“A Novel Idea” App Review

“A Novel Idea” is an easy-to-use app that allows you to write down ideas for the novel no matter where you are. The theory behind the app is that ideas will come to writers at any time–whether they are in the car, at the movies, at work, or somewhere else, and it’s not always possible to get to a pen and paper. Instead of struggling to organize your thoughts into the notes section of your iPhone, or, even worse, in your head, this app allows you to categorize your ideas into neat and easy sections, enabling you to write them down–and keep track of them–wherever you are. As our culture becomes increasingly digitalized, writers will need to take advantage of apps like A Novel Idea to keep up with the future pace and increasingly dynamic nature of writing.

A Novel Idea is divided into five sections–Novels, Scenes, Characters, Locations, and Ideas.

These sections then further divide into subcategories in which you can go into detail describing the different aspects of your story. For example, clicking the “+” button on the characters’ tab to add a new character opens up a page in which you are given many descriptive choices–including gender, height, age, build, external/internal conflicts, and more–each of which you can open and add a description of your character.

Furthermore, you are able to link these different topics together, tying your ideas together into an actual storyline.

Overall, “A Novel Idea” is a convenient and easy-to-use app. It’s a great on-the-go or even off-the-go tool for organizing thoughts and ideas into coherent categories. On par with Bolter’s discussion of the remediation of writing, the app builds on old ways of writing, restructuring and remediating them into better and easier to use formats.

Perhaps the one feature it is the ability to attach pictures as a visual for myself–for example, if I saw a beautiful old house that sparked an idea for a setting, I would have no way to add this to the app. Additionally, I wish there were the ability to add categories: though the app offers a myriad of categories itself (such as those listed above as an example of character descriptors), it would be great to be able to add your own categories.

All in all, I would highly recommend “A Novel Idea” to any aspiring writers as a fantastic way to develop the basics of a story. As DeVoss and Porter point out, “people do not make new works out of nothing,” and A Novel Idea allows writers to act on inspiration at any time. Any inconvenience I found with the app, such as those listed above, were minor enough that they did not detract from the quality of the app itself.