Even if you have the perfect idea for the next Great American Novel, getting it down on paper is never easy. While you could always use standard word processors like OpenOffice Write or AbiWord, they don't have the bells and whistles that make writing books, manuals, and theses as easy as possible. Fortunately, there are a few open source applications that help budding authors get stories out of their heads and into the hands of readers.

Kabikaboo - This recursive writing assistant is perfect for managing large documents, technical manuals, and long novels. It arranges data in tree-form so parent modules, their children, and their grandchildren can be easily moved around and rearranged. Though Kabikaboo won't help you with text editing, it's perfect for getting your thoughts in order before diving into a complicated writing project.