Plottr Reviews

Summary: Overall, I'm happy. I purchased Plottr knowing that it wasn't quite at the level I wanted it yet, but that it would get there. So far, I am happy with that decision.

Positive: Plottr is actively in development - releases are periodic, and there is a publicly viewable roadmap to see what's being worked on, what's in the wings, and what's still up for voting/input. There are truly a lot of ways to present your plotting, and Plottr successfully captures most of them in a way that is visual, and let's you flip between them. The support team for Plottr is fantastic, responsive, and great at filtering out actual bugs and reporting them to the dev team.

Negative: The Scrivener support (a key feature in my opinion) is still nasceant. The Scrivener projects that are produced are barebones and require your version of Scrivener to "upgrade" them to the current format. This may just be an attempt to be compatible with the most versions. More to the point, importing Scrivener projects is limited to flat projects - no multi-tiered/part projects can be imported. The new function to look at a Series in Plottr is great, but not ready for use. You can't import into it, either from an external outline or within Plottr itself, which effectively walls off the work.

Summary: I like using this system for the plotting stages. It allows me to see my scene outline in a visual manner, so I can balance multiple POVs and Acts.

Positive: I liked that I was able to approach the software at any stage. I could move around cards to see different orders of events (without my cat stepping all over my physical notecards). I could have simple cards with just a title, or complex cards color-coded and tagged.
I liked the different templates available.

Negative: I wish there was a split screen feature so I could consult my notes/character sheets while also looking at the visual outline.
I also with there was a more freeform whiteboard, so I could have floating extra cards before I plunk them down on a specific line.
Small nitpick: I wish the card sizes adjusted so words wouldn't be cut to the next line (displaying "Tournament" on one line instead of Tourname-nt) in medium size mode.

Summary: I love using this software to outline my stories. It has been a great help as I tend to get overwhelmed when starting to write something new. Would recommend :)

Positive: Very easy to use and allows the user to outline their ideas clearly for their stories.
The templates are particularly interesting to look at if you have a difficult time organizing your ideas.

Negative: I would love for some sort of floating Notes section where I can throw some scenes that I think about while outlining without really knowing where they are supposed to be at the moment.

Summary: There are limitations but the benefits make up for it. The look is great. The features are great though I hope some are added.

Positive: It does everything I used to do on an Excel spreadsheet but so much better and a lot less work. Plus, it's easier to view my outline than it was with Excel.

Negative: It was more confusing to set up a series than I expected. I watched the videos and still found it confusing.

Summary: Good but just be wary. Seems to still be in working phases. For what I lost, not worth cost but there are so many features I haven't taken advantage of that would probably help that cost feel more worth it.

Positive: Accessible, easy to understand, simple design, makes plotting fun! there's a lot you can do to help yourself make solid plot lines, just really wish there was a way to make the timelines converge into one.

Negative: Wiped out an entire doc of mine, no recovery. I was disappointed but didn't know where to go to ask for help, or even if i could receive help. That's the only issue I've had in the year I've been using it.

Summary: Since I tend to plan out my stories to its finest detail, including word counts, dates, time, and characters involved, having a tool to put that all together efficiently made things a lot easier.

Positive: The ability to plan out story threads to the last detail.
Separate bars for things like characters and locations.
Creating different lines for different story arcs.

Negative: There is a learning curve to working out how to make things work
Was extremely buggy for the first year, but most of those bugs have been fixed.

Summary: 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.

Positive: 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.

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

Summary: 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.

Positive: 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.

Negative: 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.

Summary: 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.

Positive: 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.

Negative: 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!

Summary: 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.

Positive: 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.

Negative: 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.

Summary: Well worth the money for the program! This service has greatly improved my experience and ease for writing!

Positive: Plottr is amazing and is so useful when it comes to helping with plot points. It even has templates to help those who wish to have a guide on plotting. The character sheets even have templates to help you flesh out full rounded characters! They are always adding new features and updates to improve the service!

Negative: I think my main thing is having it easier to actually write the chapters in a single combined document minus the notes. I also hope a future feature to be added can be to able to write the book and able to see the timeline/outline on the side!

Summary: I think it’s great! I love it and it helps a lot. I’ve recommended it to a lot of other writer friends.

Positive: I love the visual set up and it helped me to plot short stories and novels. The templates are fun and helpful!

Negative: Honestly there’s not too much that I don’t like. I haven’t been on for a little while so I’m not sure if you’ve added it but adding pictures to the characters would be nice :)

Summary: As a planner, this tool has saved me lots of time organizing and helped me get back to the writing. It has freed me from my whiteboard of sticky notes, and has allowed me to take my creativity on-the-go, which has done wonders to improve my work. It’s integration with other apps makes it feel like a natural step in any drafting process, rather than an independent exercise. It will be an organizational boon to anyone who plans their work, and especially to those visual planners who enjoy seeing things from different angles. Highly recommend!

Positive: Plottr is an incredible tool for planning. The visual timeline has so many customizations, from chapter titles to entire plot threads. Color-coding and tagging allows you to follow different ideas through your outline, which is a game-changer when looking for consistency. The visual timeline automatically populates into an outline which can then be exported to other writing apps. This saves so much time, as I’m no longer needing to re-write/copy over my planning work. You can organize your works in series, allowing you to maintain characters, settings, and tags across books, once again, saving time. Plottr has a library of different structures called templates, which can provide maps for different kinds of stories. As someone writing my first book in a new genre, being able to see examples of different formats gives me insight that would have taken hours of research to match. Overall, the greatest asset of this tool is that it takes the busy work completely out of writing, allowing for amazing planning that lets you focus on what’s important: the writing.

Negative: The iPad app is a little finicky. The visual timeline doesn’t work as well with a touch screen, and it is definitely pared down and doesn’t include some of the abilities you have in the desktop version of the app. I would love to see improvements made to the iPad version!