Top 21 Free Apps for Fictions Writers, Screenwriters and Novelists (Windows, Linux, & macOS)
Crafting compelling fiction requires specialized tools beyond basic text editors. Whether you're drafting a novel, screenplay, or short story, you need features to organize complex plots, develop rich characters, and track timelines. This list highlights 21 powerful free apps to support writers at every stage - from initial ideation to final revisions.
For novelists, these apps provide story mapping, character profiles, and timeline management. Screenwriters get industry-standard formatting and collaboration capabilities.
All writers benefit from distraction-free interfaces, research note-taking, and ways to visualize relationships between story elements.
Hazem Abbas
The apps on this list go beyond simple word processing. They're designed to help fiction, screenplay, and novel writers wrangle intricate narratives, keep track of intricate details, and focus on the creative process.
With these specialized tools, you can spend less time wrestling with technical formatting and more time bringing your imaginative visions to life.
Our collection here, include the best open-source free apps for novelists, screenwriters and fiction writers, professional and hobbyists.
1- Scrite
Scrite is an open-source screenwriting app. It allows professional screenwriters to create screenplays, develop characters, export and generate reports easily. It is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Beyond its amazing features, Scrite, supports several languages as well as RTL (Right-to-Left) languages.
Scrite supports dozens of formats, supports internal notes, internal libraries.
teriflix
2- Manuskript
Manuskript is an open-source writing tool for authors, offering a structured environment for drafting, refining, and editing work. It supports GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows, providing essential features for a focused writing experience.
Features
- Grow your premise from one sentence, to a paragraph, to a full summary
- Create characters
- Conceive plots
- Construct outlines (Outline mode and/or Index cards)
- Write with focus (Distraction free mode)
- Build worlds
- Track items
- Edit and re-organize chapters and scenes
- View Story line
- Compose with fiction or non-fiction templates and writing modes
- Import and export document formats such as HTML, ePub, OpenDocument, DocX, and more
olivierkes3- Storylines
for Windows
Storylines is a super-friendly text editor for story writers, novelists, and screenwriters. It comes with story analytics, characters design and development, draft management and more.
Hazem Abbas
4- Beat
for macOS
Beat is a sleek and efficient screenwriting app specifically designed for macOS users, providing an elegant and distraction-free experience for writers.
Hazem Abbas
5- Story Architect
Personally i think this app is the right one for any professional writer out there, and the good thing, it is totally free and open-source. It is a feature-rich lightweight app, that we covered in a special review here.
Hazem Abbas
6- Scriptio
Scriptio is an open-source screenwriting tool that provides essential features for creating and formatting scripts in a straightforward, accessible environment.
It is designed to help screenwriters focus on content, it offers basic formatting tools without unnecessary complexity, making it ideal for beginners or writers looking for a lightweight solution
Features
- Online and offline mode (yet to come)
- Export to PDF or .fountain format (more to come)
- Dark theme
- Screenplay statistics
- Scene navigation
- Character management
Lycoon7- Betterfountain for VSCode
As a developer, i live inside VSCode as many developers do, while this extension can not transform VSCode into a complete writing platform, it provide the necessary outline for novelists and writers to write their stories, manage their files and organize their outlines.
piersdeseilligny8- Screenwriter
This is a self-hosted open-source online screenwriting app. It is a fast app that can be used for quick outlining your stories and more.
ProLoser9- Trelby
Trelby is a free, open-source screenwriting software designed to be fast, flexible, and user-friendly. With a clean, elegant interface, it simplifies the screenwriting process while offering extensive customization options to suit individual needs.
Trelby is available across multiple platforms and encourages community contributions, making it a versatile and collaborative tool for screenwriters.
Hazem Abbas
10- Writer
for macOS
Writer is a simple screenwriting application for macOS, built around the Fountain language, which is similar to Markdown but optimized for screenwriting. It automatically formats key elements like scene headers and dialogue, making the writing process smoother.
As a standard Cocoa document-based app, Writer provides an intuitive interface for macOS users. It’s available for download on its Releases Page.
11- Rawscripts
Rawscripts is web-based self-hosted screenwriting software that runs in a browser and stores
everything online. This allows you to write, edit, and manage
screenplays from any computer and have access to all your work.
Note that the app did not get any update for ~ 7 years, and it requires some tech experience to install and run.
ritchiewilson12- KIT Scenarist
KIT Scenarist is a free, open-source screenwriting tool offering comprehensive features for script development, from planning and research to writing and formatting.
Designed for writers who need a complete toolset, KIT Scenarist supports multiple languages and provides tools for structuring stories, character development, and revision tracking.
It has since been succeeded by Story Architect, which builds on KIT Scenarist's foundation with further enhancements and new features.
13- novelWriter
novelWriter is a Libre plain text editor designed for writing novels assembled from many smaller text documents. It uses a minimal formatting syntax inspired by Markdown, and adds a meta data syntax for comments, synopsis, and cross-referencing.
It's designed to be a simple text editor that allows for easy organisation of text and notes, using human readable text files as storage for robustness.
vkbo14- Org Novelist
Org Novelist is an open-source writing system built for Emacs Org mode, tailored to novel-length fiction. It simplifies the writing process by linking notes to story text, making it easy to manage ideas, track progress, and export work.
With its use of plain text, Org Novelist is a future-proof tool that integrates well with version control, ensuring that stories remain organized, portable, and accessible.
Org Novelist is a powerful yet minimalist solution for Emacs users who want a focused, organized, and customizable writing experience.
Features of Org Novelist
- Plain Text Files: Uses simple, human-readable Org markup, ensuring compatibility with any text editor and long-term accessibility.
- Organized File Structure: Splits content into multiple files and directories for easier management and efficient version control.
- Self-Contained Story Folders: Each story folder includes everything needed for backup, archiving, and transfer.
- Minimal Dependencies: Requires only a recent version of Emacs to function smoothly, keeping setup simple.
- Language Flexibility: Customizable headings, templates, and error messages allow users to write in any language.
- Flexible Export Options: Exports to a single Org file with additional export templates for multiple formats (e.g., PDF, HTML) via tools like Pandoc.
- Seamless Emacs Integration: Works naturally with Emacs Org mode, making it ideal for Emacs users.
- Consistent Organization: A structured, opinionated layout keeps notes and story elements organized for easy access and management.
sympodius15- bibisco
bibisco is an open-source novel-writing app designed to support writers in creating and organizing their stories. With bibisco, you can structure chapters and scenes, manage revisions, and export your work in various formats like PDF, DOCX, and TXT.
The app offers tools to build a rich novel framework, allowing you to define the story’s premise, plot lines, and settings (including geographic, temporal, and social contexts).
Most importantly, bibisco helps you deeply understand your characters, making them more believable and complex.
The app is available in a free Community Edition and an enhanced Supporters Edition, bibisco is a heartfelt project created by book lovers for writers.
andreafeccomandi16- WareWoolf
WareWoolf is an open-source cross-platform editor for novel-writing. It is a keyboard focus editor, but with a rich WYSIWYG toolset. It also supports import and export to Word's .docs format.
We covered a lot of its features in the following review.
Hazem Abbas
17- Inkdown
Inkdown is my favorite markdown editor that I use on macOS, for blogging. It allows users to organize their writings in workspaces, files and chapters per file.
18- Novelist
A Novel writer's toolkit. Client/Server oriented, so you could work on your next book from a PC, Laptop, Tablet or even a Smartphone. Keep Story, persons, places and timeline ready.
On the other hand: My playground for Svelte, SocketIO, WindiCSS, Testing-Library, Storybook, Codecept.
rgwch19- Fiction Writer
Yet another VSCode extension that include several tools for writers who like to write fictions.
ZOctarine
20- Hammer: A story editor
Hammer is a simple story editor that can run from almost any modern device. It is originally built for Android, but can be installed and run for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Although the app works in offline-first mode, but it also offer a server.
Wavesonics21- Scridx
Scridx is a simple screenwriting community app written in Go.
asimMore Tools for Writers
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