Dabble

Dabble holds a manuscript, its outline and its story notes in one place, with a plot grid you can open alongside the chapter you are writing. It syncs to a phone, which matters more than it sounds when the useful idea arrives away from the desk. Everything you wrote stays readable and exportable after you stop paying.

Writer is $19 a month for unlimited manuscripts, cloud backup and the plot grid. Author is $29 and adds the editing tools. Bestseller is $49. Lifetime Author access is $699, which the page describes as paying for two years up front to keep it forever. The 14-day trial needs no card. The important line is in the FAQ rather than on the cards: your work stays readable and exportable after you cancel, which is not true of every writing app.

Novelists who plan, and who want the outline and the prose in one tool instead of a document beside a spreadsheet. Anybody writing short pieces will find it far more structure than the job needs.