Software Recs for Drafting a Book
My current favorites in my toolbox (from an author tackling my next draft.)
Published June 26, 2025
Recently, I've been loving recording "voice notes" (as I call them—the more casual label makes me more inclined to do them versus trying to "podcast,") and I've been relishing expanding the Words Like Silver footprint and strengthening various format muscles.
Everything that makes me stronger and more viable as a creative, while still feeling authentic to me, is net-positive. (I did, recently, write a newsletter analyzing how posting literally anything to the Internet makes it feel performative by virtue of being warped by an algorithm at all—which is why I love my blog, as it's feed-less.)
The other day, I chatted about my intention to write a zero draft this summer, meaning a first draft of a new book that can be as bad or sloppy as it wants to be. A euphemism of sorts. This clocked in as my longest "voice note" so far at roughly 42 minutes after editing, and I could have kept going. It's meandering, resisting the urge. to break into seven different tangents.
As I warn friends and loved ones who try to talk to me about book publishing—when you get me going, I realize how much, exactly, I know about the domain after 14 years or so steeped in it. And, of course, I love talking about the craft, passion, and business considerations that go into positioning a book in the first place.
I shared a worksheet of sorts that I'm filling out while preparing to get my selkie book down on paper along with the book titles of the more "traditional" plot structures you probably hear people reference when talking about writing a book in the first place. But I also wanted to share some of the more workflow-centered products that involve the literal keyboarding, organization, and productivity aspects of writing a book at all.
As in, if you opt for writing-specific software—like a program or a writing processor—what fits for your personal preference? I kind of "bop" between windows, but this is where and how I expect to house my word count as I get it down.
Most of the Book Is Usually in a Google Doc
When I open my laptop to write a book, I'm pulling up Google Docs or Scrivener most of the time. I prefer Docs because I could chip away at a Google Doc while on a different device, whereas Microsoft Word pretty much dictates that I'm in front of my laptop. Also, that might be the freelance journalist in me; I tend to turn in drafts and do edits for most magazines via Docs.
But when I get tired of staring at my book, or maybe I'm on the go, I might want to pull up the document on my phone instead. I find it helps, frequently, to constantly experience my book in different formats for an immediate headspace shift because tricking myself into having "fresh eyes" is so important for stamina. Also, I might be asking for feedback from beta readers (not in the zero draft—much, much later.)
When I get to edits with an editor, I'm likely dealing with track changes within Microsoft Word—and that's how my agents delivered line-edits as well. When I do my final read-throughs before submitting a book, that's in Word.
For this time around, I did set up an outline in Notion (roughly $5/month for my plan) which fits with my brain. I'm not sure whether I'll end up storing words in there too or just use it as a method of tracking research, clips, etc,.
Silly, But Let's Talk Formatting & Fonts
I tend to draft so that it looks like a paperback — wide margins, serif 14pt font maybe, narrow line spacing. For me, it helps me to mentally organize my book and envision it as a "real" book rather than a document.
But standard manuscript formatting i.e. what you submit to an agent or publisher will be 12 pt Times New Roman or similar, 2.0 line spacing, 1-inch margins, so I often oscillate between the two.
If you'd like to duplicate my formatting exactly, I've always been a fan of Garamond or EB Garamond font instead of Times New Roman to start, and have also drafted a ton this year in Cardo (a new favorite of everyone who's reviewed my work) or Bellefair or Centaur, which I fully got into because Maggie Stiefvater's books are often in Centaur so I could envision the lines very easily.
Side note: a huge win just now! I've been trying to figure out the Hush, Hush font for years, and I guess Simon & Schuster finally updated the cover info, because I swear it's never been printed in my own copy. I'd love to draft my next in Seria. For some reason, I've always loved it. (This all feels granular to say but if you get it, you get it.) Except licensing the font is $50, which is out of budget at the moment. If I really get stuck while revising, it could eventually be worth the headspace shift. It looks like I might be able to use Adobe Creative Cloud in Scrivener. But for now, I won't justify.
While querying literary agents, I sent a new fresh document to each agent I sent my full manuscript to. So my computer folders eventually each looked like this—
Specific Softwares That...Might....Help?
I mentioned Ally Carter's Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book? by Ally Carter, who's fabulous, in my voice note, and how one of her suggestions is to actually write your first (zero) draft as a screenplay for flow. There are pros and cons to that method—as it really depends on your blind spots and whether you veer more interior or exterior.
When I outline, I tend to use a beat board or grid versus a long text-based outline, so screenwriting software actually does work beautifully for that. A few years ago after reading Dear Ally, I bought Final Draft software (expensive) to try that out. I won't use it exclusively, but I'll duck in and out of it likely. I probably wouldn't buy it casually now as I'm not specifically a screenwriter, but if you're in the position to, sure! At the time, I was desperate to get un-stuck on a draft. I'm grateful to have it now for the setup of my zero draft.
Some writers online also swear by Obsidian (free) for thought-mapping, which I downloaded but haven't tried yet.
I spent a few years working off of Scapple, which I keep accidentally calling snapple, which is created by the company behind Scrivener. Blurring so that you don't get Mountain Sounds spoilers, but they look a little something like this:
All in all, I'll end up organizing and reorganizing and reformatting any thoughts and scraps in a thousand different ways to get me to what I want: the outline equivalent of having to write six pages for one useful paragraph, an excavation process that Anne Lamott talks about in Bird by Bird (a recent, delightful, wise reread on writing and what it does for us.)
And there's a dash of Oliver Burkeman in there too. That temptation is that if I just find the right system, my entire life will be unbelievably smooth and easy. In writing and in life.
I'm a longhand, handwritten gal so deeply prefer tacking a roll of butcher paper to my wall and going ham with highlighters and index cards (which looks rather terrifying in practice), but I'll end up with seven different half-baked versions of a book across documents and softwares before congealing them into some final not-final doc.
