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Best Outlining Writing Apps in 2025

Showing 38 writing apps that match your search.

Storyline Creator is an elegant writing tool that helps you streamline your writing process. It's incredibly fun to draft ideas, to visualize, enhance and organize your stories - so you can focus on your plot and the creativity instead of the paper war.

Platforms: Online

Best for: Outlining, Book, Story, and Free

Website: https://www.storylinecreator.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$66.98 yearly

Timeline

Notebook

Character profiles

Random prompt generator

★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

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

Note down, shape, & share your ideas with the world's best loved digital paper. Fall in love with handwriting all over again with Goodnotes’ digital ink.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

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

Website: https://www.goodnotes.com/

Base price:

$8.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Search your handwriting

Annotate PDFs

Organize with folders and subfolders

Personlize notebooks

★★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.8 on the App Store

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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

Campfire is a versatile writing tool organized into modules, each one offering a different type of story element you can create. Keep track of each character's motives, history, eye color, and more. The Characters Module gives you an easy way to make quick notes or detailed character sheets about anyone in your story. Upload your map to the Maps Module, add pins to integrate it with the rest of your story, and nest other maps to keep things organized.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, Online, PC

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

Website: https://www.campfirewriting.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$2.00 monthly

Character Modules & Maps Modules

Flexible panel system

Create customizable DIY themes

★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on Reedsy

All great writing begins with inspiration. The writing process, however, begins with an unyielding blank page. You could keep battling it. Or you could organize your research snippets on it. So you fill the page with your ideas, data and inspiration. And write a world-class piece that's supported by cited research.

Platforms: Online

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, and Essay

Website: https://www.airstory.co/

Base price:

$25.00 monthly

Premium price:

$125.00 monthly

Organize research

Boards and outliners

Drag and drop

Research library

★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators and more.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, PC

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Editing, Publishing, Book, and Story

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

Base price:

$59.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Flexible corkboard

Structure outliner

Metadata and target setting

Print and export functionalities

★★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on Reedsy

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

Remember everything and tackle any project with your notes, tasks, and schedule all in one place.

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

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

Website: https://evernote.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$8.99 monthly

Syncs across devices

Search within documents

Clip web pages and PDFs

Dozens of app integrations and templates

★★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.4 on the App Store

OmniOutliner is a powerful tool for organizing (and reorganizing) information, so you can see the full picture and structure your information effortlessly.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Essay, and Blog

Website: https://www.omnigroup.com/omnioutliner/

Base price:

$19.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

$99.99 one-time payment

Resource folders

Multitasking

Document stats

Inline notes

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Also rated 3.2 on the App Store

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

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

RBE | Writing App For You Interface | 2024-09

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