Atticus is pretty reliable and only costs $100.
It may have a little too many features for most novel writers. I usually ignore them all and focus my attention on what I can use. I like the storyboard and the catalog. They let me just make quick references to characters, weapons, and scenes so that I can keep the writing momentum going even when I forget something. I go back, check a storyboard card or click on a character profile real quick then carry on. 
A really good program that I use which is free OpenOffice, from Apache. https://www.openoffice.org/
LibraOffice, Google Office and OpenOffice are good free options. Google has good presets that I like using, like the sheets project schedule for my upload schedule.
NotebookLM by Google is mainly used as a studytool, but I like using it to organize my manuscript notes with timelines, summary, table of contents, and more. It generates a fake podcast about your notes as well if you're more of an audio learner.
NaNoWriMo (November) to kick your but in gear to just focus on writing as much as you can in a month. They have a lot of resources as well.
There are these sites to help you organize your manuscript:
- LivingWriter
- Scrivener1
- Novlr
Grammer/SpellCheck/Puncuation and writing improvement:
- Grammarly
- WordTune1
- ProWritingAid
- Reverso
Not quite free, but to create a bookcover on a budget:
- Canva1
- PlaceIt2
This is a great thread with lots of really useful resources!
Unfortunately, I will never use any of them, because I have never heard of organization. Like @BreeBaxter, I just use Google Docs. My folders all look like this:
No, I have no idea what the difference is between any of these files.
And this is the most detailed and organized outline I have ever created in my life:
Maybe one day I will fall in love with some awesome app/program for writers. But I've only recently stopped writing all my drafts out by hand, so...
I suggest using the NotebookLM by Google, it connects to your google docs/drive. CLick all those files you cant tell apart and itll organize them for you
@Paul_Tromba When I was looking for a program besides the free ones I already use, I was between Scrivener or Atticus, and honestly, I would have preferred to use Atticus. I will eventually get it because I feel the way Scrivener saves in different folders and the backup is too complicated.
@BreeBaxter and @king-goldfish I have never used Google Docs to do my writing per se (gosh, it is crazy, I know), and I just use it to share with my beta readers. And King, that's such an organized outline. My outlines consist of a minimum of 5k words with background thrown around, dialogues, scenes, etc., and then it became chaos 🫠🤣
A lot of ppl have stopped using GoogleDocs, because of their terms of service lots of smut fanfic writers found their docs deleted or couldnt access their accounts anymore
Wow, that's crazy. I did not know that. I don't write fanfics, but that's a bit on the extreme side of Google. I guess it is because the copyright of the names or the artist made a silent boycott? I know as for me, that Grammarly doesn't work well in Google Docs when I build the documents to be shared.
no, it was for sexual content which is apparently against their TOS, it was a change they added that recieved huge pushback
I had to stop using Google docs except for editorial sharing because Chrome slows my computer so much that I switched to Firefox and Google purposefully makes it glitch out every few words, causing you to type whatever you were typing a line up or down inside another word.
Whoa, I had no idea about that! Thank you for the information. I have been moving off of Google in general (finally switched my default browser to Firefox, which was a lot easier than I was fearing it would be), but this does make me want to find an alternative to Docs. I already download all my files regularly cause I am paranoid about having only one copy of them, but... Google Docs is just so convenient for sharing and track changes. 
I like it so much better than Word.
Guess I need to go back over the resources in this thread after all lol
Ded 
oof, for my next story, I might use then a Word Document to share.
@Paul_Tromba oooh, see that it happened to me the times I tried to write per se there. So I was not the only one
I havent tried it, but I havent heard any complaints about banning or deleting off of DropboxPaper. Some people suggested OneNote and Evermore. If you use Apple products, there Pages. And I also heard someone mention ZoHo Writer for being very similar to GoogleDocs. I HAVE NOT PERSONALLY TRIED ANY OF THESE
@king-goldfish @itsforevermonday
Okay yesss, I use Reedsy, and I'm constantly doing backups on my computer because I can download in PDF and Word files. Also, I use Outlook so that I can use Word but the online version, and even if I hate it, I also use Scrivener, so each story I write has at least 4-5 backups because I once lost more than 20k written words of a story and never again. So I'm on the extreme side I think I might use DropboxPaper for once
26 days later
