8 Apps for Writers: Popular Apps for Editors, Plotters, DIY Designers and Fantasy WorldBuilders

8Apps

For Writers

Tools for writers are abundant on the Internet, but how do you know which ones are right for you? Here, we’ll break down some popular apps for editors, plotters, DIY designers, and fantasy worldbuilders. These are the apps to make your writing practice easier, more interactive, or just plain fun.

free add-in for Microsoft Word or as a keyboard for your phone. If you want to take your writing and revising to the next level, the paid version suggests edits to tone, formality, and more. ► grammarly.com

PROWRITINGAID

ProWritingAid is a “grammar checker, style editor, and writing mentor.” You can add a free browser extension to Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge and enjoy verb-strengthening tips along with notifications when you slip into passive voice. Premium features include WordExplorer (a kind of synonym finder) and a Microsoft Word add-in. Not a Word user? The desktop version of ProWritingAid syncs with Scrivener and OpenOffice. ► prowritingaid.com

FOR OUTLINING

Pantsers, look away. These apps offer robust outlining tools for the plotters in the house (though you may want to try them, too).

FOR SELF-EDITING

Do you struggle with comma splices? Do your modifiers dangle? These apps are for you.

GRAMMARLY

Billed as an “AI-powered writing assistant,” Grammarly is a free Chrome browser extension that suggests improvements to your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It works in applications like Gmail, Google Docs, and Twitter, and it’s even available as a PLOTTR

Like index cards on a wall, Plottr lets you visualize your beats and move them around as you see fit. You can add scenes, character outlines, A- and B-stories, and notes using Plottr’s templates or your own custom attributes. When you’re finished, Plottr generates an outline based on your efforts and exports it to Word or Scrivener. The app is available as a 30-day free trial and a yearly subscription after that. ► getplottr.com

CAMPFIRE

Campfire offers two worldbuilding and plotting apps: Blaze and Pro. With Blaze, the web app, not only can you track your world’s unique attributes and create character bios, you can also write your novel in the manuscript editor and access it from anywhere. Pro, Campfire’s desktop version, lets you create whole wikis about your world. You can add maps and create character sheets, too. Both versions offer free and paid features. ► campfiretechnology.com

FOR BOOK DESIGN

If you like to DIY, these apps will help you design beautiful books from cover to cover.

CANVA

Canva is a browser-based app that lets you design just about anything, including social media posts, business cards, resumes, and book covers. The free version gives you access to a wide array of visual elements and templates while the paid version offers a robust catalogue of features like fonts, stock photos, and the ability to resize your designs. Canva also offers free resources on graphic design, typography, and social media marketing. ► canva.com

VELLUM

Vellum is an app that lets you design books for e-reader and print. You can apply default styles to create beautiful drop caps and ornamental flourishes, add images, or insert links into ebook files. Vellum generates ebooks for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and more. The app is available as a free download, though you will need to purchase a licence to generate book files. Available for Mac only. ► vellum.pub

FOR FUN

Feeling adventurous? These apps offer unique ways to visualize your stories.

INKARNATE

This one’s for the fantasy authors and detail-obsessed worldbuilders. Inkarnate is a map-making web app that allows you to create beautiful world maps, intricate cities, and Dungeons & Dragons-style interiors. You can add mountainous or forested regions to your maps along with oceans, islands, roads, and more. With both a free and a pro version, Inkarnate is intuitive to learn and a great way to breathe life into fantasy lands. ► inkarnate.com

INKLEWRITER

If you have a hard time deciding on the next step in your narrative, or if you just like A/B testing, InkleWriter could be the tool for you. This web app allows you to create stories that branch and intersect based on choices you provide to the reader. Sound like a lot to keep track of? The map helps you visualize your entire plot, and InkleWriter alerts you to any loose ends in the story. Free to use, this is the perfect app for interactive fiction lovers. ► inklewriter.com

Terry Ann Carter: Finding Your Form by Rob Taylor

Rob Taylor: Haiku in Canada: History, Poetry, Memoir has an unusual structure: part memoir, part history, part poetry anthology, part roll call of Canadian haiku writers. The practice of gathering the biographies of contributing poets into an essay is shared by other haiku anthologies, such as Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years and The Haiku Anthology, but in your case the poets’ poems and your reminiscences are also rolled into the mix. You never know what will come next: a personal anecdote, a poet’s or writing group’s bio, a clutch of poems, an excerpt from an essay on the nature of haiku, etc.

In your foreword, you note that Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, which itself roams mightily, helped inspire the book’s form. Could you talk a little about how you settled on the book’s final shape?

Terry Ann Carter: This book began as a talk that I was invited to give at the 2011 Haiku North America conference in Seattle. It was perhaps nine pages in length and it was received very well. A second delivery came when I was a keynote speaker at a Haiku Canada conference. For this talk I had prepared some extra notes around the Toronto scene since I was speaking at the University of Toronto. The paper kept growing. My friendship with Mr. Toshi Yonehara increased my interest in the history of haiku, and when I moved to the west coast in 2012, I realized that I was in a great place to do more research. I was new to Victoria and wanted to meet like-minded folks, so I taught Japanese literary forms at Royal Roads University. I met many poets who wanted to learn more about haiku; soon the classes turned into social gatherings and Haiku Arbutus was born. I still facilitate this group.

It was through Haiku Arbutus that I met Dr. Susumu Tabata, a 93-yearold survivor of the internment camps of the Slocan Valley in the interior of BC during World War II. It was such an honour and a privilege to meet him, and soon “Sus” was a regular at our meetings. My essay began to take on a new direction as I researched the haiku written in these camps during this dark chapter of Canadian history. Members of the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society also helped out. Many gave me resources that I would have probably never found on my own. Soon I had over a hundred pages and I began to think about a book.

The challenge now, was my writing “styles.” When I was referencing the historical facts, I needed historical accuracy, which created a certain tone. When I was writing about groups of poets, some who were close personal friends, the tone changed again. I was very uncertain about how to continue. I became quite despondent around the whole project and dropped it for about two years. I simply didn’t know how to mesh everything together. It sat deep within my computer.

Then one day, I was reading Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, which is her observations of Heian court life, including essays, anecdotes, poems, opinions, interesting events at court, and her famous lists, 164 of them. Her writing was called “zuihitsu” or “assorted writing,” and I knew I had found a model. I picked up the project and began working again, and by Christmas 2019 I had the manuscript completed.

RT: It’s no coincidence that the other anthologies I noted above were edited by men, nor—I suspect—that your major influence in structuring the book was a woman. In many ways, Haiku in Canada feels like a corrective in a literary tradition that has historically appeared to be dominated by men. In addition to this book, in 2020 you also published the collection of essays Moonflowers: Pioneering Women Haiku Poets in Canada (catkin press, 2020). How did writing Moonflowers influence how you approached writing Haiku in Canada?

TAC: Completing the research for Moonflowers gave me a “deep dive” into the lives of our pioneering women poets. I wanted to bring that knowledge and energy to Haiku in Canada, although (because of space) in much shorter allotments. I think that the work for Moonflowers gave me a stronger appreciation for these women. That appreciation flowed into Haiku in Canada and helped me shape it in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before the research.

This is an excerpt from “The Shadow Element,” published October 2020 in Event. Rob Taylor’s website is at roblucastaylor.com. There’s further reading in Mary Ann Moore’s blog post: www.maryannmoore. ca/haiku-in-canada

In the Garden with Terry Ann Carter: A Haibun Series by Barbara Pelman

book maker first I fold the mountain then the valley

We sit down at the pine table, beside French doors leading to the garden. Outside it is deciding to rain, but there is still sun and lemon ginger tea in my grandmother’s teacups. On the table, Terry Ann’s beautiful books: First I Fold the Mountain, both the chapbook and the art catalogue from her show two years ago at the Gage Gallery; her two books of haibun, On the Road to Naropa, and Tokaido, and her new history Haiku in Canada. She brings me others, an offering: A Crazy Man Thinks He’s Ernest in Paris; Day Moon Rising; Blue Moon—I spread them out on the table. The care in each page. The beauty of the paper, the cover, the choice of font. The poems themselves—the skill, the wisdom, the heart. We look out the window at the red maple leaves, the lichen on the rocks. “Haiku is about witnessing,” she says. “It notices life in everything—stone, leaf, ladybug.”

end of summer the Great Blue Heron stretches into its shadow

“This is what is called shasei,” Terry Ann explains. “It is the first level of writing haiku, a sketch, setting down what is, what you see and experience. Mostly it is the experience of being in nature, but it doesn’t have to be.” I think of one of her more urban haiku: Alone in Tokyo/even the chopsticks/ in pairs. We talk more about levels of haiku, the deeper one which connects human nature and Mother Nature, the psychological link that is like a small epiphany. That aha moment of understanding. “ A poem is an offering”, she says. Like in the Ashrei, the Hebrew prayer. Potayach et yodecha, it says, open your hand to what is offered you. She makes small delicate poem bowls out of paper: an open hand to hold a gift.

early dusk swallows swerve through the sound of temple bells

So much I want to ask her, about her work with the Tabitha Foundation in Cambodia—building houses, her years of teaching high school English, her move out west from years in Ottawa and before that, Boston. Her many many accomplishments. But we don’t have space. Instead, we talk about her new work, a blend of poetry and book making. “It’s called First I Fold the Mountain, a poetic love letter to books: chapters on the art of the handmade book, the Borgesean concept of the ‘unwritten book’, a ‘husband and wife dosados book’, five hanging books inspired by Dada artist Kurt Schwitters, and a scroll book of tanka composed in the voice of Ono No Komachi.” So beautiful.

Like a ripple that flows out to the shore my love follows the rim of his robe morning light through the window

And how do you like your new life on the West Coast? I ask her. How do you like your new tribe of poets? “At first I missed my friends terribly,” she said. “But now? I’d never go back. I’m here, in the wind and the rain. I take walks around Thetis Lake. My bones smell of seaweed.”

clouds roll in the closed wings of a totem raven

Your astonishing hand-made books, I marvel. How do they come about? Do you first write the poem then make a “little house” for them? Or the other way around—make the house, find an inhabitant? “No, the poem always comes first,” Terry Ann says. “I think about how I want to display it, what it wishes to inhabit. I look for the right paper, the right inks, the right shapes.”

Full moon up all night with the joy of it

That’s what it’s like.

Note: All haiku and the tanka are from Terry Ann Carter’s previously published collections. terryanncarter.com. Barbara Pelman is a poet living in Victoria.