Storyist Review: A Powerful Writing App for Novelists and Screenwriters

If you‘re a novelist or screenwriter looking for a dedicated app to help you take your story from concept to completion, Storyist is definitely worth considering. This full-featured writing environment for Mac and iOS aims to provide all the tools you need to brainstorm ideas, create structure, write and revise your manuscript, and ultimately share your work with the world.

While it has many of the same capabilities as its top competitors Scrivener and Final Draft, Storyist differentiates itself with a more modern interface, extensive support for screenwriting, and some unique features like story sheets and a powerful outliner. Let‘s take an in-depth look at what Storyist offers and how it stacks up for long-form fiction writing.

Writing and Formatting Tools

At its core, Storyist is a word processor optimized for creative writing. It offers all the standard text editing and formatting options you‘d expect, with a streamlined interface that aims to keep you focused on your words. Some key features include:

• A variety of book and screenplay templates to help you get started with proper formatting
• Customizable full-screen mode for distraction-free writing
• Style sheets and keyboard shortcuts for quickly applying common formatting
• Writing goals and statistics to help you stay on track
• Easy scene navigation using the sidebar or a "typewriter scrolling" mode

I found the writing interface intuitive and uncluttered, though not quite as minimalist as Ulysses‘ plain text editor. Storyist uses rich text rather than Markdown, which some writers may prefer. And it offers more powerful formatting tools out of the box compared to Scrivener.

One unique Storyist feature is "snippets", which are essentially text macros that allow you to insert common bits of formatting or phrasing with just a couple keystrokes. For example, you could set up a shortcut to automatically add character dialogue with the proper quote marks and line spacing. It‘s a small but thoughtful addition that can save time and keep you in your creative flow.

Organizing Your Manuscript

Writing a novel or screenplay involves a lot more than just typing words into a text editor. You need tools for collecting ideas, creating an outline, structuring your work into scenes and chapters, and revising your manuscript. This is where Storyist really shines compared to more basic writing apps.

The left sidebar allows you to view your project as a simple list of text files, an indented outline, or a corkboard with color-coded index cards. These different views make it easy to structure your work hierarchically, keep track of multiple plot lines, and rearrange scenes to optimize your story‘s flow and pacing.

I was especially impressed with Storyist‘s outliner, which goes beyond Scrivener‘s in some key ways. You can choose which metadata fields to show as columns, drag and drop to restructure your outline, and view a color-coded "storyline" that shows how different narrative threads weave through your scenes. It‘s a powerful tool for understanding the shape of your story.

Collecting Ideas and Research

Another key part of the long-form writing process is collecting and organizing background material. Storyist includes some handy tools for this as well:

• Story sheets for keeping track of characters, settings, and plot points
• A project-wide search function for finding any text across your manuscript and notes
• Comments and bookmarks for leaving yourself revision notes
• The ability to split the editor to view two documents side-by-side

While not as full-featured as Scrivener‘s reference system, I found Storyist‘s approach to work well for my needs. I particularly liked being able to attach images to story elements to help with visualization and consistency.

Output and Publishing

When it comes time to share your finished work, Storyist offers a variety of export formats. You can output a standard word processing file (DOCX or RTF), a general-purpose EPUB ebook, or a platform-specific format like Kindle or Final Draft. There are also tools for creating production-ready PDFs for print.

I was able to quickly generate properly formatted files for my agent and beta readers. And when I wanted more control over the final ebook and print formatting, Storyist had the customization options I needed — though not with quite the same flexibility as Scrivener‘s powerful compile feature.

The Bottom Line

Storyist is an impressive app with a lot to offer for long-form fiction writers. Its well-designed interface, flexible structure, and wealth of features make it a compelling alternative to Scrivener for many novelists. And its extensive tools for screenwriting, including support for the Final Draft and Fountain formats, arguably make it the best choice for that use case.

The main downsides are the relatively high price ($59 for Mac, $14.99 for iOS), the lack of a Windows version (though you can use the iOS app on Windows via emulation), and a steeper learning curve compared to simpler writing apps. Scrivener also offers a bit more flexibility and power in some areas, like its Compile system and customizable project templates.

But Storyist‘s thoughtful design, robust feature set, and active development make it well worth considering for any serious fiction writer. It strikes a great balance between flexibility and ease of use, with some unique touches (like the storyline view and snippet system) that make it a real pleasure to use. If you‘re looking for an all-in-one writing environment to help you tell your story, be sure to give Storyist a try.