Review of Novelist app : novel writing software

Disclosure: No commercial relationship with app makers

This is the dream app for novelists. I have begun to use this software on my android tablet for years, and I've never looked back. This app is completely free to use, and has many critical tools for someone plotting a novel, and coming up with characters and settings. There are no ads that interfere with the user experience.

There weren't any way to use this on the Mac or PC in the past, but now with the app available for iOS and the browser based beta version, it is really unbeatable. Using the browser version of the app, there are ways to push or pull the novel so that the same novel is synchronised across platforms.

Brief introduction to the functions of this app (see figure below). From left to right:

1. Scenes: Under the "Write" menu item at the bottom, the app allows for visualisation of scenes in any order, and tagging of scenes according to type of scenes (eg., color tagged according to setup, action, reaction, etc) or how ready they are (in terms of incorporation into the book). Each scene could also be 'part of a scene' if your scenes are particularly long or eventually you wish to break the scenes between chapters. Clicking of each scene will open the scene editor as well as items associated with the scene.

2. Organise: This app module is for visualisation of the arrangement of the final book. This can have parts of the book and chapters, in the sequence of the final book. Each chapter could compose of more than one scene, or just part of scene. These are extracted from 1.

3. Schedule. This app module is useful for visualisation of the length of each chapter (in words and characters) and tracking of the total number of words in the novel. The user can also track progress of the novel in terms of number of days left (if such a writing target has been set).

4. This shows the editor page for editing scenes or other app items. Magnification of the page can be varied. There is also a light or dark mode. Cutting and pasting functions are particularly useful.

5. It is possible to view the final formatting and appearance of the book like in an email. Copying from this view will retain formatting when pasted on other programs like MS Word. This is useful when participating in writing critique groups.

6. The entire book can be exported to epub format for reading on an ebook reader, or odt which is word format, for export to computers.

Other functions not shown in screen shots:

Sections that are useful for planning the novel (totally customisable and can be skipped) are available which cross references to each other or to the scenes.

1. Character templates with customisable details (I like that this is not preconfigured with details like hair color, age, etc because we tend to use different types of features for specific characters).

2. List of locations (setting)

3. List of plot stages

4. List of items or artefacts in the story

5. Summaries, queries, loglines etc.

All these items can be reordered by dragging within the category or between categories.

Backups: This is critical for long form prose because one project can take ages.

Exporting: The novel elements can be backed up regularly at fixed intervals and stored locally on the device or on Google Drive.

Images: This app is able to incorporate images of characters, sketches, locations, maps, artefacts, etc.

Minor drawbacks: There are currently no search function, dictionary or thesaurus.

In summary, in terms of drawing, it is not as easy to use as diagrams.net, in terms of plotting, it is not as comprehensive as Plottr, in terms of notetaking and cross referencing it is not as flexible as Obsidian, and in terms of writing periphernalia, it is not as comprehensive as Scrivener. However, I find that it allows me to do almost everything that I do in the entire process of writing a novel, and now it has functionality including a web-based version (any browser), Mac and Android versions which can be synchronised. In addition, it is free without any ads!

With almost everything that a writer need, what more can a writer wish for? Let me know if you have used this app.

mailto:Louis.tong.h.t@gmail.com