The software you write in matters less than most writers think — and more than most software vendors will admit. The tool doesn't write the book. But the right tool does remove friction: fewer decisions about organization, easier access to your notes and research, less time spent managing files instead of writing.
Here's what you actually need from writing software, and how the major options compare against those needs.
What Writing Software Actually Needs to Do
Before evaluating tools, it helps to be clear about the job. Writing software for authors needs to handle four things reasonably well:
- Distraction-free writing mode: A clean interface that gets everything but the words off your screen.
- Organization: Managing scenes, chapters, research notes, and character sheets without requiring a folder-naming system you have to maintain manually.
- Reliable backup: Auto-save and cloud sync or version history. Losing work to a crash is unacceptable in 2025.
- Export: Getting your finished manuscript into the format your agent, publisher, or formatter needs — typically Word (.docx) or PDF.
Every tool reviewed here handles distraction-free writing and backup reasonably. They differ significantly on organization and export.
Scrivener
Scrivener is the most powerful writing tool available for novelists, and the most misunderstood. Authors either love it immediately or spend three months confused by it before giving up. The learning curve is real, and it's worth understanding before committing.
What Scrivener does that nothing else matches: it treats your manuscript as a collection of scenes and chapters (called "documents") in a hierarchical binder, rather than one long file. You can see your entire novel's structure in a sidebar, drag scenes into different order, annotate individual chapters with status labels and word count targets, and switch between an outline view, a corkboard view (virtual index cards), and the editor view without leaving the application.
It also keeps research — images, PDFs, web clippings, notes — inside the project file alongside your manuscript. You can write with a split screen showing your research on one side and your draft on the other. For plotters and writers working on books with complex structures or large casts, this is genuinely transformative.
The trade-off: Scrivener's "compile" function, which exports your manuscript into a formatted Word or PDF file, has historically been confusing. It's improved substantially in Scrivener 3, but it's still not intuitive. Most writers end up doing a basic compile and then doing final formatting in Word anyway.
Scrivener is a desktop application, not cloud-based. The iOS app exists and syncs via Dropbox, but cross-device syncing is finicky enough that many authors use Scrivener on one primary device and don't rely on seamless cloud access.
Microsoft Word
Word is the publishing industry's standard. Literary agents, acquisitions editors, and copy editors work in Word. Track Changes — Word's collaborative editing feature — is how professional editing happens. When you submit a manuscript, you submit a Word document. When an editor sends notes, they send a Word document with tracked changes. There is no realistic alternative if you're pursuing traditional publishing.
For drafting, Word is serviceable but not inspired. The interface is dense, and there are no native tools for organizing a multi-chapter manuscript beyond your operating system's folder structure. Styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, Normal) matter enormously for formatting but are invisible to most new users.
Word's killer feature for authors is precisely its ubiquity. You never have a compatibility problem. You never worry about your agent not being able to open your file. If you write in anything else, you'll eventually need to export to Word anyway — so starting there removes a step.
Microsoft 365 ($99.99/year) includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage. Word alone without a subscription is a one-time purchase of approximately $159 (perpetual license). Neither price is trivial, but most authors already own it.
Google Docs
Google Docs is free, accessible from any device with a browser, auto-saves every keystroke, and maintains a complete version history you can roll back to any point. For writers who don't own Word, can't afford Scrivener, or write across multiple devices, Google Docs removes every practical barrier between you and the page.
Its collaboration features are genuinely excellent. Real-time co-editing, suggestion mode (equivalent to Word's Track Changes), and commenting all work cleanly. Some agents now accept Google Docs submissions; most can open exported .docx files without complaint.
What Google Docs doesn't have is structure. It's a single document, full stop. You can use headings and the document outline to navigate a long manuscript, but there's no binder, no corkboard, no scene-level organization. For a first novel or a short non-fiction book, this is no problem. For a complex multi-POV novel or a book with heavy research, you'll eventually wish you had Scrivener's organizational layer.
Atticus
Atticus is the newest entrant and the most interesting one for self-publishers. It combines a basic word processor with a professional book formatter in one application — you write your book in Atticus, then format it for print and ebook distribution without leaving the tool. It's cloud-based, so it works on any device.
The writing environment is cleaner than Word and more organized than Google Docs, with a chapter-based structure similar to Scrivener's binder (though simpler). The formatting output is polished and exports directly to PDF and EPUB files suitable for IngramSpark, KDP, and other distributors.
For self-publishing authors who would otherwise pay $200–$300 for Vellum (Mac-only) or spend hours wrestling with Word styles, Atticus at $97 is exceptional value. It's not the best pure writing tool, and it's not suitable for authors pursuing traditional publishing (agents don't want Atticus files), but for the indie author writing-to-publish pipeline, it's the most efficient single tool available.
iA Writer and Ulysses
iA Writer and Ulysses are markdown-based writing applications beloved by writers who prioritize a clean, distraction-free environment above all else. Both use plain text with markdown syntax for formatting, which is elegant and portable — your files are readable in any text editor forever.
Both tools have limited organizational features compared to Scrivener and don't export into publishing-ready formats as cleanly as Atticus. They're excellent for short-form writing, essays, blog posts, and articles. For long-form fiction with complex structure, they're too limiting. Writers who love them tend to draft in iA Writer or Ulysses, then move to Word or Scrivener for organization and editing.
Hemingway Editor
Hemingway Editor is not a drafting tool — it's a prose editing tool. It highlights overly long sentences, passive voice, adverbs, and readability issues. Useful for revision passes on tight non-fiction prose. Counterproductive if used while drafting, because it encourages constant micro-editing of sentences before you know where the scene is going. Use it after you have a complete draft, not before.
How to Choose Based on Your Stage
- Drafting your first novel: Start in Google Docs or Word. Don't invest in Scrivener until you've finished at least one manuscript and know your organizational needs.
- Submitting to literary agents: Use Word. No exceptions. Agents work in Word; everything else creates unnecessary friction.
- Complex long-form fiction with heavy plotting: Scrivener. The organizational tools are genuinely worth the learning curve once you've confirmed you're the kind of writer who benefits from them.
- Self-publishing and need a formatting solution: Atticus for the combined writing-and-formatting pipeline. Vellum if you're on Mac and want the best formatting output money can buy.
- Revising with a professional editor: Word's Track Changes. This is what editors use; meet them there.
When your draft is done, the most impactful next step is getting professional eyes on the manuscript — not switching to a different app. EditRoast provides chapter-by-chapter editorial notes on structure, prose, and what's working, regardless of which software you used to write it.