Understory, home
FOR NOVELS, STORIES, COMICS AND SCREENPLAYS

Your story.
Every thread
in view.

Write your novel, short stories, comic scripts or screenplays. Understory connects the details and asks thoughtful questions, helping you see what needs another look.

The AI reads. You write.
Every word remains yours.

Never used to train AI. Read only when you ask.

Chapter forty. Wait… was her brother older, or younger? Understory reads your story and keeps track of all of it: every character, every place, every story arc, pulled from your own pages. When something doesn’t add up, it asks you. It never writes a word for you. Novels, short stories… even comic scripts. Understory. Your whole story, every thread in view. Free to write.
YOUR WORDS STAY YOURS

Your book is yours.
Here is exactly what happens to it.

You own everything you write.

We claim no rights to it. We can’t publish it, show it to anyone you haven’t invited, or train a model on it.

Who owns what I write

Nothing is read until you ask.

If you never have Understory read your story, none of it leaves our servers. When you do, the AI is Anthropic’s, and Anthropic doesn’t train its models on what’s sent through its API.

Will my writing train AI

Nobody here reads your story.

There’s no internal tool that shows us your writing. We look only to fix a problem you’ve reported, with your permission, or when the law requires it.

Can anyone at Understory read it

Each time, Understory’s reader gets only the scenes that changed, your Lore, summaries of earlier scenes, your answers, and that scene’s notes to self. See exactly what it receives. Download everything, or delete your account and everything in it, whenever you like.

See the connections.
Decide what comes next.

THE CONNECTIONS IN YOUR WORDS

Follow a thread. See where it leads.

Explore story arcs and characters together. Switch between the order on the page and the order events happen.

Understory /The Last Letter
PlotStory arcsScenesImport & exportWriter’s Desk
Open questions 3

Every thread on one timeline

Choose a thread to follow it through your story.

Bubble size shows how present each thread is in the scene.
1 scene unplacedAfter the storm · Its timing is not yet clear.

Try the timeline with our fictional story, The Last Letter. Dates that are unclear stay unplaced.

YOUR STORY, YOUR DECISIONS

Support for the story.
Respect for the writer.

You decide when to review.

Understory reviews changed scenes when you ask. It never changes the words you’ve written.

The details come with evidence.

Story facts link to the words behind them. When something is unclear, Understory asks.

Novels, stories, comics and screenplays.

Call the parts what your story calls them: chapters, stories, issues or acts. Comic scripts and screenplays get the same careful review as prose.

One world across a series.

Join books, volumes or episodes into a series. Lore, story arcs and questions span every one of them.

Your work can leave whole.

Export to Word, PDF, Markdown or plain text, and screenplays to Final Draft or Fountain. Bring in a co-author, or invite beta readers to leave comments in the margin.

INTRODUCTORY PRICING

A little more clarity.
A lot more room to write.

Writing is free, for as long as you like. For less than a coffee a week, Understory reads every page you write and keeps the whole story in view.

Free

Everything you need to write.

$0 forever

No card needed, and no time limit.

Start writing free

Sign up with your email address.

  • As many stories as you like: novels, short stories, comics and screenplays
  • Series that join books, volumes or episodes into one world
  • Import from Word, PDF, EPUB, Scrivener, Final Draft, Fountain and Plottr
  • Export to Word, PDF, EPUB, Final Draft, Fountain and more
  • Up to 10 beta readers per story, leaving comments in the margin
  • Autosave, version history and notes to self
THE WHOLE STORY IN VIEW

Reviews

A reader who never loses the thread.

$10 / month

Per writing seat. Or $100 a year, two months free.

About 33¢ a dayGet reviews

Subscribe from Settings in the app. Cancel any time.

EVERYTHING IN FREE, PLUS

  • Reviews for every story and series you own
  • Lore that grows from your pages when you say so, each fact with the sentence it came from
  • Contradictions caught across chapters, books and episodes
  • Every story arc on one timeline, in story order and in time order
  • Questions grounded in your own words, and remembered once you answer
  • A monthly allowance counted in scenes, with $5 top-ups

Compare everything in each plan