Who is Fortelling for and what kinds of writing projects does it support?

Fortelling is a novel plotting and editing workspace for writers who need to manage a lot of story material in one place — characters, locations, timelines, lore, and the manuscript itself. It fits long-form fiction (novels, series), game and D&D campaign writing, and any project where notes are currently scattered across different apps. It is less suited to someone who only wants a plain text editor with no world-building structure.

Who it is built for

The tool is aimed at authors working on projects large enough that organization becomes the bottleneck. The site reports it is used by over 600,000 authors, and the published user quotes point in the same direction:

• Aria describes needing "a place to store research notes, lore and the story itself" for a massive project.
• Philippe Ruaudel frames it as "a workshop, a place to store my writing" that is available everywhere.
• Mymo in B♭ uses it to organize stories for "novels, games, and D&D campaigns" and specifically values no longer having "notes in all sorts of disparate places."

So the common thread is not genre but volume: many interconnected elements that need to stay linked while you draft.

What kinds of projects it supports

Because the workspace is built around reusable story elements plus plotting views, it supports:

• Novels and series — draft in the editor while keeping characters, settings, and continuity in the same workspace.
• Game and tabletop campaign writing — the character, species, item, and location tools map naturally onto worldbuilding for games and D&D.
• Multi-format storytelling — the same element library can serve prose, game material, and campaign notes, as the Mymo quote illustrates.

If your project is a single short piece with no recurring cast or setting, the plotting and linking tools add overhead you may not need.

The tools that define the use cases

Story elements and worldbuilding

Fortelling provides structured element types: Character, Character groups, Locations, Species, Items, Languages, plus custom tools for anything that doesn't fit. Elements can be linked to each other, which is what keeps a large cast and setting consistent instead of turning into a pile of disconnected notes.

Plotting and structure

• Timelines for ordering events.
• Pinboards for arranging and rearranging story beats.
• Custom templates (Pro) for repeating your own structures.

Writing and output

• An advanced book editor for the actual drafting.
• Version history and statistics & goals to track progress.
• Export to .docx.
• The site states you keep 100% ownership and that there is no artificial intelligence involved in the writing.

Collaboration

Real-time collaboration is supported, with editor and reader roles, plus a logbook and chat for working with others. This makes it usable for co-writing or for sharing a draft with beta readers inside the same workspace.

Platform and access considerations

Fortelling runs on Android, iOS, and Web, so you can move between phone and desktop. Note the tier difference: the free tier is described as "the price of a cup of coffee" and includes the mobile apps, default tools, pinboards, collaboration, ad-free use, and export, while desktop access, custom tools, custom templates, and the public wiki are listed under Pro at $7.49/month, or $74.99/year (a gift card option is also mentioned). If desktop access or custom tools matter to you, that is the deciding factor between tiers.

How to decide

Choose Fortelling if your project has enough characters, places, and plot threads that you already keep notes in multiple places, or if you want plotting views and a manuscript editor in one workspace with collaboration built in. Look elsewhere if you want a minimal drafting tool, or if you specifically want AI-assisted writing — the site states there is none.