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Best Outlining Writing Apps in 2025

Showing 38 writing apps that match your search.

Story Planner is an easy-to-use and yet powerful tool for plotting novels, screenplays, and any fiction story. It works great for writers, screenwriters, producers, directors, RPG masters … All kinds of storytellers!

Platforms: iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Story, and Book

Website: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/story-planner-outline-your-...

Base price:

$5.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Organize projects by tags

Link elements

Color code and organize plot lines

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.7 on the App Store

Ever scribbled ideas on a piece of paper and drawn lines between related thoughts? Then you already know what Scapple does. It's a virtual sheet of paper that lets you make notes anywhere and connect them using lines or arrows.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, and Blog

Website: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview

Base price:

$20.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Write notes anywhere

Connect notes using drag and drop

Completely freeform

★★★★ Performance

★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Also rated 5.0 on TechRadar

Are you using the right tool to get your novel written? If you want a finished manuscript, you need intuitive novel writing software that keeps you on track and helps you write more novels. Writing a novel is not easy, but it should be simple. Novelize has all the features you need while minimizing distractions. Just write!

Platforms: Online, Chrome

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Book, and Story

Website: https://www.getnovelize.com/

Base price:

$65.00 yearly

Premium price:

Easily navigable

Dozens of lists for settings and names

★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

Value

Also rated 3.5 on PC Magazine

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So, You’re looking to write a book. Well, wavemaker is here to help. It’s much much more than a text editor.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, Chrome, Android, Online, PC

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Book, Story, and Free

Website: https://wavemaker.cards/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Connects to Google Docs

Mind maps

Timelines

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 3.7 on Google Play

Manuskript is a perfect tool for those writer who like to organize and plan everything before writing. The snowflake method can help you grow your idea into a book, by leading you step by step and asking you questions to go deeper.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, PC

Best for: Outlining, Story, Book, and Free

Website: https://www.theologeek.ch/manuskript/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Index cards

Outliner

Frequency analyzer

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Writer Assistant (Wassi) is an application created specifically for inventors! We all constantly invent new characters for our stories, be it a comic, a novel, a script, a play, or a game. And so that our characters are alive and riveted the attention, they need to be developed a lot! That is what the Writer Assistant was created for! Plus, with Wassi you can easily outline your stories on the go.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Book, Story, and Free

Website: https://apps.apple.com/app/writer-assistant-wassi/id14686...

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Outline

Interlinking

Character building template

Worldbuilding template

★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 3.9 on the App Store

Typing Chimp Character is designed to help fiction writers create better characters, stories, and worlds fast.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, PC

Best for: Outlining, Worldbuilding, Book, and Story

Website: http://www.typingchimp.com/

Base price:

$29.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Enneagram tools

Story generator

World generator

★★★ Performance

★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

Value

Do you have a story to tell? Unlike conventional word processors, Storyist helps you track your plot, characters, and settings, and keeps all of your writing organized and accessible—so you can focus on telling your story.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Book, and Story

Website: https://storyist.com/

Base price:

$59.00 one-time payment

Premium price:

Stylesheets for manuscripts

Flexible outliner

Story development tools

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on PC Magazine

Mellel is a word processor designed from the ground up to be the ultimate writing tool for academics, technical writers, scholars and students. Mellel is strong, stable and reliable, and is the ideal companion for working on documents that are long and complex, short and simple, or anything in between.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, and Essay

Website: https://mellel.com/

Base price:

$49.00 one-time payment

Premium price:

Outline

Bibliography

Footnotes and endnotes

Multilingual support

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Also rated 3.2 on the App Store

We’re more than a doc. Or a table. Customize Notion to work the way you do.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Chrome, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.notion.so/product

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Create wikis

Link to different pages

Hundreds of pre-made wikis

Create table of contents

★★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on TechRadar

Mind mapping starts with a main idea in the center of your mind map. As your map takes shape, add context to topics with attachments, embedded media and more. MindMeister’s features guide you through your first mind maps onto maximum creativity.

Platforms: Online, iPhone, iPad, Android

Best for: Outlining, Journal, Poetry, and Free

Website: https://www.mindmeister.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$8.25 monthly

Outline mode & focus mode

Comments and notifications

Collaboration

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.7 on Capterra

You have a story to tell, article to publish, or class notes to take. Scrivo Pro can help you organize your writing, research, generate ideas, and remove distractions so you can focus on the most important thing: writing.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, and Blog

Website: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scrivo-pro-for-scriveners-a...

Base price:

$9.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Organize projects in tree-like structure

Live counters

Works offline

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.4 on the App Store

RBE | Writing App For You Interface | 2024-09

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