Super Snappy Speed Reviews – Writing Apps for Android

Originally published 13/05/2018

It occurred to me this week that we’ve had a lot of Super Snappy Speed Reviews here on Penstricken over the years. We’ve reviewed books [2] [3], TV shows, films, computer games and even the Star Trek movies. But we’ve never had speed reviews for writers’ apps. And so today I am proud to present Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Writing Apps for Android.

As ever, the apps I have reviewed here are not necessarily apps that I particularly liked or disliked, but are simply a random selection of writers’ apps that I have tried out at one point or another. As usual, these reviews only reflect my own personal opinions and impressions, squished, squashed and squeezed into a few short sentences. So without further ado…

JotterPad by Two App Studio Pte. Ltd.

I love Jotterpad. The writing environment is uncluttered yet with plenty of the features you want from a mobile text editor. It’s also a breeze to adjust the page layout to suit the kind of writing you do. The only real problem with it is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to adjust the layout of specific documents (so for example, if you write screenplays and poetry, you have to simply accept the fact that all of your poems are going to look like screenplays).

Also if you take my advice, you’ll stick to the free version. The Creative add-ons are alright, but hardly worth the money.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Writeometer by Guavabot

Writeometer is a surprisingly useful tool to help you to track your progress day by day. You can add multiple projects and assign each one a specific word or character goal which you hope to achieve in total and per day. The app will also calculate how long it will take you to achieve this goal and suggest a finish date (though you can choose your own date). Additional features include a writing timer, a daily log, customisable “rewards” for a good writing session, an integrated dictionary/thesaurus (also something about salad that I don’t understand). I didn’t think I’d like this app but I like it a lot.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Story Dice by Thinkamingo

If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know I find Thinkamingo’s Story Dice an invaluable source of stimuli whenever I come to write six word stories [2] [3] [4] [5] but it works just as well for long stories, too. There are squillions of different images which appear on the dice and you can have anywhere between 1 and 10 dice on the screen at a time. My only criticism is that there is no way to save the image that appears. The moment you hide the app, tap the screen or do anything, BOOM! It rolls the dice again and the previous roll is lost forever.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Lore Forge Creator Resources by Total Danarchy

There are lots of idea generators out there. What sets Lore Forge apart is the kinds of ideas it generates. It’s the only idea generator I’ve ever come across, for instance, which generates character motives and conflicts (complete with a detailed explanation of each motive/conflict). For me, these are easily its best feature, but it also includes some more traditional generators (character names, city names, plots, etc) and an inspiring quote generator.

My rating: 🌟🌟

Story Plot Generator Pro (a.k.a Plot Gen Pro) by ARC Apps

A lot of plot generators often produce ideas so bizarre that they’re completely useless (e.g.: ‘a pole dancer and an Eskimo must travel back in time to stop the moon being eaten by sharks. Someone loses a credit card. It’s a story about marital fidelity’).

Not so with Plot Gen Pro! This app allows you to choose from a variety of genres and then throws up several random elements of a plot (characters, settings, etc), suitable to that genre. If you don’t like any of the elements it generates, you can ask it to produce another, without removing the ones you do like. The resulting ‘plot’ can then be e-mailed back to yourself so you don’t lose it.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟