Report updated Jun 9, 2026
Untold Novel - Story Planner
For fiction writers and screenwriters seeking a structured, visual environment to manage complex narrative elements.
Untold Novel - Story Planner is a market-leading productivity app that is a paid app. With a 4.8/5 rating from 8 reviews, it delivers strong user satisfaction. Users particularly appreciate granular project organization tools help writers maintain focus on complex creative novel planning, though word count tracking fails to register progress when users input manual writing statistics remains a common concern.
What is Untold Novel - Story Planner?
Untold Novel is a productivity app for fiction writers to manage characters, timelines, and scenes on iOS.
Writers hire this tool to centralize complex narrative data, reducing the cognitive load of tracking story elements across multiple files.
Current Momentum
v1.3 · 5mo ago
Steady- Improved German translation in latest release.
- Fixed crash on Rating Color dropdown.
Active Nemesis
Story Planner for Writers
By Bartolome Masco Lopez
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
ProductivityNo ranking data
Rating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User Mood
What makes this app unique?
What Are The Key Features?
Tracks character traits, strengths, and flaws with image attachments
Organizes story events and plot points chronologically
Maps settings with distance tracking and custom icons
Layouts scenes with weather, atmosphere, and tension tracking
How much does it cost?
- One-time purchase at $14.99
The one-time purchase model includes all updates for the current major version and promises free access to the upcoming macOS version.
Who Built It?
Providing creative writers with a centralized digital workspace to manage complex story elements. Helping authors organize character, timeline, and location data for their manuscripts.
Portfolio
1
Apps
Explore the full Pascal Grote report
Portfolio breakdown, audience, momentum, and every app published by Pascal Grote.
What do users think recently?
Low confidence · 4 reviews analyzed
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a thrilled sentiment. Users appreciate granular project organization tools help writers maintain focus on complex creative novel planning, but report word count tracking fails to register progress when users input manual writing statistics and character data fails to persist when users attempt to add entries for new books.
Limited review volume (4 reviews). Sentiment analysis will deepen as more data lands.
View the full user-sentiment analysis
Mood gauge, ratings & review-volume history, every praise / complaint / request, and sentiment over time.
What is the competitive landscape for Untold Novel - Story Planner?
Where is it available?
Localized markets (20)
How's The Productivity Market?
How does it evolve in the Productivity market?
Untold Novel holds the #86 Paid position in the UK category, reflecting a niche but stable presence. The $14.99 price point positions it as a premium alternative to free-form note-taking apps.
Rank progression
1 active ranking tracked — 30-day window
Which niche is Untold Novel - Story Planner in?
Explore the full Writing Planners niche
Every app in this space — 3 tracked, the niche's live rankings, and Marlvel's editorial take on the job-to-be-done.
The rivals identified
Nemeses(1)
This is the only direct competitor in the qualified pool that shares the exact 'novel planning' niche and user intent.
Differentiators
- Provides dedicated character, location, and scene-tracking modules specifically for long-form fiction authors.
- Offers a structured 'story arc' visualization tool that guides writers through the narrative planning process.
- Maintains a specialized focus on the writing workflow rather than general-purpose note-taking or task management.
Head to head
The target app must double down on UX simplicity to differentiate from the feature-heavy, legacy-entrenched Story Planner.
Same space(4)
A legacy note-taking platform that serves as a general repository for research and brainstorming.
Differentiators
- Features powerful web-clipping tools that are highly effective for collecting research and inspiration for novels.
- Provides robust cross-platform search capabilities that help writers retrieve scattered notes across multiple devices.
A high-end note-taking tool favored by writers who prefer local-first, graph-based knowledge management.
Differentiators
- Utilizes a bi-directional linking system that allows writers to map complex character and plot relationships.
- Supports a vast plugin architecture that lets power users build custom novel-planning workflows from scratch.
A premium writing-focused tool that competes for the same professional author demographic.
Differentiators
- Provides a distraction-free, typewriter-style interface optimized for long-form drafting rather than just planning.
- Features seamless synchronization across Apple devices with a focus on professional-grade export and publishing formats.
A horizontal productivity giant that serves as a flexible, albeit unspecialized, alternative for writers.
Differentiators
- Offers a massive ecosystem of user-created templates specifically for novel planning and project management.
- Integrates powerful AI writing assistants directly into the note-taking environment for real-time drafting support.
New entrants(1)
High release velocity indicates an aggressive push into the creative planning space.
Differentiators
- Uses a visual, canvas-based interface that mimics a physical mood board for creative brainstorming.
- Allows for the free-form arrangement of images, notes, and links, which appeals to visual-first writers.
Compare Untold Novel - Story Planner against every rival
All rivals in one side-by-side table — identity, store metrics, ratings & sentiment, and strategic intel — plus a head-to-head page for each.
The outtake for Untold Novel - Story Planner
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Visual scene-crafting interface reduces cognitive load for complex narrative planning
- One-time purchase model lowers barrier to entry for professional writers
Critical Frictions
- Data-persistence bugs in character profiles erode trust in long-term project storage
- Manual word count tracking fails to register progress for active users
Growth Levers
- Expand character species options to capture the non-human protagonist fiction market
- Develop macOS integration to increase utility for desktop-based professional authors
Market Threats
- Story Planner's decade of domain-specific feature refinement creates a high switching cost
- Horizontal productivity platforms like Notion offer free, template-based alternatives to specialized planning tools
What are the next best moves?
Rebuild character data persistence logic because data loss is a top-reported blocker → increase long-term retention
User reviews explicitly cite data loss when adding character profiles to secondary books.
Trade-off: Delay the character species customization request — data integrity is a prerequisite for user trust.
Audit word count tracking module because manual input fails to register progress → improve daily usage metrics
Users report manual word count entries remain stuck at zero, breaking the feedback loop.
Trade-off: Pause the German translation maintenance — functional tracking is more critical to core utility.
A counter-intuitive read
The one-time purchase model is a strategic liability, as it prevents the recurring revenue necessary to fund the rapid iteration required to compete with Notion's template-driven ecosystem.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Real-time collaboration (available in Notion but absent here)
- Advanced scene-sequencing (available in Story Planner but absent here)
Key Takeaways
Untold Novel succeeds by offering a visual, specialized planning environment, but technical instability regarding data persistence threatens its long-term viability, so the PM must prioritize core reliability over new feature requests.
Where Is It Heading?
Mixed Signals
The novel-planning market is consolidating around tools that offer either deep specialization or extreme flexibility. Untold Novel remains exposed to technical friction that prevents it from fully capitalizing on its visual-first differentiator, so the PM must stabilize the core data architecture to prevent users from migrating to more stable, general-purpose platforms.
Data-persistence failures in character profiles create churn risk, which directly undermines the app's value as a reliable long-term planning hub.
Recent updates focused on bug fixes and translation, indicating a maintenance-heavy phase rather than aggressive feature expansion.