Plot grid maker

How the grid reads your book

Each row is a chapter, 1 to the last, with an optional title. Each column is a plot line: one of the timeline's tracks, so a character, a subplot or a mystery thread. A card is an event: it sits in the row of its chapter and the column of its plot line, and cards in one cell are listed in scene order. An event on two plot lines (a scene where the romance and the mystery meet) has a card in both columns, drawn with a dashed edge and an also on line naming the other; it is still one event, and editing either card edits both. Events with no chapter (backstory, or ideas not placed yet) wait in the Unplaced row at the bottom.

Tap an empty cell to add an event there: it gets that chapter and that plot line, and you type its title. Tap a card to edit it, or use Move to… in its editor to send it to another chapter and plot line; with a mouse you can drag it to any cell instead. Moving changes the chapter and the plot line, nothing else. Tap a chapter to give it a title, insert a chapter before or after it, or delete it; tap a plot line's name to rename it, recolour it or move it left or right. On a phone the grid shows two plot lines at a time beside the chapter numbers; the arrows above it step through the rest.

The example is an invented novel, The Orchard Under Glass: 16 chapters across 5 plot lines, 34 events, 3 of them unplaced backstory. Read down a column and a thread's gaps show: Who sets the fires goes quiet for chapters 7 to 9, and chapter 13 fills only 2 of its 5 cells.

One file with the timeline

There is no separate plot grid file. The grid is drawn from the timeline kept by the timeline for writers: the chapters are its events' chapter numbers, the plot lines its tracks. Plan here, then switch to the timeline to see the same events in year order and the flashbacks flagged, and back. If this browser also holds a timeline from the story timeline or the worldbuilding timeline, a picker above the grid lets you lay out that one instead.

Save file writes the same dankstory-timeline file those pages save and open. Chapter titles and empty chapters are kept in it since file version 5, which an older copy of the timeline pages (an old tab left open, say) refuses rather than half-reads. A damaged file, a different kind of file, or one from a newer version is refused with a message and never replaces your work.

Exports

PNG (twice the screen size) and SVG (fonts inside) draw the whole grid, every plot line, whatever a phone shows. Print fits it on one A4 or Letter sheet, on a poster size, or across several sheets with a map to tape them together; save as PDF from the print dialog. Save as spreadsheet (CSV) gives one row per chapter and one column per plot line, each cell listing its events' titles one per line, for Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice.

Story structure over your chapters

Tap Structure and pick one: three acts, the hero's journey, seven-point, Freytag's pyramid, kishōtenketsu, or custom, your own beats as names and percentages. Each beat becomes a red band across the grid above the chapter where it falls, and the list beside it says, for example, Midpoint shift: Chapter 12 (of 24), about 50 %. A beat whose chapter has no event on any plot line yet is marked nothing happens here yet: that is the gap to fill.

How a beat finds its chapter. A beat at p % lands in the first chapter whose end reaches p % of the book. By chapter count that is p × chapters ÷ 100, rounded up: in 24 chapters the midpoint (50 %) is chapter 12 and a 12 % beat is chapter 3 (2.88, rounded up); in 37 chapters the midpoint is chapter 19 (18.5, rounded up). Chapters are rarely the same length, so give every chapter its word count (tap the chapter) and the beats follow the words instead: with three chapters of 6,000, 2,000 and 2,000 words, the midpoint (word 5,000 of 10,000) falls in chapter 1, where by count it would be chapter 2. The total shows under the grid.

Where the percentages come from. They are common conventions, not rules, and writers move them freely. Three acts and the hero's journey: the beat sheets on bookwriter.vip/story-structure-beat-sheet (1, 12, 25, 50, 75, 88 and 99 %). Seven-point: countingstarsheep.com/what-is-the-7-point-plot-structure (10, 25, 40, 50, 60, 75 and 90 %; its short list says 70 % for the second plot turn, its section on that turn says 75 %). Freytag's pyramid: editorworld.com/article/freytags-pyramid, which names five parts with the climax in the middle but gives no percentages, so the parts are taken as equal fifths (0, 20, 50, 60, 80 %). Kishōtenketsu: Wikipedia, four parts with the twist in the third and no percentages, so equal quarters (0, 25, 50, 75 %). All four pages were fetched on 15 October 2026.

The structure and the word counts are saved in the same timeline file, as two optional fields; a file without them opens and saves exactly as before. They print and export with the grid.

A blank outline to fill in by hand

Print a blank outline (in the bar above the grid, or under the start buttons before you have one) makes a sheet for pen and paper, sized to your book rather than a fixed template: 1 to 200 chapters, one ruled row each with the chapter number, a line for its title and a box per plot line. The plot-line columns can be blank, named as you type them, or the plot lines of the open grid. Pick a structure and its beats are written in the left margin of the rows where they fall, by the same rule as above: with 37 chapters and three acts, the inciting incident (12 %) is on chapter 5 (4.44, rounded up) and the midpoint on chapter 19. Choose A4 or US Letter, portrait or landscape, and how much room a chapter gets (9, 13 or 20 mm a row); the preview shows each page as it will print.

Every page repeats the header: the title, which chapters and plot lines it holds, and the page number. A chapter is never split: rows fill a page and the next page starts with the next chapter, so each chapter is on exactly one page. A row with several beats in its margin grows to fit them. A page holds at most 6 plot-line columns (you can ask for fewer). More than six plot lines are split into sets of six, 1–6, 7–12 and so on, and each run of chapters is printed once per set, those pages one after another, so you can lay them side by side; 13 plot lines over 37 chapters on A4 landscape make three pages for each run of chapters. PNG and SVG save the first page on white paper, with the fonts inside the SVG.

What it cannot do yet

• No writing space: it plans the book, it does not hold the text. To sketch the whole story's arc on one page first (exposition to resolution, or a story mountain), use the plot diagram maker. Word counts are numbers you type in per chapter; this page does not read a manuscript. The manuscript word counter opens your .docx, .odt, .md or .txt file and lists the words in each chapter, to type in here. To keep a daily log of the words you write against a goal and a deadline, use the word count tracker.
• Structure beats are placed by percentage only: they show where a turning point usually falls, not whether your chapter delivers one. Beats whose chapter is empty are flagged; nothing else is judged.
• Scenes inside a chapter are listed in scene order only; to reorder them, change their scene numbers.
• An event has one chapter: a scene that runs across two chapters is two events.
• Every event on a timeline has a year. A card added here takes the year of the scene told before it (or year 1 of the first era in an empty grid) until you give it its own.
• Full dates with a month and day, characters and their ages, eras and dating systems are edited on the timeline pages, not here; the grid keeps them as they are.
• Dragging needs a mouse or trackpad; on a touch screen use Move to….
• The CSV is an export only and leaves out the Unplaced row, notes and POVs; Save file keeps everything.
• A copy of this page or the timeline pages opened before story structures existed (an old tab left open) opens a file that has one, but drops the structure and the word counts if it saves.
• The blank outline is for writing on by hand: it takes 1 to 200 chapters and at most 40 plot lines, places beats by chapter count only (a blank sheet has no word counts), offers the five built-in structures but not custom beats, and prints no chapter titles or events from the grid, only its plot-line names when you ask for them. PNG and SVG save its first page only; to keep every page, print to PDF.
• At most 40 plot lines, 9,999 chapters and 24 custom beats. No AI: it never writes or suggests anything.

Private by design

No account and no upload. The grid is saved in this browser on every change, and nothing you type leaves your device.