, and enjoy being a writer.

1. Hipster Sound – Free

Do you have time to go to a café to relax and write?

If you don’t, you can bring the sounds of a Texas or Paris café to you with this cute little app.

Go to Hipster Sound , click play, pop in your air pods, and you will have all the ambient sounds you need to get your creative juices flowing. As an extra bonus, your coffee is on the house!

2. FlipText – Free

Okay, you are not going to use Fliptext often. But it is a fun and funny little writing tool.

¡uoıʇuǝʇʇɐ ʇɔɐɹʇʇɐ oʇ ǝɹns sı ʇı ˙uʍop ǝpısdn buıʇıɹʍ ʎɹʇ ʇou ʎɥʍ ‘uoıʇuǝʇʇɐ ʇɔɐɹʇʇɐ ןןıʍ ʇɐɥʇ buıɥʇǝɯos op oʇ ʇuɐʍ noʎ uǝɥʍ

Yes, you can write upside down. Did you have to turn your screen upside down, or did you twist your neck in pain trying to read it?

3. The Most Dangerous Writing App – Free

The Most Dangerous Writing App is a fun little writing tool with a mean side to it.

You start by setting yourself a writing time of, say, five minutes. Then you start writing. But if you stop writing for more than five seconds, you lose everything you wrote.

However, if you get through your allotted time without stopping, your reward is that you can save your work.

Yes, that’s a seriously nasty little writing app. It is a brutal yet brilliant idea.

But if you treat it like a game, it can be a fun challenge and maybe a clever way to overcome writer’s block.

Summary of free writing software

For all writers, there are plenty of software, programs, publishing apps , and tools.

You can also find free book writing programs that work very well for any book project.

You don’t need to spend any money at all to get some of the best software and apps.

There are so many open-source and free software alternatives for word processors, book writing, short story writing, and spelling and grammar correction tools.

Are you ready to write your book or get started as a content writer or blogger?

Then the writing tools in the list above will be more than enough to get you off on the right foot.

All of them are user-friendly, as well as quick and easy to learn how to use.

Make your choices based on what you need and want to achieve as a writer and what you think you will need to succeed.

Then head off to the coffee shop with your laptop, or pump up Hipster Sound at home and start writing.

Related reading: Choose Your Writing Apps For iPad To Write Anywhere

About The Author

Derek Haines

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28 thoughts on “the best 50 free writing software and free writing apps”.

No Ywriter? Easy to set up and use. Takes around two minutes to learn from installation. More important it’s free.

I have noted yWriter in our article about free book writing software.

Thank you for this article. It’s very useful.

As an editor and writer for thirty years, I’m not at all fond of grammar and style programs. None of them work well at all for the people who need them most. Every one I’ve tied, including Grammarly, makes terrible mistakes, and if you follow the style these programs want you to follow, you’ll never be a good writer. I can tell in a page or two whether a writer has used and RELIED such a program, and it’s almost always an instant rejection.

These programs should only be used by writers who don’t really need them, except for those brain fart moments, or when a truly esoteric question of grammar pops up. As a writer, you MUST know grammar inside out, and you must know style inside out, or you won’t have a clue whether Grammarly, or any such program, be it for grammar or style, is lying to you.

At BEST, these programs produce cookie cutter style that may be technically correct, but that simply is not professional level writing. Such writing may make you a couple of dollars on a site such as Medium, and you may even sell a few copies of something on Amazon, but this is all you’ll do.

If you really want to be a professional writer, you MUST learn grammar inside and out. These programs can’t give you the grammar you need, and contrary to popular belief, it is NOT an editor’s job to correct a manuscript full of bad grammar. Ain’t gonna happen. Grammar is your job, not the job of a software program, and not the job of an editor. Period.

Nor can you leave style up to software, or to an editor. Software can’t give you professional level style, and an editor simply doesn’t have the time. An editor will correct minor mistakes here and there, overlooked brain farts, but that’s it.

If you really want to be a writer, forget such silly software. Plant your butt and learn grammar. For style, story, characterization, plot, and other such necessities, read five hundred novels and a thousand short stories, then write several novel or fifty short stories. If you have any talent at all, this will bring it out. If you lack talent, well, you need a new profession.

This era of digitization has changed the publishing industry completely and is still revamping it . The book writing software and industries are a true companion for writers and editors. They are just making our work more easy and accurate. Totally agree with your article.

I have a fixed income due to my disabilities. I plan to purchase a new computer but is Microsoft Home and Personal a very reputable writing program? Is a Dell computer highly recommended?

I write • plays • poetry • historical fiction • children’s picture books • essays • short fiction for children and adults

Thank you! :-)

Sorry, Tom. But I can’t help you with advice about buying a computer. You’d be better trying computer review sites.

Hi Derek, I hope someone is interested in my Scribis Project, a series o free online editors dedicated to those who want to work quickly moving between dictionaries, thesauri and databases of sentences selected from the great classics. Based on what you type in the editor, you will get synonyms, collocations, intermediate concepts, semantic fields, and dozens of sentences that contain analogies, similarities, emotions and images. With another tool, Scribis Matrix, you can generate word matrices from the same dictionaries and thesauri.

Why no YWriter? It does everything important that scrivener can do, but it is free.

We do feature yWriter in our listing of free book writing software. So, we haven’t missed it. https://justpublishingadvice.com/choose-your-free-book-writing-software-for-your-new-book/

PowerWritingAid and Grammarly are not free programs. You have to pay expensive monthly subscriptions.

StyleWriter will make you a better writer and does not get a mention in your reviews!

Prowritingaid and Grammarly both offer free versions. But I will investigate Stylewriter.

I use Grammarly on a daily basis and only the free version and I don’t feel I am missing out on anything. I also use the free version of pro writing aid, not as often but I’ve never encountered an instance where I have wished I had the paid version. A lot of paid apps have a really good free version of those apps too. This is a pretty perfectly crafted reply because of my free Grammarly lol

Very great article with many great Apps. Recently I discovered Neperos, it is very intuitive and gives you the possibility to style your article with multiple pictures.

I bought Prowritingaid for the Word add-in, but found one of the most important features, the ability to customise reports, doesn’t work. Contacting the Support team led to promises of an investigation followed by nothing. A reminder led to a promise the issue would be passed to a developer who,would be in touch, then nothing. If you want it work with Word, look elsewhere or you’ll pay for a non-functional product with no support!

Hi Peter, Lisa here from ProWritingAid. I’ve just been through our support inbox and can’t find any emails under the name Peter Caffrey.

So far, I am enjoying 3 out of your 10 recommendations. Your reviews seem honest and unscripted-thank you for that.

The only serious free option for desktop publishing right now is Scribus. It’s software, not web-based. I’ve used it a few times and it’s pretty decent. Of course, I also have QuarkXPress, which I prefer. Hope that helps!

It was informational and I liked it very much.

I found this article to be informative. In search of one thing, I happily stumbled upon much more. Thanks!

Generally in life you get what you pay for so you should expect limitations from anything free. If you’re serious about writing then Scrivener is what you need. Yes, you have to pay for it but it costs about the same as a couple of takeaways and once you learn how to use it you’ll wonder how you lived without it. I agree about Canva, but I wouldn’t bother with anything else on the list!

There is free Windows alternative for Scrivener named Quoll Writer. Of course, it has some limitations but is a lot easier to use and gives you all essential features writer or journalist needs. Chapters, characters, items, linking, tagging, annotating and more. It has Idea Board and stats and readability indexes. Text formatting is basic but hey, it’s software for writers not for editors. You can export your texts as .docx or .epub and format them with Sigil or Calibre. I’m using it for couple of years.

Good article, but you don’t mention StyleWriter – a powerful program to change the way y0u write. It shows you how to write and edit like a professional.

So thankful I found this site. All the info I need in one place and much simpler than what I was trying to work with. Especially great for a tech dummy like me.

Great post, informative and gives me some options to consider that I didn’t know about before. Thanks.

Great article, I love Canva, Couldn’t run my website without it! Thanks for this. I learned some things.

Thanks for this informative post. :) — Suzanne

This post is one of the best and most informative I have read in years on publishing for home-based writers. Through your post, I have discovered new resources that will make my writing life easier. Thanks!!!

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Ten Free Online Tools for Creative Writers

Ten free online tools for creative writers that will help you stay productive, manage your time and stretch your imagination.

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I spend a lot of time writing, and I’m not complaining. I love to write! But, creative writing can be daunting. That’s why I’ve compiled this list of ten free online tools for creative writers. These are all apps and websites that I use almost daily. I don’t know where I’d be without them, and I know they will help you with your creative writing journey!

Let’s get started.

Google Docs 

Starting with the basics- a word processor. There are a lot of fancy word processors out there. Some are marketed directly to fiction writers. But, Docs is my go-to for a few reasons- it’s free, it’s simple to use, and it makes collaboration easy. 

We all have our most trusted editors. For me, that’s my wife. When I ask her to proofread a document I trust her to make any changes she sees fit. With the share function, Docs makes that easy. I share my document to her Gmail account and she can make changes from her phone or laptop at any time. 

Overall, I prefer Google’s G Suite over pricier options like Office or Apple iWork. Why pay through the nose for a basic word processor and spreadsheet application? Hell, I run my entire blog off of a $200 dollar Asus Chromebook , believe it or not. 

Check out Google G Suite

Pro tip- if you only use your computer to write, don’t buy an expensive computer. 

No software or app can replace a human editor. But, if you want to sell your writing put it through as many filters as possible. The first filter I plug my text into is Grammarly. Here are a few things I like about the app-

It’s Google plugin provides a spell check in Google Docs as well as when you’re writing on any website. So, if you have to fill out a field in, let’s say, a job application you won’t need to copy and paste from a word processor. Grammarly spell checks right there on your browser.

Plus, Grammarly’s word processor is super robust. Before you start typing you can set specific parameters for your text. Tell Grammarly if you’d like to inform, convince, or entertain. Choose a tone you want to convey like ‘confident’ or ‘funny.’ Grammarly will grade your writing based on those predefined goals. 

Lastly, Grammarly is invaluable to terrible spellers- like me. I’m serious, last month I misspelled the word “villain” on a Pinterest graphic. If only my graphic design app had a spell check… 

The best part is you get most of the app’s features for FREE. Or, you can upgrade to premium if you really want to up your game. Check out Grammarly with the link below.

The World’s Best Automated Proofreader

I use Evernote for all my research. And, I’ll be honest with y’all, I suck at productivity apps. Usually, there are way too many options and I get overwhelmed. After a thousand ignored push notifications, I eventually uninstall the app. Not Evernote, though. 

No, Evernote is evergreen on my phone. Why? It’s great for taking notes. It’s that simple. See a passage in a book on creative writing that you know you’ll want to reference later? Just snap a picture and add a tag like, “fiction writing.” 

If you’re reading a great article online but don’t have time to finish you can download the page to Evernote. The app will store the article offline for you. You can finally close all those open tabs! 

And finally, if you’re standing in line at the grocery store and you come up with an idea for your next short story- 

The FBI recruits a twenty-something bag boy to infiltrate a secretive cartel running drugs out of the store’s warehouse…  

All you have to do is jot it down in Evernote, and it will be ready for you the next time you sit down to at your desk. 

Check out Evernote

If you’re a writer, fiction or not, then you’re probably blogging. Blogging is a terrific tool for marketing. And, if your blogging you better be on Pinterest. 

For most bloggers, Pinterest is a primary source of traffic. 

But, who has time to consistently add pins to their account and gain followers to their profile? We all have day jobs, right?

That’s where Tailwind comes in. It’s one of the best scheduler apps I’ve ever used for any social platform. Tailwind allows you to schedule dozens of posts at a time and for weeks in advance.  

Plus, Tailwind offers a FREE Instagram 101 Webinar! Click here for instant access!

And, then there’s Tailwind Tribes. With Tribes, Tailwind makes it easy for you to find other bloggers in your niche. You share their content, they share yours. Next thing you know, you’ve gone viral! 

The best thing about Tailwind is that they’ve partnered with Pinterest every step of the way. So, they aren’t going anywhere. Tailwind has done wonders for my traffic and it can for you too. 

Check out Tailwind’s Free Trial & start pinning today !

Hemingway Editor 

Hemingway Editor is the second filter I put my writing through before handing it off to any beta readers. It’s a simple and free application that will rate your text based on readability. 

Hemingway will also alert you when a sentence is hard to read, or when you’ve used too many adverbs. It even highlights when you use passive voice. 

Hemingway is a useful way to make your writing as clear and concise as possible. 

Check out Hemingway Editor

Scribophile

This site is a fantastic resource if you’re looking for an online community of beta readers. Here’s how it works- you make an account and start editing other members work. With every critique, you provide you earn a credit.

After you earn a certain amount of credits you will be able to upload your own work for critique. 

I use Scribophile as a free editing resource on all my fiction. You can get in-depth critiques from talented beta readers. A lot of the writers on the site have published fiction and know what they’re talking about. 

I also enjoy being part of a community of writers. Everyone on the site is helpful and supportive, and it’s nice to chat with like-minded creators. 

But, they won’t pull punches, and that’s a good thing. Because, if your story sucks then that’s something you want to know. 

Check out Scribophile

Power Thesaurus 

Power Thesaurus is an awesome resource. No wait, it’s an amazing resource. It’s incredible, inspiring, breathtaking, magnificent! You get the idea. 

 With a simple interface Power Thesaurus is incredibly easy to use. It also offers a ton of options that other websites like it don’t have. Sure, it gives you synonyms and antonyms. But, it also provides expressions, idioms, adverbs, and adjectives that relate to your search term. 

Check out Power Thesaurus

One Look works like a dictionary but in reverse. You put in a definition and it gives you the word you’re looking for. It’s amazing! 

Let’s say you can’t remember the word for something. Like what’s a baby goat called? Search the definition “baby goat,” and One Look will give you a list of descriptor words.

It’s a kid, by the way, according to One Look. 

Check out One Look

Marinara Timer

In my interview with cozy mystery writer, Elizabeth S. Craig she talked about using the Pomodoro Technique . It’s a popular method of time management among writers. 

You work in twenty-five-minute intervals that with five-minute breaks between. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s the basic idea. Read more about it here . 

Marinara Timer is an online timer designed for people using the Pomodoro Technique. It’s also useful as a basic, online timer. 

Choose the Pomodoro option and the timer sets the work intervals and breaks so you don’t have to think about it. Set the timer and let it run. The site also features a customizable timer and a normal kitchen timer. 

Check out Marinaratimer

The Most Dangerous Writing Prompt Generator 

Have you ever had writer’s block? Of course, you have, you’re a writer. Well, here’s your cure- The Most Dangerous Writing Prompt Generator. This generator creates unique prompts like- 

“He hadn’t seen anything like this in his twenty years of teaching.” 

Start typing your response, but don’t get distracted. If you take your hands off the keyboard the words on the screen will begin to fade. Wait a few seconds longer and the app permanently deletes your work. 

It’s write or die, so make your decision. Oh, and it’s pretty damn fun too. Don’t believe me? Go check it out yourself! 

Check out The Most Dangerous Writing Prompt Generator

So there are my ten free online tools for creative writers. Hopefully, these will help your online writer’s life. Plus, they’re free. You can’t beat that price anywhere in town.

Published by John

View all posts by John

4 comments on “Ten Free Online Tools for Creative Writers”

Such a helpful post! I hadn’t heard of Tailwind and will check it out now. Thanks!

Glad you liked it, KM! Didn’t know you were on Pinterest. I need to follow you! Tailwind is a wonderful time saver, for sure.

I thought I knew about a lot of online writing tools, but I found some new ones in this post! Thank you for sharing 🙂

Thanks Gabby! I did a lot of research and tried to find some unique tools for this list. I’m glad you enjoyed it!

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Time To Get Organized: The 10 Best Writing Apps

by Jenna Kalinsky, Founding Director, One Lit Place

If you’re working on a writing project of any length, you know how many things you need to juggle to combine all the elements involved. You’ve got your p roject notes (formalized in a document or scrawled on the back of your electric bill), your journal, photographs, 32 open tabs on your computer, phone notes app, character arcs or beat sheets, lists, and reference and grammar books cluttering your workspace, which can make you feel like you’re writing from inside an information hurricane. Atop that, you’ve probably got reams of information you’re holding inside your head. 

A creative person is apparently one who can thrive amid this kind of chaos (a small relief, perhaps?) but there’s a limit even for the most creative among us. 

That’s where a writing app (or several from our newly updated list of 10 of the Best Writing Apps) comes in to save the day!

If having system to help you write with success sounds pretty good, it’s time to get streamlined, organized, and writing with greater productivity and efficacy by using a writing app. 

The 10 Best Writing Apps That Will Organize You– And Your Writing

• Ulysses (for Mac)
• Final Draft (for Screenwriters)
• Cliché Finder

These 10 best writing apps provide an organizational scaffolding that makes sure your work stays manageable, your stress remains at a minimum, and you keep on track.

Disclaimer: We are in no way affiliated with or sponsored by any of the programs mentioned in this article. All experiences, commentary, and reviews are based on personal experience only.

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1) scrivener.

If all that toggling between your computer, a notebook, scraps of paper, and the Internet is damaging your productivity and making you fatigued, it’s time for an all-in-one solution.

Scrivener, considered by many writers to be the “gold standard” in writing software, enables you to have everything all in one place. With Scrivener , you can brainstorm, outline, and write your projects in one program, moving between chapters, notes, and all of your other imported references easily.

(You know those sleek and spare writing spaces you see on Instagram ? That could be yours!)

In Scrivener, you can take all of the loose elements floating around your desk and in your mind and upload them: pdfs, word docs, images, videos, sound files, web pages, and more. You can even keep four files open at the same time, so any pictures or timelines are only a click away. 

Plus, if you’re like any self-respecting writer and write while waiting for your dental cleaning or at your kid’s soccer practice, now you can take a picture of those notes and upload them as well.

You can work on a novel or nonfiction manuscript, a screenplay, an academic journal article or dissertation, or on a presentation or other complex business document and easily navigate between chapters, rough notes, interviews, and references.

The screen can be sized larger to tune out notifications from social media and email (the #1 enemy of your concentration), and the background is customizable as well. (Just because we’re writers doesn’t mean we don’t love pretty things).

When it’s time to send the file to your academic committee, literary magazine, or agent, you can save the file in any industry-required format, hit “print,” and you’re good to go.

Scrivener has already improved my writing process to the point I can never go back. My research, character sheets, and plot points can be kept in one organized document, instead of the haphazard pile of notes I used to carry around (and had nightmares about losing). It’s so easy to find an earlier scene within a few clicks, rather than the endless scrolling I used to do, and Scrivener auto-formats short stories or novels so they’re ready for submission. There are also a ton of tutorials or video walk-throughs to help writers learn how to navigate the program. Though I probably only use a fraction of Scrivener’s capabilities, and it isn’t free, it was a game-changer for my organization and efficiency.

–Michelle Tang (Author of “ How I Learned Lyricism, Tone, Attention to Genre, and Humor from Literary Greats “)

2) Ulysses, all-in-one distraction-free writing app for Mac, IPad, and IPhone

Imagine if your entire computer were dedicated to your writing (sounds nice, right? So pure!). Ulysses shows you only your writing projects, so you can immerse yourself in your work without being constantly reminded of your overdue library book notifications, emails, or other dangling responsibilities.

The program syncs across all your Apple devices, so at any moment, you can flip it on and instantly be submerged into your projects. Find your way into your story, book, or document by writing forward or pause to plan by using the scene builder. The built-in editor means you don’t have to leave to source words or check your grammar, and it also has a deadlines and daily tracker so you can monitor your progress and achieve specific goals or deadlines.

Short of having a dedicated computer for your writing, Ulysses is an excellent tool that focuses your attention where it counts.

3) Final Draft (for Screenwriters)

Used by pretty much everyone in the industry, Final Draft is the go-to software to use when writing a screenplay. 

Guillermo del Toro, JJ Abrams, Sofia Coppola, and our own resident screenwriting instructor and coach Rebecca Hales swear by it.

Final Draft is ideal for helping you streamline your scriptwriting process. With over 300 templates for screenplays, teleplays, graphic novels, and more, you can get started in the right script environment immediately.

“This software not only formats your scripts properly, but helps you get ready for production by tracking changes over different versions and prepping production reports!” Rebecca Hales

Use the drag-and-drop beat board to map out your storylines, plot points, and character arcs, then send the whole thing to your script format where it’s laid out on the page for you.

The self-editing feature lets you leave notes to yourself, and dialogue assist offers you the most dynamic and appropriate line for each character. Use the in-house copy editor to make sure everything is correct before you send it off to potential stardom with just one click.

4) Evernote

Imagine much of the functionality of Scrivener and Ulysses but in a completely free platform. Evernote allows for you to create as many projects as you need and organize them by creating tasks and lists or outlines. You can keep an inspirations file with clips and images and can create a special “notebook” to brainstorm and catch all your ideas floating around so they’re all in one place. 

For the book writer, you’ll appreciate that Evernote allows you to organize the larger project into smaller chunks; for example, plotlines, character outlines, premise worksheets, and more. 

The platform comes with hundreds of templates both pre-made and customizable to your exact needs. Connect your Google calendar to use Evernote as a task or to-do list, and let it make your life infinitely easier .

While Evernote does not have an editing feature like Scrivener, Ulysses, or Final Draft, you can use it in combination with another free copyediting and grammar software like WriteWords or Grammarly (listed below).

5) World-Building: Miro

As an online interactive whiteboard, Miro enables you to create a blueprint of your project. While it can be used for every kind of project in any genre, it’s fantastic for writers working in genre fiction who want to see how their project will ultimately lay out or who want to road test developing structures, plot, character development, or progression of ideas before implementing them in the greater project.

(J.K. Rowling did not use Miro  when plotting out Harry Potter . Nor did Gay Talese, Sylvia Plath, or many other writers who were known for pre-mapping the worlds of their stories. Imagine if Miro had been around for them? *Mind blown.)

Once you use Miro, you’ll see what a pleasure it is to have all your complicated ideas and possibilities in one place. Miro allows you to create and store timelines, family trees, and visual outlines, all things that can become tangled if left in your head or lost if left on a piece of paper.

You can also add notes, photos, documents, and other kinds of files, so you have the whole giant picture in one spot. Zoom out to have a bird’s-eye look at the whole thing or zoom in to see the details as you wish.

Working on a project with another writer or editor? Miro also has a collaboration feature, so you can share projects in real time, which is a fantastic tool, or asynchronously (though the program will sync up constantly so the project is always current, and you can see who has done what and when).

Plus, it offers you the option of collaborating not just on the documents and files but with each other in real time: text and video chat, screen sharing, and commenting options make all manner of connecting over the work possible.

(How fun does this sound? Far less like work and far more like a writing party!)

(Plus several other neat and useful-looking softwares from programmer Simon Haynes, aka “ Space Jock ”) 

This free writing app for Windows is designed to pull your long-form book project into chapters and the chapters into scenes. The developer of the software created it because it can be dispiriting to write and write and write only to end up with 20,000 or 40,000 or 80,000 words without an organizational structure.

Seeing how your book can be broken up into beats or chunks that each develop the overall story and move the plot or ideas forward at the outset may save you a lot of time and prevent heartache for having to work backwards. 

7) Planning and Tracking: Pacemaker

When you’re embarking on a new writing project, it’s highly motivating to start with knowing your goals for the work, short and long, so you can meet markers along the way and see your progress or know how to adapt your work or timeline if needed.

Plunging into the writing and and letting it take you where it will is fun and energetic, but at some point, the going gets real, and that’s when many people get stuck or give up.

A plan, however, makes your work concrete and keeps your goals in your sights.

Some examples of writing projects that benefit from having a plan:

• NaNoWriMo , a month-long international initiative to get writers from zero to finished book
• A master’s thesis or PhD dissertation
• A work presentation or speech
• A novel, memoir, or business book
• Journal article, blogs, or e-book You get the idea- any project benefits from goal-setting.

Pacemaker  is also a word count planner and tracker. You can customize it based on your individual routine, and it’s always there for you either in graph, calendar, or table form.

You can tell the app how much or little you want to write: steady amounts every day, more on the weekends or holidays, or during naptimes (yours or your kids’).

Once you set it, you can forget it, sit back, and simply write.  The program will tell you how much writing you have on the dock for the day.

And if life happens and a last-minute work trip, family emergency, or the holidays rear up, the program will automatically re-calculate your writing days to keep you on track. This is an excellent feature; it is dispiriting to see yourself falling behind, so this realistically manages your workload and your motivation so you can enjoy seeing your progress!

Plus, you can download it into your  iCal  (and even share with peer writers or your writing mentor to keep accountable!)

One of the hardest aspects of writing is to have to shoulder the dual burden of being both the creative plus the administrator of the process. Pacemaker takes on the accountability part, leaving you free to worry only about the writing.

8, 9, & 10) Copyediting & Proofreading: WriteWords, Cliché Finder & Grammarly

What a beautiful day it is when you finish your article, story, or book. That’s a heavenly feeling that only writers get to experience!

But “done” may not mean “perfect,” so this is where you need to proofread your work to ensure it’s clean, lean, and grammatically spot-on.

Great, you will proofread the work.

However, there are two issues with you being the last eyes on your project:

1) By this point you are very familiar with the lines. You may even dream them. After reading something even a couple of times, your eyes stop seeing it as distinctly. This means if your writing contains errors, you likely won’t catch them. This is a neurological phenomenon called “ Semantic Satiation .”

So that dangling modifier that would make a reader laugh out loud? It may not even phase you (because you may have glossed right over it!).

2) Unless you are a trained editor, English teacher, or hobby grammarian, you may

a) not know what a dangling modifier is, and

b) not know how to fix it (which could also hold true for any of the myriad quirky things that may have crept into your sentences).

(Nothing like typing “pubic” when you mean “public”!)

The ideal solution is to have a human editor look over your work to make sure it is clear, clean, and tonally spot-on. 

(Check out all the many ways our  OLP human writing coaches and editors provide support to our writers )

If using an editor is not an option, you can use a writing app to catch *nearly everything* you may have missed.

WriteWords, Clichéfinder and Grammarly are great tools. They are not a substitute for a person who is trained to hear and see the music of the lines, catch awkward or disconnected contextual issues or maintain the integrity of the lines and tone for the projected audience. But they are good in a pinch. 

You can also use the apps before bringing on a human editor, who, having less to do, may be able to charge far less. (The best of all worlds!)

WriteWords Word & Phrase Frequency Counter : self-plagiarizing happens to the best of us. If you use a word or phrase at the top of a paragraph, for example, your brain is now primed for having that word on the tip of its brainy tongue, and you may inadvertently use it again a few lines later.

• Write Words will find those words and phrases with its  Word Frequency Counter  and  Phrase Frequency Counter,  and let you know when you need to reword or re-phrase in order to keep the flow flowing and the reader turning pages, entirely mesmerized by your beautiful language use.
• The  Online Cliché Finder   by Arczis, similarly, will detect common expressions in your writing: nobody should be leaning on clichés, for heaven’s sakes. Why would you use tried and true language that’s been around since time immemorial (see what I’m doing here?) when you can find a cool new way to say the same thing?
• Grammarly : a super helpful program, no question. It catches whatever mistakes are in the text you have missed and even teaches you how to fix the issues for the next time. Any line-level errors, missing or incorrectly used punctuation, mistakes like subject-verb disagreement (he say –> he says), and spelling gaffes all *mostly* get caught by the program.

Grammarly’s AI is limited, however, to specific instances of misuse on a line-by-line basis. It’s great if you want to catch the obvious typos and errors your eyes skimmed over (a critical step if you want to uphold any credibility as a person of letters), but where feasible, it’s always wise to get a peer writer or editor to at least skim the work before you send it out. 

These 10 writing apps are some of the best out there (here’s an article that reviews   15 apps and software s, including some we didn’t cover, such as voice-to-text and other useful features).  My hope is to help you identify what app could benefit you and your writing projects so you’re able to write more productively and effectively.

Like with any tech designed to make your life easier, if you find you’re investigating apps as a distraction/procrastination mechanism , then it’s worth considering that what you may need more than any writing app is to brew a coffee, sit down, and simply start writing. Or get some help  from a compassionate/tough-love writing coach  who can help you get out of your own way and guide you to your own best writing.

In the end, you have all you need to write. Consider the greats of our time and before who had nothing but a pen and paper. Somehow they managed. And so will you. But a little leg up may make the work just a bit sweeter!)

We look forward to seeing your fabulously clean desk on Instagram ,

If you find you’re struggling, please check out our writing coaching, editing, publication support. We’re here to help you write– and feel great while doing it!

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Best Editing Writing Apps in 2024

Showing 20 writing apps that match your search.

Reedsy Studio

A powerful writing tool from Reedsy. Write and export a beautifully typeset book. This is the beloved app made for authors, by authors.

Platforms: Online, Chrome

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Grammarlookup.com uses artificial intelligence to check grammar and punctuation mistakes in your writing, eliminate spelling errors and highlight 1000s of style issues to make your writing exceptional among other writers.

Platforms: Online

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Website: https://www.grammarlookup.com/

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Correct English

CorrectEnglish® teaches you to write like an A+ student. Train your instincts with instant feedback, and great writing will come naturally the more you use the tool.

Website: https://www.correctenglish.com/

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Learn more about Reedsy Studio .

A reliable proofreading tool and essay editor for any writer or student.

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Website: https://typely.com/

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QuillBot offers you top-notch tools for perfecting your writing, from our Paraphraser and Summarizer to our Plagiarism Checker. At QuillBot, we’re committed to making writing painless by building the most robust writing and research platform in the world.

Website: https://quillbot.com/

Also rated 4.6 ★ on Capterra

Slick Write

Slick Write is a powerful, free application that makes it easy to check your writing for grammar errors, potential stylistic mistakes, and other features of interest. Whether you're a blogger, novelist, SEO professional, or student writing an essay for school, Slick Write can help take your writing to the next level.

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Keep peace of mind knowing your team's content is perfect.

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Terminology Dictionary

Terminology is a browser for the English language – part dictionary, part thesaurus and part research tool. Terminology makes it easy to explore words and phrases, diving down to more and less specific terms - accessing the web and other apps for more detail and sharing.

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Also rated 4.7 ★ on the App Store

Ginger is more than a grammar checker, spell checker, and punctuation checker. Ginger is an all-in-one writing tool that includes Rephrase to empower you to write your best in ways that traditional online grammar checkers can’t.

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Also rated 4.6 ★ on the App Store

Compose bold, clear, mistake-free writing with Grammarly. Work with an AI writing partner that helps you find the words you need⁠—⁠to write that tricky email, to get your point across, to keep your work moving.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, Online, PC

Website: https://www.grammarly.com/

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The #1 text to speech solution for personal, commercial, and educational use.

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Also rated 4.5 ★ on TechRadar

LanguageTool

LanguageTool’s multilingual grammar, style, and spell checker is used by millions of people around the world.

Platforms: Online, Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, PC

Website: https://languagetool.org/

Also rated 4.8 ★ on the App Store

What makes a good writing app?

Put simply, what makes a writing app good for you will depend on the kind of writer that you are. 

• If you’re an author , you might be interested in a writing app with outlining, planning, and formatting functionalities.
• If you’re a student , you’re probably in the market for a writing app that blocks out distractions while you’re writing.
• If you’re a screenwriter , you’ll want a writing app that’s specifically dedicated to writing screenplays.

Or, if you’re none of the above, worry not: that’s why we built this directory of writing apps. Whatever you need, we’ve gathered the outstanding writing apps of 2024 across multiple categories (drafting, editing, note-taking, etc) and platforms (Android, iOS, online browsers, etc) in one place. Feel free to use the filters to make your quest for the perfect writing app even easier!

So what are the best writing apps of 2024?

We can now put an end to the age-old debate of which writing app is best: Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs ? 

The answer, of course, is neither! Hopefully, this directory will point you towards a much better match that actually fulfills your writing needs. We objectively evaluated each writing app based on four metrics.

• Performance: How seamlessly does the writing app do what it’s purported to do? How good is the user experience, from top to bottom?
• Features: How many bells and whistles are built into the app to augment its use?
• Accessibility: Is it widely available on many different operating platforms (e.g. iOS, Windows, mobile, desktop, etc)?
• Value: Is it worth the cost that it would take to download it?

Here are some general recommendations to give you a headstart.

The best writing app for authors

If you’ve been searching for an all-in-one outlining, writing, formatting, and typesetting tool, look no further than Reedsy Studio . Used by over 50,000 authors every month, it’s publishing’s most trusted companion to take them from a first draft to a professionally exported manuscript.

💰 Price:  Free

🚉 Runs on: Web

The best writing app for note-takers

Evernote is the king of written organization. In addition to its free organizational templates, Evernote also gives you impressive tagging capabilities, an omnipresent Web Clipper, and the ability to share notes with collaborators, so that you’ll never forget anything again.

💰 Price:   Free basic plan, $4.99/month for premium

🚉 Runs on: Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android

The best writing app for screenwriters

Along with standard scriptwriting features, Final Draft enables you to measure character traits using its inclusivity analysis feature, and tweak your “beat board” until you find your perfect arrangement. And when you’re ready to bring in editors, you can all work simultaneously in real time.

💰 Price: Free trial for 30 days, $249.99 license fee

🚉 Runs on: Mac, iOS, and Windows

I’ve found the perfect writing app. What next?

Congratulations! Now the fun part begins: actually writing the project that you’ve got in mind.

For authors, this means that you have a long and exciting road ahead. In addition to a writing app, we recommend that you arm yourself with some writing knowledge before you embark on it: whether it’s an understanding of story structure or careful thought put into your character creation, all of it can help you realize your goal of a novel.

If you don’t know where to start, check out the list of free resources below. Good luck, and happy writing!

Free online materials

• How to Plan a Novel
• How to Write a Book
• Story Structure: 7 Types All Writers Should Know
• How to Create a Character Profile
• 500+ Creative Writing Classes
• Plot Generator
• Character Name Generator
• Book TItle Generator
• The Best Literary Agents Seeking Submissions

Join a community of over 1 million authors

Reedsy is more than just a blog. Become a member today to discover how we can help you publish a beautiful book.

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20 English Writing Apps for Checking Grammar, Boosting Vocabulary and More

Do you need to improve your writing skills ?

As with many of life’s problems, “there’s an app for that.”

In this post, I’ll recommend a range of helpful English writing apps that will help you correct your grammar, learn new vocabulary, improve your creativity and more.

These English writing apps will make a huge difference in your writing skills!

Best For Checking Spelling: iA Writer

Best for checking grammar: grammarly keyboard, best for beginners: ginger grammar spellchecker, best for boosting vocabulary: terminology dictionary, best for finding forgotten words: reverse dictionary, best for learning idioms: english idioms illustrated, best for finding rhymes: rhyme builder, best for story prompts: the brainstormer, best for practicing before exams: writing roulette, best for advanced students: creative writer, best for simple writing inspiration: brainsparker, best for formatting: werdsmith, best for native speaker feedback: hellotalk, more writing prompt apps, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

In a nutshell: A word processor in which simpler is better.

Available on: iOS |   Android

Price: $$. A two-week free trial is available.

Main features:

• Thousands of learner friendly videos (especially beginners)
• Handpicked, organized, and annotated by FluentU's experts
• Integrated into courses for beginners

• Syntax Control. The app will mark your writing with different colors depending on the part of speech of each word.
• Focus Mode. It focuses the view on the sentence or paragraph you are working with. The rest of the text becomes less visible to help you focus on what you are currently working on.
• Style Check. This option is only available for Mac and iOS users. It checks your writing and helps you get rid of repetitions, redundancies (unnecessary words) and clichés.
• Spellcheck. Never miss a spelling error again.

In a nutshell: A built-in virtual keyboard that checks your writing as you go.

Available on: iOS | Android

Price: $$ per month. The basic version of the app is completely free, and you get a discount with quarterly and annual plans.

• Spelling and grammar checker. If you make a mistake, the keyboard will tell you. It can also autocorrect your errors.
• Smart prediction. The keyboard is smart enough to guess what you are trying to write.
• Writing assistance. You will get suggestions on unclear sentences, synonyms, too long sentences, etc.

In a nutshell: A grammar and spelling checker with lots of extras for a one-time payment.

• Interactive subtitles: click any word to see detailed examples and explanations
• Slow down or loop the tricky parts
• Show or hide subtitles
• Review words with our powerful learning engine

• Smart spellchecker. You will be able to correct all your mistakes in one click. You can ignore the corrections you do not want to change in your text.
• Rephrasing and synonyms. You will be given rephrasing and synonym suggestions whenever possible.
• Extras. The app also includes human voice text-to-speech, US/UK dialect option, a personal dictionary and machine translation of your writing into over 30 languages.

In a nutshell: A dictionary, a thesaurus and a research tool in one.

Available on: iOS

Price: $ with in-app purchases.

• Off-line US dictionary. Use the dictionary offline and find simple definitions, synonyms, antonyms, collocations and more.
• Personalization. You can create your own list of favorite terms and add notes to them.
• Resource lookup. This feature allows you to look up words on Wikipedia, Google, Dictionary.com and other websites.

In a nutshell: A twist on dictionaries to improve your vocabulary in a fun way.

• Learn words in the context of sentences
• Swipe left or right to see more examples from other videos
• Go beyond just a superficial understanding

Available on: Android

Price: Free.

• Reverse search. If you are writing and do not know a word (or cannot remember it), but know its definition or some keywords related to it, just write what you know and the dictionary will give you a list of words that match what you are looking for.
• Definitions. Once you have found the word you were looking for, you can view different definitions for it.
• Different options. The app will also show you anagrams, synonyms and more.

In a nutshell: A beautiful and fun way of learning English idioms.

Price: $. You can download the app for free and have the first 35 idioms right away, and the whole collection can be purchased for a one-time fee.

• FluentU builds you up, so you can build sentences on your own
• Start with multiple-choice questions and advance through sentence building to producing your own output
• Go from understanding to speaking in a natural progression.

• Origin and meaning of idioms. You not only get what the idioms mean but also where they come from.
• Beautiful illustrations. The amazing illustrations will help you remember the idioms much faster.
• Free content. Start with 35 idioms for free.

In a nutshell: An app to find words that rhyme, perfect for writing poetry or lyrics in English.

• Rhyme search. Look for words that rhyme with your words while you write in the app.
• Save your work. You can save your writing and have a look at it later.
• Simple look. The app is very simple, which makes it easy to use.

In a nutshell: An idea and story generator for people who love a challenge.

• Images, examples, video examples, and tips
• Covering all the tricky edge cases, eg.: phrases, idioms, collocations, and separable verbs
• No reliance on volunteers or open source dictionaries
• 100,000+ hours spent by FluentU's team to create and maintain

Price: Free with in-app purchases. The app with the classic Brainstormer is free. You can buy additional content (Character builder, Creature builder, World builder, etc.) for a small fee each.

• Three wheels. Three wheels will spin to give you a conflict, a setting and a subject. The possibilities are practically infinite (go on forever).
• Creative thinking. The words in each wheel have been carefully selected to maximize creative thinking.
• Personalization. You can create and edit your own wheels.

In a nutshell: An app for people who need writing practice and inspiration.

• Writing inspiration. Get an image and a writing task and let your imagination fly.
• Different writing tasks. From the classic 100-word exercises to haikus , you will have plenty of different ways of practicing your writing before an exam.
• Personalization. You can create your own tasks and complete them in the app notepad.
• Important: There is no “save” option in the app, so if you don’t want to lose what you write, just use the app to get inspiration and do the exercises somewhere else.

In a nutshell: Recycle already written texts to create your own.

Price: Free with in-app purchases and pro version for $. The app with all the basic features is free. For a small fee, you can download Dictionary PRO and the Writer’s Pack, as well as smaller packs like Recipes or Poetry.

• Different genres. The app includes texts from genres such as poetry, prose, dialogues, lyrics, romance and cooking, among others.
• Easy to use. If you do not feel like typing (which you can also do), just choose the tapping option.
• Dictionary PRO. This is an amazing tool to learn new words and use them in your writing. It includes definitions, rhymes, antonyms, synonyms and much more.
• Writer’s Pack. A powerful tool with writing ideas and millions of sentence segments analyzed.
• Other features. The app includes a cute robot that talks and types by itself and a beautifully designed notepad. Some features can even be used offline.

In a nutshell: A deck of cards to inspire your brain to write.

Available on: iOS | Android to be launched

Price: Free with in-app purchases for $. You can buy additional specialist card packs (like Blogger’s pack, Character’s pack, Quotes pack, Numbers pack or What if? pack) or a VIP pass that includes all the specialist packs available plus all future packs.

• Inspirational prompts. Over 250 prompt cards to make you think and write on many different topics.
• Free pack for kids. The app includes a free pack for kids (which is also great for adult learners!) with over 150 creative activities.
• Free Vision pack. Another free pack that includes 52 goal-setting questions.

In a nutshell: A portable writing studio for professional writers.

Price: Free with the option to subscribe for $ per month. Members get more themes, novel and screenplay writing tools, hundreds of writing prompts and the possibility of using Werdsmith on their computer.

• Personalization. You can personalize your writing studio and change the theme and the formatting options.
• Save, sync and share. The app allows you to save your work and share it with your friends. You can also synchronize between devices—meaning that no matter where you do your writing, you will be able to access it from any other device—which makes the app totally portable.
• Goals and rituals. Create daily goals and rituals and challenge yourself to do them every day.

In a nutshell: An app to learn English through conversation and writing.

Price: Free with in-app purchases. You can also become a VIP member to get benefits like learning three languages at the same time or finding more language partners.

• Multiple languages. The app has native users from over 150 different countries, so it will be very easy to find the perfect one for you.
• Improve your speaking skills. You will be able to talk to native speakers of English, which will allow you to boost your level in a fun and easy way.
• Chat. Practice your writing skills in the chat. This is the perfect way of getting grammar and spelling feedback from your language partners.
• Moments. Use the Moments feature to share, answer and ask questions related to the culture of the language you are learning.

There are literally thousands of prompt and creative writing apps available for mobile devices. It would be impossible to include them all in one post.

However, there are some others that are worth mentioning:

• Writerly : This is a magnificent app with hundreds of exercises to practice your writing skills. It also includes tips, quests and mini-essays.
• Paperblanks Journal Prompts : This app will give you writing and drawing prompts and ideas to use in your personal journals and sketchbooks.
• Daily Prompt : Get a new writing prompt every day on your phone. The premium version allows you to enter writing competitions and receive feedback for your work.
• Writing Prompts : With this awesome app, you will get five prompt generators (News, Scenes, Sketches, Words and Texts) with literally hundreds of ideas each.
• Morning Pages : This app helps you build the habit of writing 500 words every morning. I personally love the Insights feature, which analyzes your writing and tells you what mood you are in on a specific day according to what you write.
• Writing Challenge : If you like competing against the clock, you are going to love this app. Set the timer and the app will give you a new prompt every time the clock reaches zero (you decide the length of the intervals).

So, there you go, friends.

These 20 apps will help you bring out your inner writer and improve your writing skills in ways you would never think were possible.

Stay curious my friends and, as always, happy writing!

If you like learning English through movies and online media, you should also check out FluentU. FluentU lets you learn English from popular talk shows, catchy music videos and funny commercials , as you can see here:

If you want to watch it, the FluentU app has probably got it.

The FluentU app and website makes it really easy to watch English videos. There are captions that are interactive. That means you can tap on any word to see an image, definition, and useful examples.

FluentU lets you learn engaging content with world famous celebrities.

For example, when you tap on the word "searching," you see this:

FluentU lets you tap to look up any word.

Learn all the vocabulary in any video with quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.

FluentU helps you learn fast with useful questions and multiple examples. Learn more.

The best part? FluentU remembers the vocabulary that you’re learning. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You have a truly personalized experience.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

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Best Creative Writing Apps

Some students are natural born storytellers with creativity and imagination spilling from their fingers. There are plenty of reasons to encourage students to love creative writing. The skills gained from creative writing ultimately contribute to language mastery. Let us help you to find some other great apps to support your children's creative writing, in a digital capacity.  Whether you’re journaling or brainstorming ideas for a new story, book, or blog post, a writing prompts app could change everything.

Here at the Educational App Store we are relentless in our pursuit of apps which are suitable for test preparation and which can help support teachers, parents and ultimately students sitting for their tests and, in their general studies and wiser learning too.

If you want your children to master the basics of creative writing, try these apps to encourage your children to want to write.

1. Vocabulary Builder: Daily Word

Vocabulary Builder is an app to help people who are already proficient in English to expand their vocabulary. It provides a word of the day, browsing, and quiz-type features to let learners develop the variety of words at their disposal. You will save time if you use the words learned to also think about what sort of vocabulary might be useful for this piece of creative writing. These word lists feature loads of good vocabulary to use in creative writing. They provide a fantastic way to boost vocabulary in your class.

Available on:  Android

2. Night Zookeeper

(Android, iPhone, iPadWebsite)

Night Zookeeper is a fun-to-use creative writing application that encourages encourages children’s creative writing and wider creativity skills whilst being great fun to play both during class and at home. From drawing and writing about magical animals, to playing word games and competing in writing competitions, Night Zookeeper offers children the chance to explore their potential and get better at creative writing. Night Zookeeper is a popular writing website for kids which inspires children to express themselves and to be creative writers.

Available on:  Website

3. Writing Challenge for Kids

(Android, iPhone, iPad)

Writing Challenge for Kids is a fun and simple-to-use app that can help spark the imagination of children, and support them with planning and writing stories. Children are presented with a range of prompts that they can choose from. Each prompt gives children ideas for how to start and develop their story, including references to settings and character, which keeps their imagination flowing throughout the process. Writing Challenge is one of the best apps to help kids develop creative writing and digital publishing tools.

Available on:  Android, iPhone and iPad

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4. Book Creator

Bookcreator is a very simple, self-explanatory tool, where both teachers and students can create their own books using a diversity of templates, fonts, styles, as well as media, such as videos, images and sounds. Book Creator has a wide variety of applications in the classroom ranging from creative story writing to presentation style projects. Bookcreator app works so well in encouraging student engagement with easy-to-use interface, fun templates, colorful designs and tons of tools to spark creativity. It is a perfect tool for creative writing, digital scrapbooking, journaling, digital diaries and so much more!

Available on:  iPhone and iPad

5. Shake-a-Phrase: Fun With Words and Sentences

Shake-a-Phrase is a fun language app for creative writing prompts, vocabulary, and parts of speech practice. The app assists in enabling student to create stories by giving students prompts for characters, scenarios or simple sentences. The ability to change the theme and then shake the device to change the phrase is great fun.   

6. Writing Prompts

(iPhone, iPad)

This is a cool writing-prompt app that does basically everything you need it to: offer writing prompts to encourage/inspire you to write more. With Daily Prompt Premium you can access our Novel Writing Package. This includes 31 specially selected prompts to help outline your novel in a structured way. Daily Prompt is the easy way to make writing progress on a daily basis.

7. Word Creativity Kit - The creative writing tool for kids

A fun app to spark creative imaginations to create poems and stories. The goal of the Word Creativity Kit is to encourage children to play around with words and language as they learn to become the writers of tomorrow!  We like how students can get a jumpstart on the creativity process by using a selection of randomly generated words.

8. Storybird

Storybird lets kids create personalized stories, is committed to inspiring user creativity by providing a variety of colorful and vibrant Illustrations. This impressive creative writing-centered site offers an easy-to-use tool to help kids make picture books, longer books, or poems. You can learn about writing, storytelling, reading skills. They'll practice being creative and flex their imagination, and sharing stories may help them gain self-confidence to write more.

Available on:  iPhone, iPad and Android

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Hello, welcome to a little thing called 750 Words

Join 861,445 other writers by signing up now →, ★ what is this site about.

It's about learning a new habit: Writing. Every. Day.

I've long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist's Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in "long hand", typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It's about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day. Unlike many of the other exercises in that book, I found that this one actually worked and was really really useful.

I've used the exercise as a great way to think out loud without having to worry about half-formed ideas, random tangents, private stuff, and all the other things in our heads that we often filter out before ever voicing them or writing about them. It's a daily brain dump. Over time, I've found that it's also very helpful as a tool to get thoughts going that have become stuck, or to help get to the bottom of a rotten mood.

750 Words is the online, future-ified, fun-ified translation of this exercise. Here's how it works:

★ All online and private

In the past, looking for a spare notebook was probably easier than looking for a computer. Not anymore. I don't know if my hands even work anymore with pen and paper for any task that takes longer than signing a check or credit card receipt.

★ It's not blogging or status updating

I've tried writing my 750 words a day on Livejournal, Wordpress, PBWorks, Tumblr, and all of these other sites designed around putting content online. It hasn't worked for me. I fear that I might accidentally forget to mark daily pages as private. And it's just weird having my private brain dumps out on various sites that are designed to be more social. I don't need to title my entries, or tag them, or enable comments, or any of that other stuff. This is writing, and it's online, but it's not blogging, or Twittering, or Facebook status updating. This is between you and you.

★ 3 Pages = 750 words

I looked this up. 250 words per page is considered to be the standard accepted number of words per page. So, three standard pages are about 750 words. Of course if 750words.com hadn't been available, I would've totally found a way to prove that 249 words per page was the accepted standard. It really just comes down to the fact that this amount of writing feels about right. You can't just fart out 3 pages without running into your subconscious a little bit... 750 words takes a bit of effort, and it never fails to get me typing things that I have wanted to articulate without realizing it. And that's the point.

Because 750 words is nothing to sneeze at, it's also nice to have an easy way to know how many words you have to go. This site of course tracks your word count at all times and lets you know when you've passed the blessed 750 mark. And it gives you a nice big screen to write on, automatically scrolls as you write (like a typewriter), and automatically saves your writing as you go.

★ It's fun

Every month you get a clean slate. If you write anything at all, you get 1 point. If you write 750 words or more, you get 2 points. If you write two, three or more days in a row, you get even more points. It's fun to try to stay on streaks and the points are a way to play around with that. You can also see how others are doing points-wise if you're at all competitive that way. How I see it, points can motivate early on, and eventually the joy of writing will kick in and you'll be writing without any external motivation at all.

★ Learn about yourself in the process

For example, learn about how often you get distracted, and how fast you write.

Every day you write, you'll get beautiful stats that analyze the feelings, themes, and mindset of your words.

★ It's about writing, and getting into your brain

The rest are just tricks to help get us there.

★ Who made this?

I did , and Kellianne helps keep it running smoothly. Tell us what you think of it or how you want it to improve by talking with us over at on Twitter or Facebook .