Light and Fast
Stela opens in a blink, stays out of your way, and never bogs down your laptop, even with a whole novel open.
A Desktop Studio for Writers
A Simple Place for Serious Writing
Stela is a calm, distraction-free desktop app for novels, screenplays, essays, and articles. Your drafts live on your own computer, an editorial assistant is there when you ask for it, and you can export a finished manuscript in whatever format your editor wants.
Light, fast desktop app Your files stay on your computer Editorial help on any sentence Export to PDF and web Daily word-count goals
Take a Look Inside
The Writing Studio in Action
A calm page first, with help close at hand when you want it. Click through the preview to try the sidebars, the editorial assistant, manuscript export, and session goals.
Project
The Cartographer's Solitude
Chapter 1: The Hollow Coast
Chapter 2: The Sinking Bell
Chapter 3: Meridian Zero
Notes & World Lore
The salt mist crept through the harbor alleys like a persistent ghost, clinging to the weathered oak of the fishmongers' carts. In the cartographer's workshop high above the slipway, copper compasses gleamed under pale lamplight.
Julian dipped his quill into the dark sepia ink. Every contour of the jagged cape had been charted three times over, yet every morning the tide erased the boundary stones. To map a coast that refused to stay still was the quiet madness of his trade.
Outline
Sections
1. The Cartographer's Workshop
2. The Shifting Boundary Stones
3. An Unexpected Signal Flare
Writing Mode
Novel Draft (Serif)
Both sidebars tuck away whenever you want nothing but the page.
Made for Writers
Six Ways Stela Protects Your Writing Time
Every part of Stela exists to protect your focus, sharpen your prose, and keep your work entirely your own.
An Editor on Call
Highlight any sentence and ask for a tighter rhythm, a different line of dialogue, or more sensory detail. Take the suggestion, tweak it, or ignore it.
Export Like a Professional
Turn your draft into a book-formatted PDF, a clean web page, plain text, or Markdown. Whatever your editor, agent, or printer asks for.
Goals That Keep You Going
Set a word count for the session and watch a quiet goal pill fill as you write. Reading-time and grade-level estimates tell you how the piece will land.
Your Manuscripts, on Your Computer
Stela keeps your drafts as ordinary files on your own machine, searchable in an instant, with no account and no internet required.
Never Lose a Sentence
Stela saves as you type and keeps earlier versions of every chapter, so a crash, a power cut, or a closed window never costs you a paragraph.
For Every Kind of Writer
Structured for the Shape of Your Work
Every form has its own rhythm. Stela adapts to fiction, screenwriting, essays, and newsletters without asking you to change how you work.
Long-Form
Novels & Fiction
A calm page for multi-chapter books, with room for character notes and world-building beside the draft.
- Jump between chapters from the project sidebar
- Focus Mode hides everything but the page
- Reading time and readability grade for every chapter
Scene Pacing
Screenplays & Drama
A page tuned for scene momentum, dialogue rhythm, and how long a scene runs out loud.
- Running time when read silently and when spoken
- Keyboard shortcuts for everything, so you never leave the page
- Ask the assistant to tighten a beat or sharpen a line of dialogue
Argument & Research
Essays & Thought Pieces
For long-form non-fiction, with your outline and notes beside the draft while you revise.
- An outline panel keeps your argument in view
- Export to Markdown for editors and publishing tools
- Swap in a sharper sentence with one click
On Deadline
Newsletters & Articles
Draft fast, hit your word count, and send a clean piece on time.
- Session goals from 250 to 2,000 words
- Export a polished web page, ready to publish
- Word, character, and sentence counts at a glance
Entirely Optional
Bring Your Own Second Opinion.
Many writers already have an assistant they think out loud with. Stela doesn't ask you to trade it for ours, and it doesn't ask you to use one at all. If you want, connect the one you already trust, hand it only the folders you choose, and let it read a chapter, suggest a tighter scene, or rough out a brief while you decide what stays.
- Off until you switch it on in Settings → AI Agents. Name the connection, pick the workspaces, choose read-only or read-and-write, and revoke it whenever you like
- Every agent edit starts with a save point. Compare it, restore it, or undo the edit in History, and pause writes at any moment
- You can watch it work. A labelled pointer shows what is being touched, and it never moves your mouse or types for you
- Works with Claude, Cursor, or any agent that speaks MCP. No Stela account and no Stela API key required
It is still your draft. The agent is a guest.
Private & Safe
Your Words Stay Yours.
Good writing needs a safe place to be bad first. Your drafts live on your own computer, never on our servers, and nothing you write is used to train AI.
- Ordinary files on your own computer, which you can open, move, or back up however you like
- Opens instantly and runs light, even on an older laptop
- Search every draft, note, and chapter in an instant
- Saves as you type and keeps earlier versions, so a crash never costs you a sentence
- No tracking. We don't watch your typing, read your stories, or train AI on your work
Get Started
Step into your quiet writing space.
Download Stela for Mac or Windows. No subscription, no account, and nothing between you and the page.