The workbench with all your projects.

Writingway 2: What’s different?

So if you’ve been following my AI writing stuff, you know I’ve been making tools for writers. The first Writingway worked great, but getting it set up was a pain in the ass if you weren’t super tech-savvy. That’s why I’m stoked to finally show you Writingway 2: It’s basically a complete makeover that’s easy to get running and easy to use. No more fiddling with Python, virtual environments, or complicated installations. Just download it, unzip the folder, and you’re done. Everything runs right in your browser on your own computer, your data is saved locally, and you don’t need the internet (if you run a local LLM). If you can open a folder and click something, you can use it. Under the hood, I rebuilt it with web stuff (JavaScript and HTML instead of Python) so it’s lighter and way more portable. It’s just cleaner and faster. You open it like a regular webpage, but it’s completely offline and private. You get all the good stuff from the original version (plus some new tricks), just without all the headache.

For coders: I basically rebuilt Writingway (and added some features) in Java/HTML, because some of the dependencies were frustrating to deal with. Some forced you to run an older version of Python, some just bugged out, code decay was a real issue. There’s still someone maintaining that version, though, so it’s by no means dead. I just added a new version for writers who don’t want to learn coding just to run a writing tool.

Basically, it’s Writingway without the tech frustration. Finally.

Features to Help You Write Better

Writingway 2 is a complete writing application, with helpful tools that make writing way easier and a lot more enjoyable. Here’s what you get:

AI That’s Always Ready to Help: Writingway 2 has AI tools built in that can finish what you’re working on, rewrite sections that aren’t there yet, change up your writing style, fix pacing issues, or help you brainstorm when you’re totally blocked. Imagine something like Scrivener with AI-integration, and you have Writingway.

Here’s the editor. Navigation to the left, beat generation at the bottom.

Scene-Based Story Organizer: You split your story into chapters and scenes, and shuffle them around whenever you need to. It’s super helpful for seeing how your entire story fits together and tweaking things as your plot develops. Each scene gets its own space, so everything stays organized and easy to find. And don’t worry about losing work; the autosave function is always running in the background, so you’ll never have that nightmare moment of realizing you forgot to save.

Worldbuilding Compendium: Your Story Bible

Writingway 2 comes with a built-in Compendium, basically a searchable story bible where you can dump all your story stuff. Characters, locations, magic systems, random lore bits–throw it all in there and you can pull it up whenever you need it. You can add pictures and attach tags to every entry, and you can make them “always in context”, if it’s something the AI has to know with every prompt (like, for example, your style guide). The AI actually uses your compendium to keep things consistent, so if you wrote the bartender has green eyes in Chapter 5, it won’t accidentally give them blue eyes later. It pulls from your notes automatically (if you put them in context, more on this later), which means you’re not constantly digging through separate files trying to remember what you already decided. Basically, it’s like having all your scattered story notes in one organized place instead of searching through a pile of sticky notes and random documents.

The compendium text will appear in the prompt if called. Pictures and tags are for your own convenience.

Workshop Chat Mode

If you want to bounce ideas off an AI like you’re talking to a writer friend, that’s basically Workshop Chat. It’s a casual back-and-forth where you can throw out ideas and see what sticks, or “chat with your story”. Does your plot twist work? Want to dig into a character’s past, or chat with them to find out what they’re thinking? Just open up Workshop Chat and start talking. You could literally say, “If you think back on this situation, what could you have done differently?” and the AI will riff on it with you. Think ChatGPT or Claude, only that the AI always has all details, so you don’t have to write long explanations every time. Just mention @Bob or #Scene 3, and Writingway pulls the corresponding entries and sends them with the prompt.

This is the chat. Use it with whichever model and any prompt, and feed it with whatever context it will need.

Smart Prompt Builder (Scene Beats)

The Scene Beats prompt builder is honestly one of the best things about getting help from the AI. Instead of you having to manually feed it a ton of context every single time, this tool grabs everything it needs (your scene summary, whose perspective we’re in, whether it’s past or present tense, and all your character and location details) and bundles it together into one prompt. So when you ask the AI to keep writing a scene or write out some dialogue, it’s already got the full picture. It knows what’s actually happening in your story. That means the AI stays on track and keeps your voice consistent instead of randomly going off in weird directions. You’re cleaning up less garbage and spending more time writing your story.

Define what the AI needs to know to write out your next beat(s)

Rewrite and Feedback Tools

Sometimes even experienced writers struggle with putting complex ideas down in a clear and easy-to-understand way. If this happens to you, select the awkward bit and the AI will suggest a better way to say it. Writingway 2 gives you a couple of options to rephrase or tweak your sentences, like a friendly editor sitting next to you, offering ideas. You can direct the AI how to rephrase by writing dedicated prompts, so you’re flexible with the tone. And there’s zero risk. Your original text stays safe until you decide to use a suggestion (and you can reroll suggestions as often as you want). It’s a quick way to experiment with different versions with no pressure.

Claude being a bit of a smart ass here 😉

Bring Your Old Stories With You

Already using the original Writingway? Don’t worry about losing your old stuff. Writingway 2 can import everything from version 1. Just a couple of clicks, and all your old projects are loaded up and ready to go. That includes your world-building notes, scene text, everything.

These are just some highlights of Writingway 2. Everything’s built to make writing feel less like a chore and more like actually enjoying yourself, for writers like me who prefer to direct a story rather than typing out the first draft by hand. The whole thing looks clean and keeps distractions out of your way, so you can either hunker down in full-screen mode or jump around between different parts of your story whenever you need to.

The main menu with backups, imports etc

Use Whatever AI Model Works for You

Writingway 2 doesn’t lock you into one AI. The app comes with llama.cpp built in, so you can run all kinds of language models straight on your computer. Want to test drive the newest open-source model, like Mistral or the latest Qwen? Just drop any HuggingFace model into the /models folder and Writingway 2 will pick it up automatically. This means you’re not stuck with whatever someone else thinks is best. Of course, you can still use something like Ollama or LMStudio to run models. Dropping a local LLM into /models is just a quick way for writers who aren’t interested in getting used to all the tools and interfaces out there. Drop in an AI and go.

If you want to use OpenAI’s GPT or another cloud service instead, no problem. You can plug in OpenAI, Anthropic, or basically any model through OpenRouter. Or go fully offline. Or mix and match different models depending on what you’re doing. The app doesn’t care; it works with whatever you pick. You’re not locked into paying for a subscription if you don’t want to be. Second, you can test out different models to see which one actually works best for *your* writing. Maybe a smaller model is fine for brainstorming, but you want something beefier for writing tricky dialogue. And if you run everything locally on your own computer, even your prompts stay on your computer. You’re not uploading anything anywhere, and you don’t have to worry about hitting some usage limit.

Quick bonus: If you’re using local models, there’s no per-word or per-request billing. A lot of AI writing tools (looking at you, NovelCrafter and Sudowrite) used to be subscription *plus* pay-per-use, so you’d pay monthly and then get dinged again every time you used the AI. Writingway itself is totally free (FOSS with MIT license), and local models don’t cost you by the word.

Configure your API or local models.

Made for Every Type of Creative Writer

I designed Writingway 2 with all kinds of writers in mind. Whatever you’re crafting, this tool can adapt to your workflow. Here are a few ways different writers might use it:

Fiction Authors & Novelists: Organize your story without losing your mind. Use the project organizer to map out your chapters and scenes, then move them around whenever you need to shuffle things. The compendium is basically your complete story/series bible: jot down character bios, world-building details, and all those small things that are easy to forget (physical, behavioral characteristics; the atmosphere of a place; the material of a plot item, or who used it when). Use the AI chat and brainstorm your next twist or work through why a character does something. Think of it as having a writing buddy who’s always awake and never tires of you or your ideas. If you write long-form stuff, you’ll like the Scene Beats feature. It keeps the AI on the same page as your earlier chapters, so suggestions make sense instead of contradicting what you already wrote. It also keeps it manageable for the AI by not overwhelming it with too large a scope. Build your story one action sequence at a time.

Organizing made easy.

Poets & Lyricists: If you write poetry, this is a good place to hang out. You can throw a rough line at the AI and ask it to suggest different ways to say it or throw out some metaphor ideas, just to get your brain spinning. The rewrite tool is great for testing out different rhythms and flows in your lines. And even the compendium can be useful, if in different ways than for novelists. Toss in themes, images, or random bits of inspiration you want to come back to later. The AI won’t write your poem for you (that’d be boring anyway), but it’s definitely there to help when you’re stuck hunting for exactly the right word or a new way to look at something emotional.

Sometimes you just want 1 or 2 things in your context – @mention them.

Screenwriters & Playwrights: Writingway 2 is basically like having a writing room simulator. You can build out your cast of characters with full profiles (their goals, personality quirks, backstories, the whole deal) and reference them while you’re writing to keep everyone consistent throughout your script. If you’re not sure how a scene’s dialogue should go, you can act it out in the chat. Just describe the scenario to the AI (or use the @mention functionality to reference Compendium entries) and let it throw dialogue back and forth with you. It’s a solid way to brainstorm snappy conversations or see how your characters might react when you throw them into different situations. The scene-by-scene setup really helps too. You can work through each scene individually and shuffle them around whenever you decide to restructure your script. And if you need to tighten up a line or make something funnier or more intense, the AI can spit out suggestions right then and there. Basically, it speeds up the whole rewriting process. The AI can generate ten different versions of a clever line, and you pick the one that lands best (or use it as a jumping-off point for something even better).

A history of your prompts enables you to quickly reuse them when necessary, or to just look up what you prompted to get what you have now.

Think of Writingway 2 as your writing partner. It’s there to help however you work best, but you’re still the one calling the shots. It just gives you some handy tools and the occasional helpful suggestion when you need them. The app runs right on your computer, so you can write anywhere. No servers to crash, no connectivity headaches. It’s basically your own private writing space.

Writingway 2 makes AI-powered writing simple and accessible. No steep learning curve, no complicated setup. I built this because not all of us work the same way. Some writers enjoy the act of creating rough first drafts, then refining it iteratively. I’m not that type of storyteller. When I have a story in my head, I want to put it on paper immediately, so it’s out of my system, then edit it into shape, and AI is great at doing this. No self-respecting author leaves a draft as-is, anyway, so who cares what the first version looked like?

There’s also explanatory tooltips everywhere.

If you’ve been interested in using AI to help with your writing but were scared off by how complicated or expensive it seemed, now’s your shot. It’s genuinely easy to use.

So download it, open it up, and start writing. Let’s see what you come up with.

**PS: **

OMG, I totally forgot to tell you where to get it! You can download it here. Extract the zip anywhere and run it with start.bat or main.html. Note that start.bat uses localhost and main.html uses file://, so they’re different datasets. Pick one and run with it.

This is how to download it. No setups needed.