A Scrivener alternative without the project format.
Scrivener is a one-time purchase, offline, and made by decent people — we have no quarrel with it. But it keeps your book in a proprietary bundle, and most writers use about a tenth of it.
If you're writing a 200,000-word multi-POV epic with a research corkboard, Scrivener is the right tool and this page won't argue otherwise. If you're writing essays, a memoir, a newsletter, or a first novel in linear order, you may be carrying a workshop to hammer one nail.
Keep Scrivener if…
You restructure by dragging scenes, you use the corkboard daily, you compile to typeset formats. Those are real features and nothing here replaces them.
Come here if…
You mostly write in order, keep notes beside the draft, and want the manuscript to still be plainly readable long after every app on your machine has been replaced.
The refund
Thirty days, one e-mail, money back.
Common questions
Can I move a Scrivener project across?
Compile to Markdown or plain text and paste it in. Structure flattens; the words survive intact.
Is there a corkboard?
No. Sections and a lightweight outline, nothing more.
Word counts and targets?
Yes — per-session and per-document, visible while you write.
Which is better for a novel?
Scrivener, if you restructure heavily. The Writing Desk, if you draft forward and want a document rather than a project.