Honestly? Microsoft Word. Before you scoff, hear me out. It's already on most computers, you know how it works, and there's zero barrier to just starting. The fancy 'novel writing' features in specialized apps are fantastic, but they can become procrastination tools. You end up tweaking character sheets instead of writing their dialogue. Word gets out of the way. You can just type. Later, when you've got a messy first draft and need to reorganize, then maybe look at something like Scrivener. But starting with a complex tool often means learning software, not writing a book. Keep it stupid simple at first.
2026-07-29 15:00:59
19
Uriah
Book Scout
Journalist
Finding a decent tool when you're just starting out can be more stressful than the blank page itself. I bounced between so many before settling into a rhythm. For pure, undistracted drafting, I still think nothing beats something like iA Writer or even the basic Notes app—anything that locks you into just the words. But the real game-changer for organizing a messy first novel was yWriter. It's not pretty, but breaking everything into scenes and tracking characters and locations in a database stopped me from drowning in my own chaos. The learning curve is mild, and it forces a bit of structure without being prescriptive.
The catch with fancy apps is they tempt you into world-building instead of writing. I spent weeks in Campfire Pro designing magic systems before I wrote a single chapter. For a beginner, that's a trap. Simplicity wins. Recently I've seen folks swear by Dabble for its clean layout and goal-tracking, which might be the sweet spot between a blank page and an overwhelming suite. Honestly, the ideal app is the one you stop noticing after five minutes, letting the story take over. Mine still defaults to a basic text editor for raw drafting, then I shuffle things around elsewhere.
2026-08-02 02:42:01
19
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関連書籍
Sinners & Saints: A Collection Of Dark Romance Stories
Mary Samantha
10
551
This author once failed as a heroine… and returned as something entirely different.
Not as a savior.
But as the villain.
And she didn’t come back empty-handed.
She brought secrets.
She brought sins.
She brought a story that was never meant to be read.
Sinners & Saints is not just a collection of dark romance stories—
It is a confession.
A warning.
And a door best left unopened.
Within these pages lie twisted love stories where desire and destruction walk hand in hand, and every choice comes with a cost.
So the question is simple:
Will you turn away…
or step inside anyway?
When the apocalypse came, she lost everything. Starving, hunted, and desperate, she trusted the one man she loved… only for him to betray her in the cruelest way possible. He stole her last supplies to please another woman and left her to die in a sea of the undead.
But death wasn’t the end.
She woke up days before the world collapsed.
After cutting ties with her ungrateful ex and his parasitic family, a mysterious voice awakens in her mind, LUS, a Level-Up System designed to help her survive the coming end.
With knowledge of the future and a system guiding her every move, she begins to prepare. She stockpiles resources, builds a base, and learns how to fight back against the horrors that once destroyed her.
And when the apocalypse arrives again… she’s ready. But survival isn’t the only thing waiting for her in this new life.
A silent killer who watches her like prey.
A manipulative genius who wants to unravel her secrets.
A gentle protector who sees the girl she hides.
And a dangerous man who thrives in chaos.
As the world burns and power shifts, they’re all drawn to her, each with their own motives, each with their own darkness. Even her past refuses to stay buried.
Because now, the man who once abandoned her is back, broken, desperate, and begging for a second chance. Too bad she has no time for regrets.
Not when she’s busy rising to power… and building a kingdom in the ruins of the world.
Thanks for reading! If you didn’t find the answer to your question here, contact your editor who sent you the contract offer and tell him/her to improve this guidebook.
Also, don't forget to take the small quiz in the last chapter and share your score with us in the comment!
This is a brochure containing a collection of PROMPT IDEAS from our one and only GOOD NOVEL WORKSHOP. Every PROMPT is a thrilling idea that might inspire you and can be the foundation of your next book! If interested, Please send your summary to: workshop@goodnovel.com, and note which prompt is based on. Our editors will get back to you as soon as possible.
We love reading novels, fall in love with the characters, sometimes envy the main girl for getting the perfect male lead... but what happens when you get inside your own novel and get to meet your perfect main lead and bonus...get treated like the female lead?! As the clock struck 12, Arielle Taylor is pulled inside her own novel. This cinderella is over the moon as her Prince Charming showers her with his attention but what would happen when she finds herself falling for her fairy godmother instead?
Please read my interview with Goodnovel at: https://tinyurl.com/y5zb3tug
Cover pic: pixabay
Her name was Cathedra. Leave her last name blank, if you will.
Where normal people would read, "And they lived happily ever after," at the end of every fairy tale story, she could see something else. Three different things.
Three words: Lies, lies, lies.
A picture that moves.
And a plea: Please tell them the truth.
All her life she dedicated herself to becoming a writer and telling the world what was being shown in that moving picture. To expose the lies in the fairy tales everyone in the world has come to know.
No one believed her. No one ever did.
She was branded as a liar, a freak with too much imagination, and an orphan who only told tall tales to get attention. She was shunned away by society. Loveless. Friendless.
As she wrote "The End" to her novels that contained all she knew about the truth inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, she also decided to end her pathetic life and be free from all the burdens she had to bear alone.
Instead of dying, she found herself blessed with a second life inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, and living the life she wished she had with the characters she considered as the only friends she had in the world she left behind.
Cathedra was happy until she realized that an ominous presence lurks within her stories. One that wanted to kill her to silence the only one who knew the truth.
finding the right app can make all the difference. For beginners, I highly recommend 'Wattpad'—it's free, user-friendly, and has a massive community of writers and readers. You can publish chapters as you go and get feedback instantly. Another great option is 'Google Docs' because it’s simple, cloud-based, and lets you collaborate easily. 'NovelPad' is also worth checking out; it’s designed specifically for novelists with features like chapter organization and word count tracking. These tools helped me stay motivated and organized when I was starting out, and they don’t cost a dime.
For a more mythological angle, Amish Tripathi's 'The Immortals of Meluha' is super approachable. It's a fast-paced, plot-driven retelling of Shiva's legend, written in very modern, simple prose.
Think of it as an Indian fantasy thriller. It gets you into Indian storytelling traditions through a page-turner lens, which can be easier than diving into denser literary fiction.
I'm a visual thinker, so I need to see my plot. I use a totally free tool called Miro (a digital whiteboard) to create a timeline with sticky notes for each scene, color-coded by character or plotline. I write the actual text in Google Docs, but having that big-picture visual board open in another tab keeps me on track. It's not a dedicated writing app, but for a beginner who thinks spatially, this flexible, visual planning can be more intuitive than any linear outliner.