$0
- Full app, 30-day trial
- Every feature — editor, sync, AI, export
- No credit card to start
Novelty Writer · macOS · coming to Windows + Linux
The novelist's IDE.
A writing app that keeps your manuscript as plain markdown files, treats AI as a collaborator rather than a chat sidebar, and sits beside Claude Code in your terminal.
Works offline · Your manuscript lives on your disk ·
Claude-native
Plan · The Bangle
Opening image
Sarah at the window. Phone rings.
Inciting incident
The man with yellow flowers.
Debate
She answers the call.
Break into two
B story
Fun & games
reference · Aveline Marr
Name Aveline Marr
Appearance Tall, dark hair, a scar across the left brow.
Wants To be left alone.
Wound She was alone, once, and preferred it.
manuscript · Chapter One
Chapter 1 · Scene 1
The beginning arrived the way most beginnings do — quietly, without announcement, slipping through the door before anyone thought to lock it. Sarah stood at the window and watched the street below, where ordinary people moved through their ordinary lives, unaware that something had shifted.
She could feel it in the air, a charge like the moment before lightning finds the ground.
What you actually get
Built for the way writers want to own their work.
Four load-bearing commitments. Everything else falls out of them.
Filesystem as truth
Your manuscript is a folder of markdown.
Open it in Finder. Edit it in Claude Code. Back it up to GitHub. Grep it. Diff it. Survive the app. A Scrivener project locks you into RTFs inside a bundle; a Novelty project is files you can hand to anyone.
Finder · MyNovel
▾ manuscript
01-prologue.md
02-chapter-one.md
03-chapter-two.md
▾ reference
characters/aveline-marr.md
locations/rathford.md
AI as editor, not chatbot
Inline rewrites and critique margins.
Select a paragraph, ask for a tighter pass. A critique becomes a margin card you accept, revise, or dismiss. Continuity checks walk your manuscript and flag contradictions against your character files. No sidebar chat. No 'try this prompt.' Just edits you approve.
Chapter One · critique
She walked through the door and looked around the room, taking in everything she saw with her eyes, and the feeling of being watched crept up her spine very slowly.
The sentence runs long. Two ideas share one breath.
Version history without git in your face
Every 30 seconds, a commit.
A hidden git repo commits autosaves, AI rewrites, and imports. Review mode shows a timeline with diffs that read like a proofreader's marks — red for cut, green for added. No branches. No merge conflicts. No command line. Snapshots when you want to mark something.
Review · Chapter Three
14:02 autosave — 124 words added +124
13:47 autosave — revised opening +42 −38
13:18 snapshot: first draft of three snapshot
11:02 autosave — new scene +318
Compile for every destination
Ship to the format your agent asked for.
DOCX with Shunn manuscript formatting. EPUB for beta readers. PDF for print-layout previews. Markdown bundle for the archive. Or hand over the folder as-is — every markdown tool understands it.
Compile · The Bangle
DOCXShunn manuscript, submission-ready
EPUBFor readers + beta tools
PDFTrade paperback layout
MarkdownBundle with assets
How it compares
Different defaults.
Most writing apps hide your manuscript behind a proprietary container. Novelty assumes you want to own your files, collaborate with AI, and open the project in Claude Code when you feel like it.
| Scrivener | Google Docs | iA Writer | Novelty | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your manuscript is | An .scriv bundle of RTFs | A Google cloud doc | Plain .md files | Plain .md files |
| AI editor | No | Gemini sidebar | No | Claude, inline |
| Version history | Manual snapshots | Built-in | None | Hidden git, auto |
| Works offline | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Claude Code native | No | No | No | Yes |
| Sync | Dropbox (fragile) | Google only | iCloud / Dropbox | GitHub |
Comparison written by someone with opinions. Other apps are good at what they do — Scrivener in particular is what we recommend if you prefer a closed system.
Pricing Free trial Perpetual license
One license, yours forever.
Pay once. Works on every device you own. No subscription. No phone-home. AI features use your own API keys so you pay cents per draft, not a monthly tax.
$49 one-time
- Yours forever — no subscription
- Unlimited devices (one human)
- One year of version updates included
- Bring your own API keys
Students, unpublished writers, and anyone who can't swing $49 right now: email [email protected].
Write like your editor reads.
Download the free trial. Drop your existing manuscript in. See what it feels like to write somewhere your manuscript can leave.