PlotWrite FAQ

PlotWrite (plotwrite.ink) is a web app for LitRPG and progression fantasy web serial authors that reads the chapters you write, keeps every stat, rank, skill and promise in a Story brain timed by chapter, and catches contradictions before your Royal Road readers do. You write; drafting with AI is optional. It runs on your own AI: your ChatGPT or Claude subscription, an API key, or a model on your own computer.

No. Many writers start with just an idea. The brainstorm chat in Plan asks questions and helps you shape characters, world, conflict and stakes, and the ideas you like save to your Plan for when you're ready. No writing experience required.

Sign up and create a story: give it a title, and paste or upload chapters you've already written (.txt, .md or Word .docx) if you have them. Then connect your AI: add PlotWrite as a connector in ChatGPT or Claude, Connect OpenRouter in one click, paste an API key, or run a model locally with LM Studio. Then write.

A chat that knows your story. It reads your story brain and plan, helps you work out what happens next, and saves the ideas you like to Plan. It never writes to your canon or your manuscript on its own.

No. PlotWrite works for pantsers (writers who discover the story as they write), outliners, and everyone in between. Start with a chapter and let the story brain fill in as you write, or plan arcs and beats first on the Plan board and outline. Both work.

No. If you have ChatGPT or Claude, add PlotWrite as a connector there and sign in: your plan runs the model inside ChatGPT or Claude, and PlotWrite gives it your chapters and story brain. No API key involved. For the AI inside PlotWrite itself (Ask AI, Draft with AI and Auto-write), add a connection: Connect OpenRouter in one click, paste an API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter or another provider, or run a model on your own computer with LM Studio.

Yes. Add PlotWrite as a custom connector in Claude or ChatGPT (paste the URL from your PlotWrite settings) and sign in once. Then ask for the next chapter: your subscription runs the model, PlotWrite gives it your chapters, story brain, Style DNA and threads, and the draft is saved to PlotWrite for you to accept. PlotWrite never charges for AI.

No. Auto-write runs in the background, so it needs a connection PlotWrite can call itself: Connect OpenRouter in one click, or paste an API key. With only the Claude or ChatGPT connector, you draft chapter by chapter in the chat, and each draft still lands in PlotWrite for you to accept.

Claude: plans that can add custom connectors. The free plan allows one custom connector, Pro and Max work, and on Team and Enterprise an owner may need to allow custom connectors first. ChatGPT: you need a plan that can add custom connectors in developer mode (the free plan can't), and some plans may only let ChatGPT read your story rather than save drafts. OpenAI and Anthropic set these rules and can change them.

No. Your PlotWrite plan pays for the story brain, the canon check and the writing tools. AI is billed by whoever runs it: your ChatGPT or Claude plan, your API provider at their own prices with no markup from us, or nobody at all when you run a model locally.

No. PlotWrite never uses your story to train AI models, and you own 100% of what you write. When you use AI, the text a request needs goes to the AI you chose (ChatGPT, Claude or your API provider) under that provider's own terms. With LM Studio it stays on your computer.

BYOK means Bring Your Own Key; here it means bring your own AI. Instead of charging you for AI on top of your subscription, PlotWrite uses yours: your ChatGPT or Claude plan through the connector, OpenRouter connected in one click, an API key from a provider, or a model on your own computer. Stored keys are encrypted and only used from our server. You choose the model, and we never mark up your usage.

Through the connector: ChatGPT and Claude, on your own plan. With a key: OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), OpenRouter (one key for many models, or Connect OpenRouter with no key to copy), Google Gemini, Groq, Mistral, Together, Perplexity, DeepSeek, xAI, or any custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint. On your own computer: LM Studio.

LM Studio lets you run AI models on your own computer, free and private. Download it from lmstudio.ai, load a model, enable the local server, and connect it to PlotWrite. AI requests then go from your browser to your own machine instead of a cloud provider, with no API costs. Your chapters are still saved to your PlotWrite account, and background jobs such as Auto-write, which run on our servers, need a cloud connection.

Yes. Your story content is stored in our secure backend, encrypted at rest. We never use your story content to train AI models. If you use LM Studio, your AI requests go to your own computer instead of a cloud AI provider.

With the connector, your ChatGPT or Claude plan covers it, within that plan's own usage limits. With an API key, it depends on the model you pick and how much you use the AI: you pay your provider's own prices directly, with no markup from us, and PlotWrite shows you the size of big jobs, such as building the story brain from old chapters, before they run. LM Studio has no API costs.

A wiki of your story: one page for every character, place, item, skill and faction, with [[links]], a graph and a timeline. Facts are timed by chapter, so you can see your story as it stood at any chapter. The AI proposes facts from your chapters and you approve them in the Inbox; nothing becomes canon without you.

Where the AI's suggestions wait for you: new facts, new pages and canon issues. Accept, edit or reject each one with single keys, with Undo. Nothing becomes canon until you accept it.

Contradictions with what was true at that chapter: a rank or level going backwards, a dead character acting, a relationship that changed without a reason (a brother who becomes a cousin), someone in the wrong place, and more. Each issue quotes both passages side by side. You can fix the chapter with a change you preview first, mark the canon as changed, or mark it intentional so it isn't flagged again.

One printable page for your whole story: the contradictions, the stats that drift, the promises still waiting and the roles that flip, with the top 5 to fix first. Each item opens the chapter it's in.

Part of Check chapter. It reads your chapter like a Royal Road reader: it scores the opening hook and the cliffhanger, flags stat dumps, shows where readers might drop off and what might get comments, and suggests 3 fixes. It runs on your own AI, only when you ask.

Style DNA is your voice: point of view, tense, rhythm and your own rules, learned from your chapters on your own AI. With hard lock on, every draft has to follow it. The In-Between tracks your story's threads, every A-to-B line it moves along (plot, romance, growth, rivalry, comedy), and the moments that move them, so chapters don't jump straight from A to B.

Plan the chapter's beats, approve them, and the AI drafts in your voice using what your story brain knows as of that chapter. The canon check runs on the draft, and nothing enters your manuscript until you click Accept. Every change is kept in version history. Auto-write drafts a run of chapters this way, and you review each one before it's accepted.

Reaction map (who witnesses a moment and how they react), Resonance plan (the emotional curve across an arc) and Soul check (where a chapter goes flat, with fixes). They run on your AI, and the decisions you make with them feed into planning and drafting.

Yes. Start the next book, and PlotWrite carries your Story brain pages, each character's stats as of the last chapter, relationships, active threads and Style DNA into it. The AI and the checks also read matching scenes from earlier books, so Book 3 still remembers Book 1.

Sudowrite and NovelCrafter are good AI writing apps, but you keep their Story Bible or Codex up to date by hand, and neither checks your chapters against canon. PlotWrite builds LitRPG stat sheets from the chapters you've written, checks each chapter against what was true at that point, and runs on your ChatGPT or Claude plan. NovelCrafter says subscriptions can't be used with it, and Sudowrite runs on its own credits.

Yes. PlotWrite was built with Royal Road writers as the primary user. The story brain tracks progression systems (levels, ranks, stats, skills and titles) with LitRPG stat sheets as of any chapter, the canon check catches the continuity slips that get called out in comments, and Copy for Royal Road copies a paste-ready chapter with System blocks turned into boxed tables.

Not yet. Inviting co-authors and editors is planned, but today each project belongs to a single account.

Yes. 7 days, full Architect access, no credit card required. We don't ask for payment details until your trial ends. PlotWrite never charges for AI, during the trial or after: it runs on your ChatGPT or Claude plan, your own key or your own computer.

Nothing is deleted. Your story, story brain and chapters stay in your account: you can still write, read and export your chapters, and AI features and the ChatGPT/Claude connector need a plan. When you subscribe, everything picks up exactly where you left off.

Storyteller ($14/month) includes everything you need to write: the ChatGPT and Claude connector and every other way to connect AI, the story brain and stat sheets, the Inbox and canon check, the In-Between, Plan and brainstorm chat, Draft with AI, versions, export, story brain export with full backups, and the Style DNA basics (point of view, tense, your rules). Architect ($24/month) adds Auto-write, Style DNA learned from your own chapters with Hard lock, and the Craft tools (Reaction map, Resonance, Soul check). Collaboration features are planned but not available yet. AI isn't included in either plan, and PlotWrite never charges for it.

Yes. Export any chapter to Word (.docx), plain text or Markdown, or the whole book to Word, EPUB, Markdown or plain text with a title page and a table of contents. Chapter and book export are free on every plan, even after your trial. Story brain export and full project backups come with the paid plans.

Yes. Monthly and annual plans renew automatically until you cancel. Cancel anytime from the Pricing page in the app and you keep everything until the end of the period you paid for. No fees, no questions.

Yes — annual plans include 2 months free. Storyteller annual: $140/year (vs $168/year monthly). Architect annual: $240/year (vs $288/year monthly). While seats last, the first 100 founding authors get their first year of Architect for $149, one payment that doesn't renew.

Not for memory, checks and planning. Royal Road's AI policy says back-office help such as brainstorming and research doesn't need mentioning, and that is what the Story brain, canon check and Plan do. If you paste AI-written text into a chapter, from Draft with AI, Auto-write or a chat, Royal Road asks for an AI tag. Tag-free mode hides every tool that writes prose.

By keeping a long serial consistent, which is what long-time readers notice. The canon check catches the contradictions that get called out in comments, stat sheets keep your progression straight as of any chapter, the In-Between warns when a storyline goes quiet, and Reader view shows where a chapter might lose readers. Drafting with AI is optional, and posting AI-written text means an AI tag on Royal Road.

The writing tool itself won't set up your Patreon, but our guides cover Royal Road monetization in depth, including Patreon tier structures, pricing, and income estimates at different follower counts.

Yes. It was built for LitRPG, progression fantasy and cultivation serials, the genres with the most numbers to keep straight. Stat sheets handle crunchy or smooth systems, cultivation realms, ranks, titles and skills, as of any chapter, and the canon check flags a rank or realm that goes backwards.

Yes. Free name generators for LitRPG skills, classes, titles and System notifications, dungeons and monsters, cultivation techniques, sects and realms, and fantasy characters, guilds and kingdoms. They need no sign-up and use no AI.

Yes. Import your chapters (paste them, or upload .txt, .md or Word .docx files, and PlotWrite splits them into chapters), then build the story brain from them on your AI. PlotWrite shows you how big the job is before it starts, you approve what it found in the Inbox, and the canon check takes it from there.