Plottr

Pros: Plottr's dashboard is clean and easy to navigate. The list of starter templates and timeline notes make it easy to plot out a story. The project window helps keep track of books within a series that share the same characters and settings. Customer service has been great, although I've rarely needed to use it.

Cons: This tool is largely confined to developing plots and characters. Although it allows the writer to take notes on settings, these notes only serve as references for developing the plot(s). It would be great to see these aspects of the software expanded to offer setting templates similar to the plotting and character templates.

Overall: Plotting my books in Plottr saves me time, and enhances the creative experience. The existing timeline templates mark the critical plot points, making it easy to map my story's pacing to reader expectations in my genre. I especially like that I can view and develop different characters' journeys against a primary story template. Plottr lets me add in additional templates for secondary plotlines, or edit an existing template to meet the story's needs. The new character development templates are a great enhancement. Truly a pleasure to use.

Pros: Especially suitable for multi person split acting scripts, it achieves the arrangement and combination of different elements (time, location, characters, emotional nodes, deductive stages, game stages), etc., making the work of script weaving a great pleasure. Bringing a flow of mind experience to writers, when using this software to create, you don't feel the passage of time at all, just want to write and continue writing.

Cons: During the writing process, there may be a phenomenon of stuttering, which sometimes leads to a lack of textual content. We hope to find a solution.

Overall: Overall, it is a very useful writing software and I will definitely recommend it to friends! The price is a bit too high.

Pros: Has everything I need to plot out a book in advance, and yet is extremely easy to learn. Writers can be an impatient bunch and like it when new tools don't slow down the process.

Cons: I sometimes have to quit out of the program and restart it to open my document. But this doesn't happen frequently and is no big deal.

Overall: I have never used this type of software before and really didn't know what to expect. Thus far, it has far exceeded my expectations.

Pros: I love being able to visualize all of the moving parts of my novel. Organize everything from acts to beats. Track POVs. Create a timeline. It's great.

Cons: No major cons at this time. They are always improving.

Overall: Plottr is easy to use right from the beginning. It gave me a big jump start to outlining my story when I was struggling.

Pros: I like the timeline feature. I love the way I can add character notes and biographies, create items or places and track them in the timeline. I like the templates so we can build up a story from a Save The Cat or Snowflake Method template.

Cons: I would love it to integrate with ChatGPT quality writing AI. I wish we could divide the story into acts as well as chapters. I understand that is coming.

Overall: My overall experience with Plottr has been highly positive, as the software offers an array of useful features that greatly enhance the storytelling process. The timeline feature, in particular, has been a standout aspect for me. Being able to seamlessly add character notes, biographies, and track various story elements within the timeline has proven invaluable in keeping my narrative organized and cohesive.

Pros: This review was provided in exchange for a $10 gift card by the provider of this product.

- On mobile and desktop
- Visually appealing
- Places to track things such as places and characters
- Notes section with the flexibility to categorize things such as important items or lore for the story
- Good-looking and flexible timeline layout for your outline
- Built-in templates to help you stay on track if you want to try a specific storytelling model
- Opportunities to learn more about writing, through bonus webinars

Cons: - There's a bit of a learning curve, but this is because of the flexibility the tool offers: it just requires some effort up front.
- While the timeline tab has nice visual flare, the rest of the app can be a little bland. While still functioning and being "readable" as an interface, it's just not as visually exciting.

Overall: Plottr is, from what I can tell, the ultimate story-mapping tool. It's flexible enough to store all your accompanying notes on characters, lore, and plot elements, then plug them into your scenes. Plottr wasn't designed to replace your wordprocessor, but with some creativity it could do so anyway.
Visually, I enjoy the timeline feature a lot, while the other tabs can look bare-bones by comparison. As a visual person, the other tabs leave something to be desired in that department, but are still totally usable, and even pleasant to use--just not as fun to look at. I suppose this could be helpful, enabling you to focus on function, rather than form. Though I admit I'm not a designer, I wouldn't mind seeing some subtle visual improvements added to these other corners of the app.
So far, my main frustrations with this software have been due to my own impatience, and slowness in using tutorials when I need to. Coupled with the fact that I can be slow to pick up on new things. But if you're like me, it is well worth learning how to use this powerful tool. Just use the instructional materials they provide you instead of trying to jump straight in.

Pros: I love the fact I can pull up the Timeline or Outline and immediately check the flow of my story. I also love the ability to create character outlines that I can import into Scrivener. I am a major fan of using Characters, Places, and Tags within my outline to double-check the elements of each chapter.

Cons: I have only been using the software for a few weeks and as of yet, have not found any cons.

Overall: Using this side by side (or on a 2nd monitor) along with my writing software enables my workflow to run smoothly. Before I would have to stop writing and make a few clicks to check an item a particular character was carrying, how frequently they were involved in subsequent chapters, or what location I had them - now I only have to glance at Plottr and get the answer. Writers can get distracted very easily, Plotter helps my focus stay on task.

Pros: It’s helpful to access my plots from whichever device I’m using. Whenever ideas pop into my head, I can drop them into my file.

Cons: Often the phone version is slow to open, which delays me being able to use it in short timeframes. Sometimes the phone version is hard to use because some areas are too large or too small.

Overall: I still find it a useful too and enjoy using it. The many templates give me options to follow, also giving the main pieces of that template. I like being able to like characters and places to plot ideas. This is a great product.

Pros: I really like the visual organization, and the ability to change the layout so that it best fits the way I organize my thoughts. The ability to sort by Series, Book, and Chapter is really useful and I especially appreciate the ability to tag certain categories and attributes to the locations and characters that I create.

Cons: I am unable to change the sizing of images, which is a major part of how I identify characters and locations within my writing projects.

Overall: I am massively impressed by the software and I've been telling everyone I associate with who writes that it was the best writing decision I've made so far. I can finally visually organize my thoughts without feeling like I am wasting a metric ton of paper and Ink.

Pros: Ease of use.
Visual layout.
Ability to expand scene cards to include attributes, themes, places, and characters across the whole project.
Fluidity with being able to move and shift POVs, scenes, and characters along the timeline.
Flexibility of viewing the project in various ways.
Ease of labelling aspects with the project to suit individual needs, eg, scenes chapters or parts, or all of the above.

Cons: This isn't a con per se, but I'd love to see a feature where you can print the visuals out as a PDF.
After the initial download I might have included a few cons but as I've used the software, it's started to feel more intuitive. With any software, there's a learning curve, which isn't a con as much as it is patience to learn. I've found the various videos, instructive documents, community help, and webinars on the use of Plottr very helpful.

Overall: As a pantser, plotting is my worst nightmare. It sucks the joy out of discovery writing for me, but Plottr has changed that. I'm able to visually plot the journey of my novel with the flexibility of adding only the level of detail that I want so I can still 'discover' the story as I write, but I have a structure to work towards. A guideline I can follow while I pants, with the added comfort of knowing that I can go back in and shift the guideline and make it malleable to the ideas that emerge in the actual writing process. I'm still a new-ish user but I see myself really using this software.

Pros: Plottr is helpful in so many different ways! I bought Plottr for the main benefit of seeing my story mapped out and being able to easily rearrange scenes, and that is incredibly useful. However, what I've found even more helpful is being able to isolate scenes in the timeline based on characters, locations, POV, etc., so I can notice things I wouldn't have otherwise. For example, I realized that my main character's best friend didn't appear until the middle of the story, that five scenes in a row took place in the same room (not exactly dynamic), and that alternating POV simply did not make sense.

I also love the "Notes" section, being able to include pictures in the tags, and the fact that it can export so easily to Scrivener!

Cons: No cons with Plottr itself. The only thing I would like to see is an option to see all the media associated with a particular tag. For example, being able to see all the scenes, notes, and locations associated with a character in one place.

Overall: I've loved using Plottr for the ease of seeing all my scenes laid out, and being able to see problems with my plot that I might not otherwise have seen without Plottr's features.

Pros: * Easy to use
* A lot of different templates are available
* Ability to create your own template
* Different options to view your plot outline
* Easy to read and lay out
* Tabs with templates available for character and location planning
* Can be exported to Scriviner
* Can break the plot down into Acts, Chapters, Scenes/Beats, or custom.
* Very easy to add new points/scenes/chapters, even halfway through the story

Cons: * Sometimes it errors when saving
*Character and Location guides didn't export to Scrivener properly

Overall: A very well crafted tool and a must have for Plotters and Plansters. Very easy to use and can run in the background when you're writing so you can glance at where you are in the story. Can easily be edited at any time.

Pros: Plotter gives the writer the options of writing templates to keep the pace and story line on track. Also keeps an easily accessible record of characters when writing a series. Is easy to use for those of us who are a bit techno challenged. It's clear and the color options for the screen items makes it easy to find what you're looking for. I'm impressed.
Plotter let me make my own writing template.

Cons: I like to use Romancing the Beat and Save the Cat writing templates and the version I have does not have Save the Cat so I had to make my own template.

Overall: It's easy to use, organizes characters and helps keep the pace moving ahead appropriately. easy to customize to the writer's style needs.

Pros: With Plottr, as simple as it may seem, my favorite feature is the color-coded plot timeline. I have used many applications, and while they are all good at what they and benefit you, none have benefitted me personally as much as the versatility of Plottr's timeline and its ability to be altered, rearranged, and personalized with templates. When I first started using it a few months ago, it helped me locate and fix three plot holes I didn't know existed until I saw each plot point laid bare before me. I am more confident in my writing as a result.

My second favorite part is the ever growing list of templates for characters, locations and story structure. These have allowed me to practice with a few different varieties and find the style that allows me to be the most productive. I am extremely grateful for these tools.

Cons: My only concern with Plottr is not always understanding how to use a feature as Im a very literal person. However, they do address a lot of these features with occasional guides and live videos for new features. As I'm still new to Plottr, I'm sure there are even more tools to help users learn the ropes, and I'm just still discovering them. So this may not be an actual con, but user error as I learn the ropes.

Overall: My overall experience has been very positive. Even my one experience with customer service that ended up being user error was addressed quickly.

Pros: I really like that I can create a plot line for each of my characters. Knife Edge, my first mystery novel, is being published by a small press in August 2023. I didn't have Plottr for it, but I'm using Plottr to work through the second story in the series, and I feel much more organized this time. Plottr helps me keep track of characters and clues by giving me a visual representation. I even created a plot line for the location, so I can quickly find references and keep them consistent.

Cons: Plottr wasn't as intuitive as I would have liked, but that's my fault. I just wanted to dive in and use it. I discovered that it's a good idea to watch a few of the videos first!

Overall: The more I use Plottr, the better I like it. I still have much to learn, but with just a bit of education from the videos, I could begin using it effectively. I am a much more organized and effective writer now. It's great to be able to go back through my story and see where to plug in additional information that strengthens the plot and moves the characters' individual stories forward.

Pros: I love how Plottr offers a wide variety of well-known method templates to choose from when creating my inspirational romance novels. Each template includes an "expectation description" in the topmost box so I know exactly where my characters are in their journey by chapter and the information I need to reveal or conceal.

Also, the Character development templates are wonderful! Each character page allows a photo and description. The sidebar of each page also allows me to add other characters in the book and the relationship they have with the character in the template.

The "Tags" feature offers color coding for characters, scenes, plot points, etc. I create the tag for my needs, they are not pre-prepared, generic tags. All the color codes appear in the Outline section so I can see at a glance where I might need to bring in a character or conflict.

Cons: The only issue I have with Plottr is finding my way between the file I'm working on and the "home" page of my projects. I find my way around, but it's not a very intuitive journey.

Overall: I'm a visual learner so having all these tools in one program make for productive plotting sessions and also keep me on track throughout the book. The export to Scrivener feature ties my primary writing program to this plotting tool with ease.

Plottr is a powerhouse of a program that stays in its lane. Every upgrade that has been developed has enhanced my ability to work with a PLOTTING tool rather than this tool trying to expand and take the place of another program. I love that!

Pros: I enjoy Plottr because it keeps me organized. I tend to be a hands-on plotter which means I hand write a lot. Having it saved on Plottr helps a lot. I am still learning how to adapt it to my three-act structure style, but once I do, I think I’ll be very happy.

Cons: My biggest complaint is that I can’t seem download or print the info as it appears on the screen. I’d love to have a screenshot version of it so I see it laid out in three acts.

Overall: I renewed it twice and I’m cheap. I think that says a lot. It’s a great tool that works with a variety of styles.

Pros: The story structure templates and ability to revise, or develop my own templates;
The three view modes;
The ability to view everything exactly the way I write a story;
Once learned, it's smooth sailing!!

Cons: I only have two concerns:
1. It was a little difficult to begin using when first starting out. Needs clearer instructions.
2. Offline mode needs to be offered with both pricing plans.

Overall: I’ve unlocked the power of my stories with the Plottr Plotting App! A revolutionary storytelling platform assistant designed to create and edit story structure. View your story in three different view modes, or focus in on one chapter at a time. Plottr extends the capability to revise or create from a plethora of story structure templates in various genres. The story building and character building features are abundant, but revise them to suit your style. It boasts capabilities of helping you discover and fill-in plot holes, export to Scrivener, and eBook exporting. This software is rife with useful bells, whistles, and features that even pansters could use. Maintain your writing autonomy and check out this software. You owe it to your story!

Pros: All my plot is in one easy place. I use it daily and am so glad I moved away from an Excel sheet.

Cons: Doesn't automatically save all the time. If I cut and paste, it freezes and won't let me paste. Not all issues have been sorted for Mac.

Overall: I love it and wouldn't know what to do without it. Love the helpful videos when new functions launch.

Pros: My absolutely favorite thing about Plottr is the timeline. As a dedicated pantser, I find the timeline really helpful in my outlining process. The fact that I can customize the box colors is a bonus. I also really love that the series view where I can list all books on one place.

Cons: One thing I’ve not been able to figure out is the character sheets. I’d like to be able to specify which characters are in which book or if they’re the main character or side characters.

Overall: Overall, Plottr is the best software I’ve bought to date. It’s actually helpful. It’s easy to use and does everything it promises to do.