Introduction

This week, I gave you the big list of writing and plotting software! Go take a look if you haven’t.

But the lovely author Alexandra Fallgren has also given me a very thorough review of one Scrivener look-a-like called NovelPad, so I thought it deserved special attention. Let’s take a look!

NovelPad

by Alexandra

After being a die-hard Scrivener writer for years, I’ve recently started using NovelPad and I really like it! I wanted something cloud based so that I could work on a variety of devices (and also get some writing done on my downtime at my day job), and I love how seamlessly NovelPad syncs and automatically saves my work.

I do not love paying a subscription, since it adds up a lot over time, but they do have a robust Discord server where staff are happy to help troubleshoot and take suggestions for future features. And it’s an extra motivator to actually write since I’m paying for it regardless.

You can still download your projects even if you cancel or pause your subscription, which is another plus, so you never have to worry about losing months or years of work.

I looked at a lot of different cloud based writing software before choosing and what sold me on NovelPad was a few specific features that work like their Scrivener counterparts that I love. The most important to me is ‘Revision’ mode, which works like the Scrivener ‘Snapshot’ and allows you to save multiple versions of a scene and easily switch between them. I tend to write several versions of a scene both in drafting and in revisions and I never want to lose anything so this is huge for me.

NovelPad also has plotting tools that work very similarly to Scrivener (though I prefer Plottr for planning out an entire novel) and also separates scenes/chapters so that they’re easily isolated and moved around.

There are various options of tags and labels to track plotlines and such, and also some analytics that can be nice. NovelPad will keep track of your characters and settings and then show you all the scenes where the name appears, which can be handy.

There is also a built in goal setting tool that can automatically calculate daily wordcount goals based on a deadline for the finished project, and can even take into account days off, or days where you plan to write more or less than average. I’ve used Pacemaker for this in the past, and the NovelPad feature works pretty much exactly the same way, so it’s nice to have it all in one place.

If I could be a full time writer, I would probably only use Scrivener, but since flexibility is key to my actually getting words on the page right now, I’m very happy using NovelPad, at least for the drafting stage.

Get it here

In conclusion

by C.J.

Thanks, Alexandra, for offering your thorough perspective! From my view, it seems like NovelPad has some nice features that Scrivener does not, the most powerful of which is cloud-based writing, as well as some functionality that incorporates aspects of other programs.

Feel free to share your favorite writing programs and your thoughts in the comments! And if you appreciate my work, buy me a one-time coffee or a $10 query critique?

See you next week for the Big list of Worldbuilding software and more

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