Plottr Reviews

Summary: Since purchasing my lifetime license, the developers have added one feature after another that continue to improve my experience. And much like a Tesla, these upgrades are FREE! Definitely, the Tesla of apps for writers.

Positive: I'm not really a planner, but I tend to want to organize my thoughts before I start and at regular intervals during writing. Plottr has been a lifesaver for that. And now that there are a variety of templates, the app helps organize thoughts and improve scenes even more. I love it and think it's the best writer's bargain out there!

Negative: I do not yet have the export feature figured out. While it exports to Word and Scrivener, I'm missing something in the process. They do offer great tutorials; I just haven't watched all of them yet.

Summary: Love it and will keep using it. There are so many projects that I can use this for and it makes organizing thoughts so much easier.

Positive: The layout and functions of the software is amazing + exactly what I was looking for. 10/10 would recommend.

Negative: Can’t add tags + characters in the plot line page.

Summary: I did some tutorials and played with a temp outline to get a feel for the tool. Then I watched a bunch of Youtube videos by authors, and they all used Plottr differently. How many timelines? What should you put on the timelines? How detailed should you make it?
It took a while for me to decide, but once I had a plan and got to work, it went smoothly.

Positive: I had a finished manuscript, but I knew it moved too slowly in the middle. At the same time, I wasn't sure how to fix it. A friend recommended outlining it in Plottr, which really helped. I could see which scenes needed to be cut, and I also found several plot holes that needed fixing. The slow middle? Plottr showed that my main character was 'off stage' for three chapters!

Negative: Significant learning curve and the possibility of getting stuck deciding between many possible approaches to structuring your outline. I understood the mechanics of using Plottr in a couple of hours, but it took me a month to decide on a character-centered approach to outlining.

Summary: I write complex books. As in 5-POV characters. Trying to keep track of that is a pain. I like notecards, but I have nowhere to put them on a wall in my house, so they're relegated to a pile which is a pain to pull out and put away. Then I remembered that Plottr exists, and boy howdy, am I glad I downloaded it! I love seeing all of my storylines on one page. Moving scenes around is sooo easy. The extra fields to fill out make keeping track of everything easy too. I keep recommending it to everyone I know. I can't say enough good things about it!

Positive: Literally everything. I love the whole program. It's absolutely essential for outliners/plotters, but pantsers can use it too after they've completed their first draft.

Negative: I wish it had Save the Cat! beats as a template, but I'm surviving just fine.

Summary: I was hesitant to purchase Plottr, because I felt I had all my characters and scenes under control. Then, my characters started developing, my scenes changed, and I needed... something. I watched a Plottr demo, and decided to try the product. Within a day, I was hooked. I may still be "mostly a Pantser" but I'm a "Plottr Pantser" for sure.

Positive: Plottr doesn't force me to become a rigidly-structured author overnight. Good thing, because I've been writing for most of my 72 years. It lets me use the available tools as I want or need. Which means, when I needed somewhere to gather my characters together, Plottr saved the day, with basic templates that I could adapt as I needed. (I started out with the bare bones and now my character pages are becoming mini-bios.) It allows me to tie each character to every book they are in, as well.Then, there's the story arc, which I am not yet using but looks promising for future writings. Examples they've shared - like HAMLET and GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS - show you how versatile the software is.

Negative: The software is so thorough it scared me at first. That's the biggest negative I've got. I can't say anything about how it exports to Scrivener (which I don't use, but which Plottr WILL export to), or to MS Word (I use LibreOffice in MS-Word mode), but everything I have used tells me that those features are as robust as everything else.

Summary: Great product - super helpful to my writing process and keeping me organised. Would recommend to plotters (and pantsers) everywhere!

Positive: A great way to help plan your novel and keep track of all the threads and sub-plots that run through it. I use Plottr all the time to draft outlines and make sure my manuscript is flowing.

Negative: There's a couple of features I'd love to see to make the app even easier to use but nothing major. I've added them to the Plottr 'wishlist' and I'm sure they'll be included in a future update.

Summary: Overall, I have loved it, and I highly recommend getting the lifetime desktop versions! It has helped me greatly organize my ideas and even see the flaws in my previous planning.

Positive: Some of my favorite aspect of Plottr is the amount of features it has; specifically my favorite of them all is the timeline since I'm a very visual person.

Negative: Personally, I think some of the features aren't very intuitive and so I had to look at the tutorial videos to get ideas on how to use them. I think nowadays having more intuitive features really helps apps become more usable and user-friendly. For writers, this is important because we don't want to waste much time learning how to use the features, we just want to write more!

Summary: Easy to use with lots of available genre outlines. Updated at decent intervals. Responsive to user questions.

Positive: I am addicted to trying and using all kinds of software related to writing. I have used Plottr and I find it useful and very easy to learn. They also add to it frequently. I mainly use it now as a reference rather than consulting it frequently. I am revising and the layout on Plottr is great for referring me back to make sure I'm hitting the plot points in the various paradigms. My advice: definitely worth using if you enjoy software and very user friendly.

Negative: I have no complaints about the software. It's not complex or sophisticated, but it doesn't need to be.

Summary: Overall Plottr is great for pre-writing, re-writing, and even post-writing structural evaluation. A lot of authors (like me) use it to plot their stories after the first draft, which really helps define and organize the structure when doing rewrites. My friend uses it because she needs a complete structure before she writes. (I don't work that way.) So it's flexible and useful for all types of writers.

Positive: This is a tool that comes with a great feature set of templates, ideas, and tools but is also extremely flexible to organize and use it in any way you like. We all write, organize, and think differently, and Plottr is very flexible for all types of brains! The videos and learning tools are really great, too. So easy to learn, or just play with it until you get it.

Negative: I can't think of anything I don't like. Perhaps it doesn't have enough specific science fiction structures and templates, but I easily made my own.

Summary: Plottr is a key tool in my writing life. Pre-Plottr I used free-form notes, which were nowhere near as effective.

Positive: For my stories, I need a fairly detailed plot to allow me to write effectively, and I need a good series bible of characters and places to keep everything consistent.

Negative: For novels with a lot of plot points, I wish I either had a larger monitor or more density so I could see the whole story arc without scrolling across or vertically.

Summary: I would highly recommend this app to all the writers I know! It is versatile, exceedingly helpful, and gives me so much joy to use.

Positive: Plottr helps me organize all my chaotic thoughts. It has every feature I could ever possibly need, and it is completely intuitive with a beautiful design.

Negative: I wish the Attributes feature was a little more simplified in terms of usage.

Summary: My experience has been very positive, making my whole plotting system easier! It is my starting point for each new book that I write, and a place to go back and keep track of details.

Positive: I've been using Plottr for several years now and find it indispensable in my plotting process. As a very visual person, this system has allowed me to go from a mass of index cards and a bulletin board to a very organized process right on my computer, AND then I can print out my synopsis which is huge.

Negative: The only thing missing for me is a place to add word count for each chapter and a total. For now I still do that on an excel sheet, but it would be nice to have that with my Plottr synopsis.

Summary: I was a bit overwhelmed at first by eventually was able to incorporate Plottr into my daily routine both for personal writing and when working as a ghost writer. I strongly advise people to take advantage of the free trial and figure out how they can best use the plotting tool to improve their story creating process.

Positive: It is a comprehensive plotting tool that enables me to concentrate on the dozens of interlocking elements that go into developing stories ranging from simple one page flash fiction to expansive series covering a dozen books or more. It has enabled me to quickly pen out request by my clients and see where their vision for my ghost writing projects needs assistance in order to result in a marketable final product.

Negative: The developers were correct about needing to dive into the tool in order to understand its power. I wish it was a bit simpler, but considering the feature set and how so many of the commonly used features become muscle memory after a bit I could understand the logic behind is approach in developing user familiarity with the tool.

Summary: Plottr made it super easy for me to outline a SIX PERSON POV novel. Because of Plottr I was also able to write my synopsis before I even began drafting, which I've never been able to do before. It just makes the whole process so much easier.

I've now outlined multiple other projects in Plottr since, and they've all gone super smoothly.

Positive: I love how easy Plottr makes it to organize your timeline, outline, character info, etc.--and how easy it is to export it to Word, Scrivener, etc.

The templates are also incredibly useful!!

Negative: Honestly I have yet to encounter one; I love everything about the software.

Summary: For the price, features, and the amount of help this brings to any writers career. This app is an easy 10/10 in my book, love this app and will continue to use it for the rest of my career.

Positive: The interface is easy to use.
Constantly having free updates which improve the experience.
I love the templates that are constantly added.
It helps me organize my ideas.
Super easy for character organization.
Easy for world building.
The list goes on, I'm a screenwriter and structure with organization is crucial when writing a movie.
An amazing price.

Negative: I cant think of any, I would like them to add the Japanese Manga story structure template known as Kishotenketsu. But that's really more of a request than a con.