Free tools for writers

What these are for

Each tool answers one question. Most are the kind you would otherwise settle on the back of an envelope, or by reading three forum threads that disagree with each other and then picking the number you liked best.

They are free, and none asks you to sign up. When you want the whole book in one place, typeset as a book while you write, that is what Tabularia is for.

Plan

Before the first chapter: how long the book should run, where its turns fall, and how fast it has to be written.

• Story Structure Calculator — Where each beat of a structure falls in a book of your length.
• Novel Length Checker — Whether your word count fits what publishers expect in your genre.
• Writing Pace Calculator — Words a day to finish by a deadline, or the day a steady pace finishes.

Draft

Figures to check while the pages pile up.

• Reading Time Estimator — How long a chapter or a whole book takes to read, silently or aloud.
• Thesaurus for Writers — Synonyms grouped by meaning, most common first, with register labels, related idioms, and when each word entered English.

Revise

For the second pass, when the question is what to cut.

• Chapter Length Analyzer — Every chapter's word count from your manuscript, set beside the chapters of classic novels.
• Filter Word Finder — Marks the saw, felt, and noticed that hold a reader back from the scene.

Publish

Getting a finished book into the shape a printer, a store, or an agent expects.

• Manuscript Formatter — Sets your text in standard manuscript format for agents and editors.
• Words to Pages Calculator — How many printed pages your word count makes at a given trim, font, and size.
• EPUB Checker — Finds the errors that make a store reject your ebook file.

Ideas

For the days the page stays blank.

• Character Name Generator — Real names by birth decade and country, with how common each one was, or invented fantasy names.
• Writing Prompts — Five new prompts every week, with an archive by week and by genre.