How to write a novel using ‘Writer Tools’ [A Guide]

Let me introduce myself real quick. I’m Albert-Jan Plate, an 18 years old medical student who loves to write novels and develop apps/websites in his spare time.

One year ago I launched Writer Tools, an Android application with all the tools you need to plan, track and write your next novel. The app is still in active development, and if you’d like to see something changed, please feel free to email me: contact@writer-tools.com. I’d be happy to help.

I wrote this article due to the massive amount of questions I get about how to use the application. This is how I use the app and intended how the functions could be used. But as I figured out, you can use the app for more than that. Someone even wrote a cooking book using it.

I hope you enjoy the app as much as I did while creating it. Happy writing!

Step 1: Create a timeline

Timeline: A chronologically ordered list of events that represent the story.

1.1. Come up with a plot

Many people I’ve met tell me that they already have the story planned out in their mind. However, most of them don’t. All they’ve come up with is a setting for a story. A novel, however, is more. That’s why this tool helps you to get an overview of the complete story.

If you’re still looking for an excellent plot, don’t overthink it. Seek inspiration in your daily life, transform it a bit, and there it is. Unfortunately, my app can’t help you with this. I believe creativity is something unique to a human; I can’t program it.

You can jot out loads and loads of ideas on an empty sheet of paper (probably by creating a mindmap) or type everything in the ideas section of the app. When you’ve got a clear overview of all the possibilities, try to highlight the ones you like the best. Look if you can merge some of them into one great plot that has an excellent build up.

1.2. Think of the events that led up to your plot

Okay, so you’ve thought of a plot, and you like it. It’s unique, fresh and will make the readers’ head explode (hopefully not literally). Now you can start to think about how you’ll build up your plot. How will the story develop? What will happen to the main character(s)? What will happen in the background? (things that won’t be told to the user as an event in the book but are important for a full backstory)

The app allows you to create and reorder your events at any time. Even when you come back later, you’ll be able to rearrange them. I recommend giving each event a short name with a description that contains the following information: what’s happening; why it’s important; how it will change the plot;

Make sure that (almost) every event has a useful role in the novel. This will keep your story clear to the reader.

Step 2: Immerse yourself in your characters

Character: The mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

You’ve finished the timeline of your story, although you probably already created some characters in your mind, the next step is to list them all. This way you can keep track of all their habits, emotions, and their personal backstory. The app enables you to plan out your character in-depth. You can do this by filling in a huge collection of forms in several domains: General, Appearance, Personality, History and Story.

For example, Mae, a waitress, has a red cat. By noting down something like this small detail, you can fill up empty gaps in the future. This will also prevent you from making errors like telling that Mae’s cat is black.

Give your most important characters a tag. This way you’ll be able to identify the characters you need much quicker. You can also group characters together by giving them tags. (E.G. all villains will get the ‘Villain’ tag.) This way you can just search for a group.

To give your characters more character (see what I did there?) you can easily add a picture of them. Create a mood board by adding more images that are related to your character. You can swipe right between images, or tap on a image to view them as a gallery.

3. Come up with locations

Location: A particular place or position.

Next thing to do is to record and document all your locations in a hierarchical way. By doing this correctly, you can literally walk through your virtual world. Writer Tools enables you to create infinite sub locations to a location. You start with the most prominent area and add sub-locations to it.

E.G: World > Countries > Cities > Streets > Houses > Floor of a house > Room

By doing this, you can keep an overview of your setting and eventually return to this specific location in a later part of the story. Now you won’t need to look up what you wrote about this specific location. You can use many fields to document your ideas.

It’s also possible to add multiple images to your locations, just like in characters.

4. Divide your story in chapters

Chapter: A main division of a book, typically with a number or title.

Now we’ve planned out our story, or at least at a rough scale, we have to start thinking about how we want to present these events to the reader. There are multiple ways we can do this: chronologically or not chronologically (with flashbacks). You don’t want to tell the full story immediately but instead, reveal the events that happened in the past piece by piece. This way you’ll build up your novel. Another essential thing to think about is what perspective you’ll be using. Will you tell the story only from the main character point of view or some parts through the eyes of the antagonist.

Chapters can easily be reordered. Tap on a chapter and you’ll find 3 tabs.

1. Scenes

Go to step 5 to read more about the scenes tab. Just a quick notice already: scenes are only meant as a planning tool. The actual writing happens in the ‘Write’ tab.

2. Write

Use this tab to write your actual story. For now, the editor supports the following formats: BOLD, italic, underline and strikethrough. The final button in this row can be used to remove all styling of the selected text. Your written text will be saved automatically every +-30 seconds. You can see the subtitle of the activity when your text was saved last.

3. About

For now, the about tab will show you how many words you’ve written and the description of the chapter. In the future, however, we plan to bring you much more information about the chapter. Think about linking locations and characters.

5. Add scenes

Scene: A subdivision of an act of a play in which the time is continuous and the setting fixed and which does not usually involve a change of characters.

In the previous step we decided what every chapter will be about. Now it’s time to decide how we will translate that main idea into different scenes that cover everything we want to tell during this chapter.

After the planning, or of course during, you can just swipe right and type your story in the ‘write’ tab. By switching between the 2 tabs you’ll always know what to write next. You won’t get lost in your writing and won’t find yourself writing irrelevant parts.

6. How to use the other modules

6.1. Ideas

Sometimes ideas for your novel will pop-up at the strangest places. You can jog them down quickly in the ideas section of the app. This way your ideas and your book will always stay together. You can tag ideas to find them more rapidly. (E.G. ‘Plot’, ‘Motive’, …) Search for a specific tag to see all ideas.

6.2. Writing Progress & Log

Keep track of when you have written and how productive you were that day. Add notes about how your creative process went. What helped you today, and what distracted you. This way you can make sure you can avoid them in the future.

Your total writing progress is calculated based on data from the chapters module + the already written words. Whereby the ‘already written words’ refers to words you’ve written outside the app. This can be changed in the ‘Project Info’-tab.

You can switch between two different modes for calculating the total progress. The app can count all words written in your chapters, or it can add up the manually entered amount of words.

By setting yourself a goal and slowly seeing the bar coming closer to that goal, is an excellent motivation to keep going. This is definitely worth checking out regularly.

Note: the ‘Writing Log’-tab is only meant as a motivational and tracking feature.

6.3. Custom List & Items

We can’t create a list for everything, so we’ve come up with the custom list feature. Here you’ll be able to create your own lists. Think about: Spells, Animals, Objects, Plot hints, Ghosts, …

Each list can contain infinite items that you defined. You can name each field, which you want to fill in later. It’s possible to add a field later. But be aware, once a field is created, it can’t be deleted (just yet). The only fixed field is the required name field that each item will require. It’s also possible to add images to all items in the lists.

7. Write On PC

This feature took me over half a year to develop, and it’s (finally) available!

Everyone will probably agree with me: typing on a pc/laptop remains easier than typing on a small smartphone. This writing extension will enable you to write your story on your PC and use your phone as a planning device beside it. This way you don’t have to switch between screens anymore. To activate you can follow the steps in the app.

8. Conclusion & final side notes

The last thing I want is you to follow this guide step-by-step, the app enables you to plan out your story in-depth, always. While waiting for a train, during school breaks or just at home, backing a lovely cake: when an idea pops up in your head, the app is always there for you to note it down.

Don’t wait to think about locations and excellent scenes until you’ve reached step 3. This article is only meant as a guide for people who have never written a book and don’t know how to get started.

Of course, you can also just use the app to track everything you think of while writing. Some people prefer just to write down what pops up in their ear without planning their story.

Interested in using the application? You download it for free at the Google Play store.

Here are some small tips I tell people that I’ve learned by using Writer Tools:
• Try to consistently update your notes for your characters, locations, etc.
• Set yourself quarterly writing goals, it’s an excellent motivation
• Don’t force you into coming up with ideas
• Enjoy the process!