Fortelling - Writer Tools Reviews

I have been looking for an app like this for a long time. Right away, you can see it has a very clear, easily navigated design and setup, not like some other story planning apps which glitch all the time and look messy. What I love the most is that it is extremely comprehensive. All the story elements that you could need have some place in here and you can create and describe them here at length, even different of magical creatures. For each character there are prompts (name, DOB, eye color, etc) to describe them but they also have some deeper ones (morals, secrets, childhood, etc) which really helped me further develop and round out my characters. Perhaps my favorite feauture, however, is the linking: for any element of the story (characters, items, settings, etc) you can link one to any another and title it (Friends, working partners, estranged siblings, etc). Then you have the option to write the POV/perspective from each linked element in regards to the link itself. That feature has been incredibly useful in pulling together my story. Finally, probably my second favorite feature is the way you can make multiple timelines (plotlines) and write, add, and arrange events in each one. Usually I would do that on paper but being able to move events around and add indefinitely is awesome.
Overall, best story planning app I have ever encountered, and I would recommend to any storyteller who needs to outline a story.

Initially it was much faster but now it seems to be a but delayed when you tap certain options etc. At first it was something similar to lagging because of my connected to wifi but ive had other associates use Fortelling and they say they also have an issue with it taking a moment to load or just staying stuck on a particular screen for a moment (ex: lets say you open Fortelling , sometimes youll get a black screen for a min before it actually loads). This is just an app issue from what ive seen though! Tbh it still works great on the web (i have the paid version so im able to access my story notes on the web thankfully through Fortelling).

Fortelling organizes EVERYTHING. I’ve tried lots of apps before, and they never have as much detail as I’m looking for. Fortelling makes everything so simple. It has timelines, characters, locations, languages, species and more. Everything is so perfectly sorted. There are even little drop-downs when you click to add more information to the character. It creates the subject for you (for example, personality or history) and you just type in the answer that fits the character. You can even make character groups. Fortelling is so amazing, I recommend it very much. It has helped me so much in writing my book, and it helped me easily find where everything I needed was.

Im going to keep this review short and sweet so I can go back to writing more in it.

As someone with ADHD attempting to write a story and organize the mess that is holding a story in my head and making sense of it, there is finally an app that solved everything I need for this problem. Not only is it a sort of MindMapper via Boards, every feature meshes together and works beautifully. Its like a personal wiki that I can also creat a story board with and connect two elements together. Absolutely invaluable app used to help me create stories Im passionate about and finally hold them somewhere and organize them.

Dear Devs,
I app is really intuitive, UXUI is great and there are many cool features BUT.. do writers own their intellectual property? Reading your privacy notices makes it seem like we DO NOT. Is Fortelling even safe for writers to use?

My sister recommended this to me when I finally felt comfortable of sharing a story that I have been working on in my head for years. I very recently found out she was making a stories- well at least characters. There’s a lot of stuff to fill out, it’s a bit overwhelming at first but its worth it in the long-run, but I think it’ll be nice to have little descriptions for some of the fill-outs.

I definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a app or any way to organize their story!

Well done! Fortelling is great for visual learners like me. Having everything laid out before me makes writing my book so much easier. Fortelling allows you to make in depth descriptions about your characters and settings. Not only that but they have a timeline section so it’s easy to plan out how your book will flow. If you find it hard to constantly be writing, they have a goals section, too! Anyway, I don’t wanna sound like I’m sponsernd by them or anything (lol) but Fortelling is definitely worth it! 😁

Fortelling was SOOO useful to me. I’ve been using it for months. The tools it offers, even in just the free version, are spectacular, and I’ve recommended it to all my friends.

I do have one small issue though.

I know that I had an account on Fortelling— it’s required to make one to use it in the first place, after all. But recently, I transferred my data over to a new iPhone. This is one of the only apps that did not keep me logged into my account. “No sweat,” I thought, “I’ll just log in again.”

Well, this ended up becoming a problem. I tried every email I own, with all the passwords I could muster, and each time, without fail, Fortelling tried to make me create a new account with said emails. This is beyond frustrating, as I had 4 projects on Fortelling, 2 of which had a LOT of info in them, and I cannot find a way to get into my account!!! Again, Fortelling is great, but I am beyond stressed right now thanks to this.

One of my best decisions was getting Fortelling. It helps organise different layers of story elements to really give you that well-developed aspect to anything you write. Fortelling itself is seamless and every detail is smooth and crisp. I absolutely love being able to have a detailed digital story board and a connection to all events, people, places, etc. I highly recommend to anyone, writer or otherwise.

Honestly, Fortelling is awesome. If it weren't for the fact that they decided to make the desktop version paid, I would have given five stars. These kinds of greedy decisions are the bane of our existence. A better decision would have been to add extra features and remove ads with a paid subscription, rather than handicapping the user unless they pay. This is right up there with “free” apps that force you to pay a subscription fee to use them.

Do we have the rights to our intellectual property? I never use apps and tend to use paper for writing but decided to try it. Always afraid anything we write no longer belongs to us.

I’m really not capable of actually writing on mobile. I need a proper keyboard for that. Note-taking is fine, but it’s completely unfair to restrict the web app to Pro users- especially because it lets me log in, and doesn’t hit me with the “This Feature is Restricted To Paying Subscribers” until I actually attempt to click on one of my projects.

Needs an auto save feature, even if you don’t close out of Fortelling and leave it open in the background while opening another app it will delete all of your writing. Lost an hours worth of writing to search a word and definition on safari.. went back to the open app to finish a paragraph and all of the writing I spent all my time on was gone..

I have lost so many crucial notes I’ve taken in Fortelling because I closed it without going out of my way to save it simply because other apps I use have autosave features. Other than that it’s fine, please implement autosave.

I was in a bit of a jam trying to come up with a campaign for the DnD Event I was Dungeon Mastering. Fortelling’s features really helped me with its character and world-building features. Really Nice App!!!

Honestly, is there anything else to say? I need a way to organize my messy ideas, and Fortelling works well!

I have always hate writing reviews…but Fortelling make me want to.
Fortelling is great for people who are experiencing writers block!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 6/5 ⭐️’s

I really love Fortelling, it's seriously helping me to organize my novel, but I can only upload one photo at a time.

Just downloaded tonight, and Fortelling is the best writing app I’ve found on mobile devices. Thanks a ton, devs!

Free version works great for organizing my story, I haven’t used everything but for goals and chapters organization it’s been great.

I downloaded this app out of desperation, trying to find a space where I could flesh out my characters the way I wanted, and was instantly overwhelmed. I nearly deleted Fortelling but decided last minute to keep it and keep trying, and goodness was that a great choice. There is so much I can do with Fortelling, I haven’t even scratched the surface! I can create my characters by answering the premade questions and then if I have anything else I want to add, I can just add more sections. The timeline tool is ALSO very handy, giving me a space to work out my stories’ plots. The ‘LINK’ ability is also amazing because it allows me to connect my characters, leading to clear character relationship references. Oh course, every app has it’s issues. There was an issue where Fortelling wouldn’t let me delete an accidental project, no matter if I was connected to the WiFi or not, so I reported it to the developers and the issue was corrected within a few days.

I actually really enjoy Fortelling and I think there’s a lot of good here, but there’s a couple of bugs that really need to be fixed. If I’m trying to delete a member from a character group, the whole app freezes and goes gray and the only thing I can do is close Fortelling and nothing is deleted. The other thing is Fortelling reloads constantly. If I click off of it for a moment to answer a text, Fortelling will reload and anything that wasn’t saved is lost. Obviously I don’t expect Fortelling to stay open for hours or anything, but it shouldn’t reload in under a minute, no other app I have does that. It’s so useful and better than any writing organization app I’ve used thus far, but it does need some big fixes.

Love Fortelling to death but for some reason I’m unable to do things cuz it keeps crashing? Like, I accidentally added a note to a character but everytime I try to unlink it Fortelling crashes. Like what?

I really like Fortelling , it’s a great way to plan out novels. I mostly use it to keep track of future ideas, or ideas that I’ve put to the side. If I were to complain about anything, it’s that sometimes, you hit the “Save” button, and it will continually making the character/book until you hit “x”. Which prompts Fortelling to ask if you’re sure. So, you’ve got to agree and then go in and delete duplicates. I also dislike how it sometimes freezes.

However, having said my few complaints, I love the ability to swap from my iPad to my cellphone. It means that if I’m looking for a quick thought, I can just open up Fortelling on my phone (with the free version too). I really like the fact that I can create multiple projects, with covers—which helps me keep track of things I’ve always tried to keep track of in Google Docs.

You can create and plan your story here using visuals and words. You can create an outline, your characters, build your world, and make an proper plotted outline before you even start your book. I’m glad I found this for iPad. I have Scrivener, but I find this much easier to use and navigate, visually. It has most of the things already there instead of staring at a blank screen. It helps me stay organized and more focused, which is great, because I have ADHD. The only thing you would be paying for is to get rid of ads, I believe which, I’m ok with. The only thing that I don’t like is that you need internet in order to actually do any actual, “writing.” Ugh. So now I need internet at home because I’m better at night. So that’s unfortunate. But overall, I like this application program.

I’m beyond shocked Fortelling doesn’t have more ratings. I haven’t used it for the purpose of plotting a novel but for worldbuilding, if you have a large world, it’s perfect. Like, it’s truly everything you need. And the developers are always adding more and improving it. I’m on Fortelling like daily. Very intuitive design. I never find myself thinking “I wish it had this,” because it always does!

There’s nothing bad about Fortelling. It’s amazing. It doesn’t even need a subscription!! It has every feature you could want, such as characters, and detailed descriptions, image gallery, boards, notes, truly EVERYTHING you’ll need to make your story yours!! I definitely recommend it, as there is no other story planning app out there better than it!

…because my complaints about Fortelling are so minor in comparison to all the things I love about it.

Fortelling has everything you need in one place to write whatever you’re working on. It’s like carrying a well-organized little writing notebook in my pocket, so I can write on the go, but it can also be used on a bigger screen.

The two things that are slightly annoying:
1) Even in dark mode, the keyboard is so bright!
2) On the desktop version, you can’t highlight properly to cut/copy/paste/delete. It’s like the cursor skips to another line when you try to.

If not for those two things, Fortelling would be perfect.

It was so good and helpful to used and helped my best weakness in character development. It also helped me organize my character groups and timeline of events. This has helped my with my four stories I’m writing as of right now. It is amazing and I recommend.

There is no offline mode that works with Fortelling. It’s online only for anything to be saved. You’re better off trying another app.

Even if it was possible, it’s not explained. The description should be clear that it is used online only. I believe I wasted time trying to get it to work. I found a better app that can work both offline and online making it easier to do work when there’s no internet.

I like Fortelling a lot, however the rigidness with "base" settings of things like characters and places, even after paying for the premium is very frustrating. I'd like to be able to organize the way I like things, delete parts or sections I won't use or aren't relevant, and be able to add "members" section from character groups to other things like species.

Chapters, writing goals, timelines and events, boards, notes, labels, image gallery, dictionary, all that for free. I’ve only had it downloaded for a day or so, but it seems quite useful.