A better way to organize your writing
Storylines is a companion tool for writers. It doesn't replace your editor — it gives you a bird's-eye view of your story that no text editor can provide.
The idea
When you write a novel, a screenplay, or any long-form narrative, keeping track of what happens where, when, and to whom quickly becomes a challenge. You might use spreadsheets, sticky notes, or complicated outlining tools — but none of them stay in sync with your actual text.
Storylines takes a different approach. You keep writing in whatever editor you love — Ulysses, iA Writer, Obsidian, or any app that works with text files. Storylines reads your files, detects scenes automatically, and lets you organize and visualize them without ever touching your prose.
Think of it as a control room for your story. The writing happens in your editor. The organizing, analyzing, and visualizing happens in Storylines.
The workflow
Write in your favorite editor
You write your story as you always do — in the editor you're most comfortable with. Your files are stored in a folder on your computer. Nothing needs to change about how you write.
Each file can contain one scene or many. Storylines will figure out the structure for you.
Connect your folder
In Storylines, you create a project and point it at the folder where your files live. The app reads them directly from your computer using your browser's built-in file access — nothing is uploaded to a server. This requires a Chromium-based browser such as Chrome, Edge, Arc, or Opera.
Your text content stays completely local. Only the metadata you choose to organize (titles, timeline dates, characters, etc.) is stored in the cloud so you can access your project overview from anywhere.
Scenes are detected automatically
When you sync, Storylines analyzes your text and detects scene boundaries — places where the narrative shifts in time, location, or perspective. Each scene becomes an item you can organize.
Titles are generated from the opening lines of each scene. If the automatic detection isn't perfect, you can merge scenes, split them, or mark entire files as notes (reference material that isn't part of the narrative).
Add metadata to each scene
This is where Storylines shines. For each scene, you can set:
- Timeline — when does this scene take place? Set exact dates or approximate ranges.
- Characters — who is the POV character? Who else appears in the scene?
- Chapter — which chapter does this scene belong to?
- Location — where does the scene take place?
- Status — is it a draft, revised, or final?
- Links — connect scenes to show narrative flow.
All metadata is stored in a single _storylines.yaml file right next to your text files. It's human-readable and doesn't interfere with your writing.
Visualize your story
Switch to the timeline view and see your entire story laid out chronologically. Scenes appear as blocks on a horizontal timeline, grouped by character or chapter. Long time gaps are compressed automatically so you can see the overall rhythm without scrolling endlessly.
You can drag scenes to reschedule them, resize them to change duration, and draw connections between related events. The list view gives you a sortable, filterable table of every scene with all its metadata at a glance.
Keep writing, keep syncing
The workflow is iterative. You write a chapter, switch to Storylines and hit sync, see how it fits into the big picture, maybe rearrange some events or add timeline dates, then go back to writing.
Storylines never modifies your text files. It only reads them. The metadata lives separately. So there's zero risk of the tool interfering with your creative process.
What makes Storylines different
Your files, your editor
Storylines doesn't try to be a writing app. It reads your existing files and adds structure on top. No migration, no new editor to learn.
No lock-in
Your files are never modified. If you stop using Storylines tomorrow, everything is exactly as it was. The metadata file is human-readable too.
Smart scene detection
You don't need to manually tag every scene. Storylines analyzes your text and finds natural boundaries — then lets you adjust as needed.
Privacy first
Your text never leaves your computer. Only the metadata you organize (titles, dates, characters) is synced to the cloud for project access.
Who is it for?
Storylines is built for anyone writing long-form narrative — novelists, screenwriters, journalists working on long features, or anyone whose story has enough moving parts that you need help keeping track.
It's especially useful if you want to keep using your favorite editor, but need better tools for the structural side of storytelling: timelines, character tracking, chapter organization, and scene management.
Ready to try it?
Create a free account and connect your first project folder in minutes.