There are many useful apps and tools you can use as a writer. 🖋 In this post, I wanna share my favorites with you! Have fun and comment your favorite writing apps and tools! 💭
Unpaid advertising due to name mention: This post is not sponsored or paid, it’s just my personal recommendation.
1 Papyrus Author 🖋
Papyrus Author is the program I’m using to write and plan my books since years. 📖
What I like about Papyrus Author is that you have a choice of templates, so you can put your book into any format you want with one click, perfect for E-book publishing or standard pages for manuscripts. 📚
You can also create databases for your characters, places and even objects, so you can easily check which hair color a certain minor character had with one click. 👁
Papyrus Author also comes with numerous other benefits, such as a timeline for planning or a note board. You can also use a grammar and writing style analysis, which is really helpful for editing your stories!
There’s a paid version and a free demo. ✍️ I was using the demo version for a long time and was more than happy with it. For me, it’s the perfect writing program, so I upgraded to the paid version a few years ago.
Alternatives: Before I had Papyrus Author I used Open Office or Microsoft Word to plan and write my stories. These free options are also totally working and fine, so you don’t need to pay for a writing program, but Papyrus Author is more comfortable for me.
If you are looking for a free program or you are just starting your writing journey I would recommend that you first try the demo or use simple program for document writing. That’s also doing the job. 🌱
2 Notion 🌈
Another useful and free app is Notion. With notion, you can easily plan and outline your stories. ✨ I’m using Notion mostly for writing down my first ideas and to outline my stories. 🌻
Alternative, I’m using the notice app on my phone to write down sudden ideas. ⭐️ For outlining, you can also use a simple document writing program like Word or Open Office, but I like the aesthetic of Notion and all the possibilities to sort the ideas. 💫 Another app for note taking that I also used for a while is Evernote.
3 Pinterest 🌿
I LOVE to make vision boards for my stories and characters and Pinterest is the best place for that in my opinion! 🌱
In case you don’t already know Pinterest: Pinterest is a visual discovery platform. 👁 You can search for certain topics and find dozens of aesthetic pictures and photos.
These photos you can save on pinboards, so you can visualize each of your ideas! 💫 I have pinboards for each of my novels, for my writing tips, for art and lots of other stuff (check them out!). ⭐️ It’s so much fun and a creative way to develop your story even more!
4 Spotify 💾
For me, listening to music while writing is essential. 🖋
I love to make playlists for my books and listening to it while I’m writing or editing. 💕 It brings me in the right mood for the scenes I wanna write.
In my case, I’m always using Spotify for that. But there are plenty other options out there. You could also use Youtube and create playlists there for free. ✅
some authors even include their playlists in the books, it’s so much fun and adding a lot to the mood! 🌱
Sometimes it’s difficult to come up with names. Whether they are fantasy names or old names. 😳
This website is always helping me with that. I’m often using fantasynamegenerators.com to generate me some original names for my stories or when I’m creating a new character while gaming. 😂
Alternative, you can also search for names on Pinterest.
Summary ✍️
These are five of my essential tools and apps I’m using to plan, write and edit my stories. 🤩 I have a lot more, so if you want a part 2 let me know in the comments! 💌
Happy writing, your Katharina 🦋
Katharina Romes 