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Plottr is a popular visual book outlining and story management software used by thousands of professional, aspiring, and debut authors and creative writers to stay organized and successfully finish writing their books.
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Plottr offers professional and aspiring authors a flexible and intuitive program for visually planning and organizing their stories, including:
If you’re ready to organize the story ideas rampaging through your head, then check out Plottr and why it is rated the #1 outlining software by Kindlepreneur.
We had the chance to interview Mr. Cameron Sutter, the founder, and CTO of Plottr, as part of our exploration of the newest trends in business. We learned that one of the main pillars of a company’s success is its ability to comprehend the consumer and meet their specific needs.
Continue reading to learn how Plottr, the brainchild of a software engineer, helped him become an entrepreneur. Learn more about the software, its features, and its effects in the current situation. The future of Plottr was another topic we covered.
Also, Mr. Cameron Sutter has some advice for upcoming entrepreneurs. Read on to get some great insights.
Listen to Mr. Sutter’s motivating story in his own words!
“Keep on, keeping on.” No matter what’s going on in my life, if I’m patient and diligent and focus on doing just a little bit of work at a time, I know I’ll keep pushing forward and eventually reach my goal.
We were fortunate, as we have been fully remote since before Covid-19 started, so there was not much of an adjustment in terms of our working environment. Along with that, we’ve made sure our team knows that their well-being comes first, and we encourage them to make health-conscious decisions.
Our team has largely stayed healthy since the pandemic started, which has allowed us to continue developing Plottr and serving our audience without much disruption.
Our readers are keen to know what prompted you to create Plottr. Tell us about your journey so far.
I started building Plottr in 2014 to help me write my first Young Adult novel, as I was having a lot of trouble creating an outline and organizing my story ideas. I’m a software engineer, so I created the perfect tool for my process. So, between my six kids, wife, and full-time engineering job, I started working on Plottr on the side.
After a couple of years, I released a free beta version – and the positive feedback from that really gave me the hope and encouragement to keep going. A couple of years after that, I started selling the software, and then in late 2019 I found an awesome business partner (Ryan Zee) and quit my job to work on Plottr full-time… just before the pandemic started.
We relaunched Plottr in May 2020, starting with about 1,000 existing customers. We just passed 20,000 customers in January of this year, about two and a half years later. It’s been quite the adventure!
Just about everyone’s favorite feature in Plottr is the Timeline, a story-optimized grid where you visually outline and organize your story ideas using scene cards. It’s like organizing index cards on a fancy digital corkboard – you can easily visualize different ways of constructing (or revising) your books. You can drag and drop cards across plotlines and chapters, organize them by color, filter by story elements, and even export your work to Microsoft Word and Scrivener. There’s so much you can do with the Timeline to craft your stories.
Plottr also has more than 30 proven plot templates, like Hero’s Journey and Romancing the Beat, to help you outline or revise your books. Our templates cover just about every genre, from romance to suspense, horror, fantasy, and beyond, so there’s something for everyone. They include detailed descriptions and suggestions, so they’re a really powerful tool for writers interested in learning the craft of outlining books and those who need guidance restructuring an existing work.
Our series bible functionality is also really powerful. You can actually use Plottr to organize all of the books in your series in one file. That means not just the plot of those stories but also the character and location details. For example, you can track custom character data, organize characters by role on a per-book basis, and even use built-in templates to help you think through their psychology.
We have a long list of features we’re working on, many of which users suggest to us on our public roadmap. Some of these include advanced worldbuilding functionality, new templates, or new ways of visualizing story details.
While Plottr is primarily known for serving fiction writers, we also make enhancements to help writers better organize works in other mediums, like narrative nonfiction and academic writing or even blog writing.
The aim of Plottr is to help writers plan and organize their writing to the greatest extent possible, and we will continue to keep our focus there.
We have so many ideas for features that will help storytellers organize and visualize their books in new ways, and we’re really focused on making Plottr the best tool it can be.
But we also have plans to serve the writing community in other ways. Last year, for example, we ran a few intensive workshops for writers exploring craft subjects like Three Act Structure, and we plan to expand those offerings this year and into the future.
We are also developing a related track of events to help writers advance their careers in some very practical ways. We will always strive to be a vital partner in the success of the writers who use Plottr – and we will continue to listen and adapt as needed.
We believe strongly in creating a culture of over-delivering and exceeding expectations – and we do that primarily by focusing really intently on the customer experience and listening to feedback. That includes customer support, in-app feedback, NPS surveys, public reviews, annual feedback surveys, Facebook Group comments, YouTube comments, and so on.
By listening intently and asking questions, we have acquired a very good sense of what our customers and prospective customers want from us. We spend a lot of time thinking through that data to develop Plottr and get the product details right.
As a result, when we have a new release, we often have customers share that they were just thinking about wanting this exact feature or that the feature solved a problem they were just having. That’s always really cool to hear.
It’s not for everyone. There will be serious ups and downs, and the adventure may not be what you expect. It’s definitely not what I expected!
But if you have a good idea and surround yourself with talented people you can trust, stay focused on what you can control, and don’t try to do it all by yourself, then you never know what you can create.
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"The ability to move ideas and scenes without copying and pasting is wonderful. Sometimes, after I start writing, I realize a scene of a chapter would work better in a different place, and Plottr makes it easy to change my outline."
"Good UI, frequent updates (but not intrusive). Great features, and makes it easy to see how all the parts of a story are linked together. You can also add fields/templates of your own so you have everything set up exactly the way you want it. "
"How basic it is fundamentally. You can start with something very small and not fel like you have to fill all these different fields and features. But as you develop, there is so much room for extensive organization!"
"Plottr isn't as intuitive as it could be. After two years of using the software weekly, I am still learning. "
"I can only think of 1 con: There's a lot to learn when you get started - but they have great videos up that make that almost a non-issue. I've also seen them release videos on new features that come with the updates. "
"I would like to see the ability to have one card split/shared between two timelines"
Charlene-Amsden.com
author
Used the software for : 1-2 years (Weekly)
Company Size :1-10 employees
Plottr has helped me organize my ideas in a way that is easy to understand and follow. The outline templates are a huge help in remembering the important story components. The ability to plan an entire series with interconnected characters in one place and see each different storyline is priceless. Before Plottr, I had notebooks and scattered pieces of paper, which led to scattered ideas. Plottr keeps me organized and more productive. I use Plottr in conjunction with Scrivener, and the ability to import my outline and have the chapters and scenes already blocked is a major timesaver.
Plottr IOS App Experience
Plottr After Sales Service Rating
The ability to move ideas and scenes without copying and pasting is wonderful. Sometimes, after I start writing, I realize a scene of a chapter would work better in a different place, and Plottr makes it easy to change my outline.
Plottr isn't as intuitive as it could be. After two years of using the software weekly, I am still learning.
The feature I would have asked for - the ability to designate different characters as main or supporting depending on which book one is working on in the series, has just been released, so I am still tickled pink and haven't yet come upon another, "I wish."
I tried to plot in Scrivenr, but unlike Plottr, I can't see everything in one place. I also tried using MS Word, but there were too many folders and tabs to keep track of. Plottr makes it easy to quickly reference a character, place, or scene without having to search any further thsn the menu at the left of the manuscript.
Brandy
Writer
Used the software for : 6-12 months (Daily)
Company Size :1-10 employees
It's great to have so many things in one place and Plottr to help visualize it all. It was a nice surprise to discover that they make instructional videos! It was so helpful to get started since there are a lot of tools to learn how to use. They make it easy, and I also like the UI (I get annoyed very easily when it's bad or not intuitive).
Plottr Mobile App Experience
Plottr After Sales Service Rating
Good UI, frequent updates (but not intrusive). Great features, and makes it easy to see how all the parts of a story are linked together. You can also add fields/templates of your own so you have everything set up exactly the way you want it.
I can only think of 1 con: There's a lot to learn when you get started - but they have great videos up that make that almost a non-issue. I've also seen them release videos on new features that come with the updates.
The only thing I would want is the ability to actually write my draft in the same program, but with the ability to export to Scrivener - it's not much of an obstacle! I just feel bad using anything else because of how much I like Plottr. XD
Scrivener. Campfire/Campfire Blaze.
Natalie B.
Novelist
Used the software for : Less than 6 months (Daily)
Company Size :1-10 employees
Verified By :
I write fiction and always struggle to put down the stories in a more visual way. Plottr has been perfect for visualizing plots and character arcs! I can see everything at a glance but also go deeper into levels of greater detail. I sometimes wish for more features (for example, having one card split/shared between two lines), but overall, I have been extremely pleased with it!
Plottr Mobile App Experience
Plottr After Sales Service Rating
How basic it is fundamentally. You can start with something very small and not fel like you have to fill all these different fields and features. But as you develop, there is so much room for extensive organization!
I would like to see the ability to have one card split/shared between two timelines
Again, having a way for items to overlap timelines
Michelle S.
Writer
Used the software for : Less than 6 months (Daily)
Company Size :1-10 employees
I'm a pantser, and I own it... Plotter has helped me make sense of what I'm writing. Plottr helps me keep track of timelines and provides useful features like outline synopsis, character bios, and notes... I lose touch with all the things after a few weeks of writing. I find Plottr easy to use: it only takes me a few minutes after a writing session: I fill in the details and can see the big picture.
Plottr Mobile App Experience
Plottr After Sales Service Rating
The timeline feature has made it easy for me to organize the pieces I write into the plot.
I'd appreciate a better way of tracking the changing seasons/months as I am writing a novel that covers several months and changes in winter (from winter blizzard to Spring). The novel is set in the Pandemic, and I'd also like a feature that could track the changing covid-19 protocols over the months.
Ability to track Seasons and external events like changing pandemic protocols and requirements (masking, vaccination, passports etc)
Antony D.
Author
Used the software for : 1-2 years (Weekly)
Company Size :1-10 employees
I have always outlined and frequently got bogged down by the outlining process in other programs, especially linear ones. Manual cards are tiresome, expensive if you often re-draft your plot, and take up room. The plotter is perfect for people like me who need to see the whole project and often have to tweak bits and pieces here and there. Seeing it all laid out gives me the confidence to get on with writing, and the export-to-Scrivener tool is brilliant. The most useful plotting software that gives me for my novel outline is the software I find most useful for drafting.
Plottr Mobile App Experience
Plottr After Sales Service Rating
Ease of use, the visual way it presents the plot in a format I choose.
A project find/replace would be useful so I can alter a name throughout the whole project.
Perhaps an import feature from Scrivener?
Novlr, some scrivener features, manual cards
The starting price of Plottr is $ 25/Per Year. It has different pricing plans:
Plottr also provides a free trial to users.
The top 5 features for Plottr are: