Regardless of talent or experience level, everyone can use tips to help improve their writing skills. Whether a young student, professional scribe, aspiring author, or somewhere in between, the best writers are unafraid of taking advice and consistently applying it to their work in order to make great creative strides.
Luckily, in 2022 there is no shortage of cost-free digital applications specifically designed to improve a writer's daily process while upgrading the quality of the results. From idea-generating tools and daily writing assignments to helpful visual layouts and minimized workspaces, the best free writing apps currently available offer a little something for everyone.
750 Words
As every writer knows, practice makes perfect. The more someone writes, the quicker they can become an expert. One great free app to help people get into the daily habit of writing consistently is 750 Words, an app that encourages writers to stay committed by completing 750 words a day (roughly 3 standard pages).
The app automatically tracks a writer's word count and rewards points for each completed assignment, allowing a fun way for the users to compile monthly scores. With over 555,000 free users to date, 750 Words is ideal for those who need extra motivation to stay in the creative process day in and day out.
Daily Page
Sometimes, all a writer needs is a swift kick in the pants to get the creative juices flowing. One helpful free writing app that encourages its users to consistently stay active is Daily Page, which provides prompts and specific writing assignments every day to ensure a writer stays focused and in the groove at all times.
A great tool to get writers into the habit of being comfortable with writing on a daily basis, Daily Pages also forces its users to get used to staring at a blank page, a crippling reality that often deters writers from progressing. Users can either receive daily reminders or emails that provide writing prompts or choose to free-write their own topics, with the app tracking past assignments to monitor improvement as well.
EverNote
Organization is every writer's best friend. The more orderly they can keep their thoughts, the clearer their writing will eventually become. Enter EverNote, a free app (with monthly limits and paid upgrades) designed for note taking, organizing, task management, and archiving. As such, a perfect tool for keeping a writer's scattered thoughts and important notes in one organized area.
While many use EverNote for checklists, note-taking, to-do lists, and other short-form scribblings, the 60 MB of free ram allows for more expressive long-form writing assignments that users can think of. If nothing else, EverNote is ideal for ensuring writer's meet their deadlines on time.
FocusWriter
Given the multitude of devices, gadgets, and screens that vie for everyone's attention, remaining focused in 2022 is harder than it's ever been. For writers who require deeper concentration to finish assignments and stay focused on the task at hand, FocusWriter is a free app specifically engineered to combat the problem of distractions.
FocusWriter minimizes a writer's workspace by utilizing a hide-away interface that eliminates all outside visual distractions and fully immerses a writer into the page of text and nothing else. The app comes with timers and alarms for those who want to increase writing speed, as well as spell-check, live stats, daily goals, customizable themes, and even a typewriter sound effect to really immerse a writer.
Grammarly
While Grammarly has an upgraded pay option for $29.95 per month, the basic free version is one of the most universally utilized writing apps in 2022. Compatible with Microsoft and nearly every CMS and WordPress, the extremely useful tool provide several helpful tips and editing suggestions that go far beyond a simple spell-checker.
Using color-coded underlining to highlight specific areas of text that need improvement, Grammarly will suggest ways to make sentences flow better, avoid confusing syntax, improve clarity, and collate spelling errors, the corrections for which combine to upgrade the overall grammatical accuracy of the text. While the advanced version offers even more cool features, the free version of Grammarly is easily one of the best free writing tools in 2022.
Graph Words
A writer's arsenal is their vocabulary. The more words they are comfortable using, the more dynamic their prose will inevitably become. An ideal free app to help expand a writer's vernacular is Graph Words, which visually displays synonyms and antonyms like a mind map while one types, functioning as a digital thesaurus of sorts. Writers can simply drag a cursor over any word they write and instantly access a web of related terminology.
Connected to WordNet, a massive lexical database that has a wealth of English-language words categorized by adjective, noun, verb, and adverb, Graph Words will save writers immense time by no longer having to thumb through old thesaurus texts while vastly improving their lexicon. It's even a great tool when paired with some of the best free reading apps for kids.
Hemingway
One of the biggest challenges a writer faces is expressing their ideas clearly and concisely. A helpful tool to improve clarity includes Hemingway, a free app specifically designed to make a person's writing bold and clear.
The app uses color-coding to highlight specific areas of improvement, such as adverbs and weakening phrases highlighted in blue, and passive voice highlighted in green. Red is used to highlight sentences that are too dense and confusing, and yellow is used to denote sentences that are too long and needed to be broken up. A perfect tool for writers and copywriters who want to make their text as syntactically accurate and concise as possible, Hemingway is the place to be.
Hubspot's Blog Ideas Generator
As every writer knows, consistently finding a muse to avoid writer's block is one of the keys to staying creatively productive. For writers who struggle to come up with ideas and concepts to write about, check out Hubspot's Blog Ideas Generator to help find inspiration for new content.
The free writing app asks its users to simply enter three different nouns into a search bar. Afterward, a week's worth of topics related to the nouns will be generated and displayed on the screen for the writer to explore. The great thing is the topics can be used for any type of writing, not just blog posts, making it useful for every type of writer. To avoid becoming like a movie character with writer's block, give Hubspot a try.
MilaNote
For many writers, visualization is the key to making inroads into a piece of prose. One helpful free writing app that understands this better than any is MilaNote, which allows users to organize their thoughts and concepts into visual boards. Ideal for a screenwriter or director illustrating storyboards or for general brainstorming, MilaNote has tons of options for every type of writer. As such, it's ideal for use with the best free photo collage apps like Canva as well.
Offering a macro glimpse to keep a writer's work on course at all times, MilaNote is exceptional for creative writers as it provides in-depth character templates, story outlines, fast research tips, mindmaps, and all sorts of other useful tools to help visualize and translates their ideas onto the page.
ProWriting Aid
Arguably the best of the bunch, ProWriting Aid is a free app that serves as a digital editor, writing coach, and style guide all packaged as one. Writers can upload documents and get 20 minutes of free feedback. The reports will advise writers on how to improve everything from syntactical flow, overused words, unclear transitions, vague verbiage, and the like.
After the reports are issued, writers will get an in-depth overview of their work replete with key tips for rapid improvement to make the text as clear and strong as it can be. As writers apply the advice to future assignments, pop-up blogs and vlogs will appear and provide even more helpful information on how to become a better scribe.