Plan a novel online
Plan a novel online, free
You can plan a novel online for free in Plotiar. Its planning tools sit next to your manuscript: a plot grid for plot lines, a corkboard for scenes and Lore, the story bible, for characters and places. Maps, family trees and a story calendar are there too. All of them are on the free plan, which holds up to five projects. Start from a blank grid or a structure such as Save the Cat.
How it works
From the first idea to a plan you can write from
Use the tools in any order, or only the ones you need.
Lay out your plot lines on a grid
A plot grid has a column for each plot line and a row for each chapter or beat. Each cell says what happens in that plot line in that chapter, so a subplot that disappears for ten chapters shows up as a gap. Start from a blank grid or a template: Three-Act Structure, Save the Cat, the Hero's Journey, the Seven-Point Structure and more.
A plot grid: four plot lines across, chapters down, each beat marked Idea, Draft or Final. Put your scenes on cards
On the corkboard, each card is a scene or chapter. It has a synopsis, a status, labels and a word target, and it can link to the chapter it describes. Drag cards into a new order, or place them freely and save the layout as your sequence. Group cards by label to see the balance between point-of-view characters or subplots.
Scene cards on the corkboard, each with a synopsis, a status and a word target. Build the people and the world
Lore, Plotiar's story bible, keeps your characters, places, factions and objects, with labeled relationships between them and a graph that shows the whole web. Family trees show how your characters are related across generations. Maps hold your world's geography, with drawing tools, layers and markers.
A map of the story's coast. Put events on a story calendar
A story calendar puts your events on dates, so you can see what happens when. Use a standard calendar, or build one for your world with its own months, weekdays and holidays. When you start writing, open the plan next to the chapter in Split View.
A month of a custom story calendar, with the world's own weekday names.
What's free
Every planning tool is on the free plan
The free plan is not a trial: it has no time limit and needs no card. Plot grids, corkboards, Lore, maps, family trees, flowcharts, idea boards and calendars are all included. The free plan's limit is five projects. A few extras, such as saved Lore views, need Plus.
When to choose something else
When Plotiar is the wrong choice
Pick something else if:
- You want an app that writes the book for you. Plotiar's AI tools (Pro) read what you have written and build planning tools from it, such as a timeline or a character bible, but they never write your chapters.
- You often plan without an internet connection. Plotiar is cloud-based, and only chapters you have already opened keep working offline. Scrivener and Campfire's desktop app are built for offline work.
- You only need a list of chapters. One document with a heading per chapter does that job, and a plot grid and corkboard would be more than you need.
Questions
Questions about planning a novel in Plotiar
Short answers, checked against the product in October 2026.
All of them. Plot grids, corkboards, Lore, maps, family trees, flowcharts, idea boards and calendars are on the free plan, which holds up to five projects. Plus ($5 a month or $50 a year) adds unlimited projects, co-authors and saved Lore views.
A plot grid is a table with a column for each plot line and a row for each chapter or beat. Each cell holds what happens in that plot line in that chapter. You mark each beat Idea, Draft or Final, so you can see at a glance which parts of the story are planned.
Yes. Plotiar has plot grid templates for Three-Act Structure, Save the Cat, the Hero's Journey, the Seven-Point Structure and the Story Circle, plus grids for genres such as mystery, romance and fantasy. A template is only a starting point: you can rename, add and delete rows and plot lines.
Yes. Lore keeps characters, places, factions and magic systems, with the relationships between them. Family trees show bloodlines, maps hold your world's geography, and calendars can use your world's own months and weekdays.
Corkboard cards can link to the chapters they describe, and Lore highlights each character and place where it appears in your chapters. Split View opens any plan next to the chapter you are writing, so you can check it without switching tabs.
Yes, on Plus. Invite your co-author to the project. You can edit the chapters and the plot grid together in real time, and leave comments in the chapters. The corkboard, Lore and the rest of your plans are shared with them too.
Related
Read next
- Write a book online, freeHow Plotiar works from the first page to a finished draft.
- Plotting methods comparedSave the Cat, the Snowflake Method, Story Grid and tentpoles: which one suits your story.
- How to outline a novelA step-by-step guide to turning an idea into an outline.
- Plot grids in the docsEvery plot grid feature, from statuses to compact mode.
Start planning your novel
A plot grid, scene cards, a story bible and maps, next to your manuscript. Free for up to five projects, no card needed.