I released the first alpha of Garret on September 30, and usegarret.com is live too. It’s a free, open-source writing studio for novelists. You can keep your manuscript, character notes, research, and revisions in the same app, work offline, and save your books on your own disk.
There’s quite a bit in this first release, but it’s still an alpha. If you’re going to try it with your writing, please keep a backup. I’d like to hear what works for you and what gets in the way.
What’s in it
The editor works with parts, chapters, and scenes. You can search across the book, compare earlier versions of a scene, or switch to an outline or cards to look at the structure. There are light and dark themes, and the interface is available in English and German.
Character profiles, a story bible, scene summaries, and research files stay alongside the manuscript. The timeline lets you follow events across character and story tracks.
If you’re working with an editor, you can send a DOCX review document and import the returned proposals. Garret keeps track of who proposed each change, and you can accept or reject it beside the text. Comments, revision passes, and tasks are there for the next round of work.
You can export Markdown, DOCX, or EPUB, with tools for book design, covers, front and back matter, and pen names. Linux also has a layout preview and PDF proof export.
I’m also really proud of the wordmark, so I’ve included it here alongside the screenshots. The screenshots use a Pride and Prejudice excerpt in the Linux app. The story notes and review proposals are sample material. These sample books aren’t bundled with the downloads.
Trying the alpha
The 0.0.1 release has packages for Linux and Windows x86_64, macOS on Apple Silicon and Intel, and an Android APK. Extract the whole desktop package and follow its README. Checksums are included.
Android has a smaller library and scene editor, with fewer features than desktop. Books don’t sync automatically. The Mac builds also need feedback from people testing them on actual Macs.
You don’t need an account, and there are no subscriptions or paid feature unlocks. The source is on GitHub, under GPL-3.0-or-later.
Please read the backup guide before putting your own writing into the app. Scene history and local recovery copies won’t help if you lose the device. You can make encrypted archives manually, keep the recovery key separately, and verify the saved archive. Working books should stay outside cloud-synced folders.
If you write, give it a look at usegarret.com. I’d appreciate feedback on the writing and review tools, including the bits that feel awkward. For bugs, please open a GitHub issue with your platform and the steps that caused the problem.