Built by a novelist,
for novelists.
Hello, my name is Ben. I've been writing fiction since I was a teenager, and most of it, I'll be honest, went straight in the bin.
I did an English Literature and Creative Writing degree, wrote my first novel (bin), learned that I could actually finish an 80,000-word manuscript, and then got on with life. Career, marketing, the usual. In my late twenties I picked the pen back up, and I haven't put it back down since.
I've now written four novels, none of them published yet, and a short sci-fi story collection called Sunset in the East, which is available on Amazon if you're curious.
Why I built Writing Desk
For years I couldn't find a writing tool that worked the way my brain works. And I tried plenty of them.
Some were too simple, word processors that treat a 90,000-word novel like a long email. Some were too complex, demanding hours of setup before you could write a single scene. Some had no planning tools at all. Some had so many that the planning became the work.
And none of them closed the loop between all the things a novel needs: the manuscript, the plot, the research, the characters, the messy notes, and those glorious free-flowing moments where the words just don't stop coming.
So I built Writing Desk. I built it to match my workflow, to hold the full apparatus of writing a novel without any of it overwhelming you.
That workflow might not be yours. If you need something more granular, with deeper plotting tools and more features, or you might need something looser and freer, in which case there are good options out there.
With Writing Desk I've tried to balance structure and freedom, to give you enough scaffolding to support a novel without it ever getting in the way of actually writing one.
How it works
No complicated setup, no steep learning curve, just three steps between you and a finished manuscript.
Download the app
Free for macOS. Nothing to configure.
Bring your manuscript
Open a .docx and it converts straight into your project, or start blank if you're writing something new.
Write
Plot, research, and draft all in one place, distraction-free.
And when your manuscript is finished? Use our editorial tools to polish it, and the Formatter to professionally typeset and format your work for publishing.
Craft first
I'm a novelist before I'm a developer. I care about the process: the habit building, the coffee and endless distractions, the midnight prose you end up cutting, the scenes that flow like water. Every feature in Writing Desk exists to help you write more, and write better. Nothing else.
Focused
Focus Mode keeps distractions out while you write. Even as everything else, plot, research, notes, lives in the same project, so you're never hunting through other apps mid-scene.
Structured
Resource sheets, the Reference Folder, and the Story Plotter give your novel the scaffolding you need to write something incredible without getting in the way of you actually writing.
Simple
No complicated import or export flows or long set up. Open a .docx, write, export a .docx. Writing Desk is here to help you finish your project, and make it the best it can be.
AI assists, never writes
Structural feedback on pacing, character, and consistency. It points to potential problems, you decide whether to solve them. Calls are transient, nothing is stored or used to train AI models.
Read our AI philosophy →What's coming
Writing Desk is in active development, built and maintained by me. Alongside some near-term polish and improvements, I have longer-term plans for a built in copy editor, as well as note-taking, reading, and annotating on the go, and a Series Planner for writers working across multiple books.
If you try it and want to tell me how much you love it, or have more structural feedback (compliment sandwich please), or there's a feature you'd like to see, I genuinely want to hear from you. Reach out at help@writingdeskapp.com.
(I also build other things. Litloop is a free social reading tracker app if you want somewhere to log what you're reading and share books with friends.)
The best way to understand Writing Desk is to try it.
Download for Mac