Everything you need to go from outline to draft
Whether you outline every beat or discover your story as you write, Kindling gives you a scaffolded writing space — scene beats as expandable prompts, character details at your fingertips, and the flexibility to add structure at your own pace.
Download Kindling — FreeOutline-Aware Drafting
Other apps make you flip between your outline and a blank page.
Scene beats appear as expandable prompts in your drafting view. Click a beat, write into it. Your outline is the scaffolding for your first draft.
References Panel
Was it green eyes or blue? What was the tavern called?
Characters and locations tagged in your scene auto-surface in a side panel. Physical descriptions, key notes, and custom fields — all visible while you write.
Rolling Outline
Not every scene needs the same level of planning.
Three planning states — Fixed, Flexible, Undefined — let you add structure progressively. Start vague, define as you go. The sidebar adapts automatically.
Beat Management
Your outline needs to evolve as you write.
Delete, reorder, split, and merge beats with drag-and-drop. A beat density indicator shows how detailed each scene is at a glance.
Discovery Notes
Inspiration doesn't wait for your outline.
Press Cmd+D to jot a note mid-scene — a subplot idea, a character insight, a thread to weave in later. Promote notes to full beats when you're ready.
Import & Export
Your outline lives in one app, your manuscript in another.
Import from Plottr, Scrivener, yWriter, Obsidian, or Markdown. Export to DOCX, Scrivener, Markdown, or EPUB.
New in v1.2
Full-Page Prose Editing
Beat-by-beat is great for structure. But sometimes you just want to write.
Toggle between beat view and a full-page prose editor per scene. Your beats stay available for reference — you get an uninterrupted writing surface without leaving your structure behind.
Reference Auto-Detection
You mentioned a character three paragraphs ago but forgot to link them.
A non-AI engine scans your prose for character, location, and item names. Suggestions surface in the References panel — link with one click, or dismiss. No cloud, no magic, just pattern matching.
Custom Fields & Tags
Plain text notes don't cut it for complex characters and worlds.
Define typed fields (text, number, date, select, multi-select) on any reference type. Organise with hierarchical tags up to three levels deep, with colours and a Tag Manager. Use saved filters to find exactly what you need.
Screenplay Projects & Templates
Novel tools don't speak the language of screenwriting.
Create Screenplay projects with slugline input (INT./EXT.), page count estimation (250 words/page), and treatment export (1-page or 5-page DOCX). Pre-built templates: Save the Cat, Hero's Journey, Three-Act, Seven-Point, Snowflake, Story Grid.
And everything else you'd expect
Press Cmd+K to fuzzy-search every action — import, export, settings, navigation.
Start from scratch with File → New Project. No import required.
Clean interface. Beats expand only when you need them. No feature overload.
SQLite on your hard drive. No cloud, no accounts, no data collection. Open source.
Sub-second launch. Fraction of the memory of Electron apps. ~10 MB download.
Cursor position, scroll state, and active scene — all restored when you reopen.
New versions download silently. A banner appears when ready — click to restart.
System preference detection or manual override. Switch from Settings → Appearance.
Ready to spark your draft?
Free, open source, MIT licensed. See how Kindling compares to Scrivener, Plottr, and other writing tools.