Writers love to ask each other what tools they use.
There’s something comforting about it—maybe even magical. As if the right app will solve the mess in your head. The right tool will make the writing flow.
It won’t.
But the tool that’s right for you? That can help a lot.
Here’s the thing: your writing software doesn’t need to be objectively best. It just needs to suit three things:
- Fit for purpose – Does it do the thing you’re asking it to do?
- Fit for brain – Does it make sense to the way you think?
- Fit for budget – Can you use it without resenting the cost?
And—maybe most importantly—does it get out of your way long enough for the writing to happen?
For me, that looks like this:
Pages (Apple’s word processor) – because it’s on every device I own. iCloud sync means my drafts are always nearby. And yes, I admit it: how the page looks does matter to me more than it probably should. I format my draft documents like books. I like to see the shape of the story as I write it. Pages lets me do that without a fight.
ChatGPT – not as a co-writer, not as an idea generator, but as my writer’s assistant. I use it to help me sort, clarify, and structure the information I provide, with strict prohibitions on generating ideas.
Obsidian – because I think in webs, not stacks. Obsidian lets me link ideas, characters, timelines, notes—like a wiki for my brain. It’s not where I draft, but it’s where the story compost brews. And it suits the way I work: connected, layered, and never entirely linear. Information snippets that I put together with ChatGPT’s help get stored along with everything else in Obsidian.
Analogue Stack – my desk has notebooks, pads of paper, pens, post-its and index cards, because sometimes the ideas flow better in ink, sometimes I need to write a bunch of ideas down and shuffle them into different arrangements to see how they look.
That’s my stack. It’s not minimal. It’s not flashy. But it works for me.
Maybe you like Scrivener. Maybe you work in Word. Maybe you draft entire novels in a Notes app, or in Markdown, or on a Chromebook, or in a Google Doc called “NO SERIOUSLY WORKING DRAFT FINAL (3).”
There’s no prize for picking the right tool.
The prize is the words that show up because your system lets you do the work.
So don’t chase software. Chase what works.
And if it stops working—try something else.
Sometimes, when you feel like working on something that’s writing adjacent, maybe look at other tools. I have writer friends who swear by Scrivener. Others who work exclusively in MS Word or a plain text editor. They’re no more right or wrong than I am.
The tools I use serve me. I’ve gone through a lot of trial and error to find the stack that works for me—for now, this is it. Subject to change, always.
What works for you?