4TheWords ANYWHERE: New desktop extension means gamified writing motivation no matter where you write

TL;DR: The writing gamification site 4TheWords has released a new desktop app that lets you take advantage of all site features without actually having to write directly onsite. Battle monsters and complete quests while writing directly in Scrivener, Word, Obsidian, Atticus, Drabble, FinalDraft, Celtx, Notepad or even directly in any browser with the new download app. 4TW has a generous free plan so anyone can give it a try right now.

Disclaimer that I am receiving no compensation for my honest opinion and review, though some of the links herein are my referral link and, if you sign up using it, we both get onsite gifts. I do not work for the company other than occasional volunteer work such as beta testing and community moderation. I just like them!

Deep Dive into the new 4TW Desktop App

(I know our next post was supposed to be the next installment of our Author Anxiety series, but I pushed that back a week so we could talk about this breaking news!)

Regular readers know, I’m a huge fan of 4TheWords, the writing site that gamifies writing by rewarding you with monster battles, quests, streak rewards and more. Over the last 8+ years I’ve been a member*, the site went from a novelty I tried on a whim to an essential part of my writing process. Particularly after the birth of my second child, it’s no exaggeration to say the motivating gimmick of defeating monsters and progressing with quests with my words on 4TheWords was the only reason I kept the words flowing as I juggled the chaos of two kids, a global pandemic and the demands of multiple pen names.

But the limitation of 4TW has always been that you could only take advantage of the gamification features if you wrote directly on site and the on site editor was… not great. Some people got around that by only using the onsite composition window for rough drafting and then moving the writing elsewhere later for revision and formatting. Or they’d write entirely offsite and credit themselves with an equivalent amount of junk text on site later (something I had to do often because most of what I write is scripts and it’s basically impossible to write in script format on the 4TW site).

Earlier this year, they released a Chrome extension that gave users the option to write directly into web based editors like Google Docs or Ellipsus or even blogging sites or fanfic platforms like Archive of Our Own or Wattpad. (See: Use 4TheWords to count your writing anywhere on the web with the new Chrome browser extension!) This increased your options, but was still limited… particularly as Chrome is increasingly unpopular these days with all its privacy issues.

Then, just a few weeks ago they did a total overall of the on site Write mode, adding in a ton of formatting options and long requested options like sharing, co-writing and comments. If you haven’t tried it in a while, it’s worth a fresh look, since they might have addressed whatever your biggest issue was (though I’m personally not a huge fan of the new Write screen for a bunch of reasons). But, while these quality of life improvements are nice, it’s no substitute for the comfort of being able to just write directly in the program of your choice, be that old standbys like Microsoft Word and LibreOffice Writer or programs purpose built for writers like Scrivener, Drabble, Atticus, Obsidian or even screenwriting software like Celtx or FinalDraft.

Enter the new 4TheWords desktop app.

Available for Mac, Windows and Linux, it works on a system level, counting keystrokes without ever looking at your actual words, so your writing always stays private. This set-up means it’s able to count words in literally any program or website you set it to track and you can opt programs in and out of counting with a single click. Yes, this means you can finally use 4TW in browsers like Safari, Firefox, Brave and Opera. You’ve also got the option to include or exclude copy and paste or let it ask you every time.

The app has three main display options:

• a little mini bar that just shows the essential details of your current battle
• an expanded dashboard with everything you might need such as your streak info, queue, battle history, daily quests, questbook and more
• a system tray icon that shows a tiny indicator of the monster you’re currently fighting and your progress on that battle in the form of a little progress circle

Simply build your queue, hit play and start writing in your program of choice knowing every word you write counts towards progressing on quests and defeating monsters.

Review of the 4TheWords Desktop App

While the app was only released to the public today, I was a part of the beta testing group for it, so I’ve been living with it for a while now and using it for my daily writing. And, spoiler alert, I really like it. It’s been so nice to be able to just work directly in my preferred writing programs all week while playing the game without having to choose between the two. I don’t think I’ve written onsite since they released it, except a handful of times just to help them test how word count was syncing.

It was also perfect timing because I’m in the weeds of editing several big writing projects. Normally, this would mean I mostly write off site and have to try to remember to credit myself for that writing on the 4TW site later so I don’t lose my streak. But, thanks to the desktop app, I’ve been able to count that editing work in real time.

This new app makes it a lot easier to recommend 4TW to other writers, especially since they can use it with whatever program already works for them. It takes what was a niche writing motivational tool and really opens it up to the mainstream in a big way.

Of course, while this is a huge game-changer in a lot of ways, I have some quibbles and there are a lot of ways I’d like to see them improve things in the future.

(Disclaimer that this review is of an early version of this software and, as such, may refer to things that have since changed.)

What I Like

Works as advertised. Probably the very best thing you can say about this new app: It does exactly what it says it does. I do the majority of my writing in Scrivener, most of my world-building in Writality and spend all day jumping between those programs and answering emails in Gmail in Firefox. Normally, to write up a newsletter or blog post like this and take advantage of 4TW’s features, I would have had to draft it onsite, paste that draft into Brevo, MailChimp or WordPress and then spend extra time formatting it for those platforms.

Now? I’m writing this post directly into WordPress’s new post builder and formatting as I go while the app counts the writing towards my monster battle. It’s a huge time-saver.

Tracks app by app word count. This week, I’m working on a script in Scrivener between fielding emails about scheduling a writing workshop. I love that I can just jump back and forth between the two documents and the app keeps track of how many words went into each program without my having to stop and do math to remember what my word count total was before I switched tasks.

Finally, 4TW for editing! One of the limitations of 4TW has always been that there isn’t really a good way to use it for editing. One of the best things about the new desktop app is that you can loop up a monster with a long timer or even one of the more generous endurance monsters while you’re editing or even formatting and putter around with your document without having to move that text on site or do math after the fact to figure out how to credit yourself for what might have been hours of work for a net word count loss.

Of course, it’s not perfect, especially since even the most generous endurance monsters still require you to type at least something every few minutes, but it’s a far better option than what we had before.

Limited need to visit the website at all. Because you can add monsters to your queue, use potions, and hand in quests right from the app, there’s a lot you can do right from your desktop without having to visit the website at all. That said, this has limitations so I’ve ended up having to visit the website multiple times a day just to compensate for the limitations of the app.

What Needs Work

Mini player is too small, expanded player too distracting. I have ADHD and it really does not take much to pull my focus. The main version of the app is much too busy and I really can’t concentrate at all with it open because it takes up too much room on my screen. So I mostly use the app on Mini Bar mode.

Problem is, the Mini Bar is a little too small. As you can see in my screenshot above, the monster is sooo teeny tiny, I can barely make out what I’m fighting. Without the area art behind them, a lot of them become all but invisible against the background color of the app.

In addition to the fact that this kinda defeats the purpose of the gamification– it doesn’t feel like I’m battling a monster if I can’t even see the dang thing!– it’s way too easy to completely forget you have a battle going at all or get distracted. I’ve had to move the Mini Bar directly above the paragraph I’m currently on just to force myself to remember I have monster going on.

Considering the main thing I need 4TW for is that motivating push of the monster timer to keep me writing, I really wish that either the mini bar had an option where the monster image was larger or that there was an option between the Mini and Main bar that let you see the monster clearly without all the other distractions that the main bar offers.

Considering the new write screen also downplayed the monster battle and shrunk the art tiny, I’m a little concerned this might be part of a trend to downplay the gamification elements, which feels silly as that’s the entire point of using the site!

No option to dock the app out of the way. The app hovers above whatever program you’re using. While I can see why people might like to have this as an option, I’d really like to be able to dock it at the top or side of my screen so it’s out of the way. As it is, even with the mini bar, I end up having to move it constantly because it’s always covering something I need.

Ideally, I’d love it to work like the Windows Voice Typing bar where it docks against the top of the screen no matter what program I’m using since maybe then they’d have more room and actually be able to show the monster artwork.

Queue management is limited, frustrating and wonky in app. The app is supposed to let you do all the day-to-day functionality of using 4TW without having to actually visit the site. In practice, the queue management is fiddly. Loop doesn’t always sync between site and app, adding monsters is kind of a pain, you can’t duplicate frozen monsters and you can’t fill the queue with a monster.

As a result, if I’m doing anything more complicated than just fighting one single monster on continuous loop, I end up having to stop and open the site constantly to set up my queue there because it’s just way easier than dealing with it in the app.

No way to collect quests from within the app. The app shows your top three quests and you can hand quests in from within the pop-up window, which is nice. But there’s no way to grab new quests, not even your favorites, so you end up having to go back to the site everyday anyway to collect quests so you have stuff to work on.

Daily breakdown is limited to the last 24 hours. This is a huge limitation I’m really hoping they’ll fix soon. I mentioned above that one of the best features of the app is the way it breaks down your writing app by app. The problem is that these stats expire at midnight when those totals are folded into the total for the week.

So, to use the example above, let’s say I’m doing that script-writing in Scrivener and jumping back and forth between that and writing emails. If I don’t notice the clock ticking past midnight or get called away from my computer and don’t get a chance to return until the next day, there is no easy way for me to note down how much I wrote in Scrivener because now that word count has been absorbed into the word count for the week. At best, it’s a complicated math equation, at worse, it’s impossible to find out if I didn’t write down the total from the day before.

Especially since programs like Writality and Scrivener don’t register individual document names in this app. So if I worked on two different projects in Scrivener this week, those both show as part of the same total once we tick past midnight.

I understand if there’s a reason why they don’t want to save day by day lifetime breakdowns, but they really need to give us access to that data at least a week after the fact or it’s a nightmare to try to keep track of your writing progress unless you remember to write down your total without fail every night.

That said…

Overall, though, I still see this new desktop app as a huge step forward and something that will absolutely be useful to me in the future, especially since I really don’t like the way they shrunk the on site Write mode from what we had before. It’s increased the functionality of the site and made it more accessible to a wider pool of writers. Coupled with the free plan, it’s super easy for anyone to try it to out without having to change their normal writing routine and see if they like it without much of a commitment.

I also have faith they’ll keep improving things as we go, particularly as I think their focus on was mostly on getting this released and functional before November so they can work on making it pretty later.

And the release timing is perfect, since their biggest event of the year, Write Fest, starts soon. This limited time event runs from the end of October through the beginning of December with plenty of exclusive new quests, monsters and fun for everyone looking to take on one of the big November writing challenges.

(My daughter and I were joking the new theme looks like the love child of The Amazing Digital Circus, Winnie the Pooh, and Super Mario)

If you use my referral code, you’ll get the option to friend me after sign up so, if you decide to try it out, please drop me a message and I’d be happy to send you a welcome gift of onsite loot!

Read more about the new extension at its official page here.

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The next few weeks are super busy for me while I juggle setting up my 2027 teaching schedule with all the usual autumn authorial events so I wish you all a happy writing season as we rocket into the new year!

* = I actually first joined in December 2014 when 4TW advertised a free trial as part of NaNoWriMo and was not impressed. Fortunately, they’d completely overhauled the site by the time I decided to try them again in June 2018 and have continued to improve the site since then. Now it’s the rare company I feel good supporting with my dollars.