Frequently Asked Questions

No. This website enforces a highly stringent policy where only the user who is logged in and has created something is allowed to access it. Even if you send a link to someone, they can’t see it unless they have your username and password. This goes for images and other uploads as well. This site is not meant to host images and files for others. It is meant for a single user to upload and use content during the writing process.

The one exception to this are Webpages. If you create an author website with Webpages, those are available to the public. It would be pretty useless if your site can’t be seen!

The creators of this site are very sensitive about their own work being seen too soon in the writing process. Therefore, that has been an essential feature of the site that will not change. We never see anyone’s stuff, even when we log in as the site administrator. We use a regular account to do our own writing.

Maybe. The creators of this site enjoy writing. We tried many apps out there and never found one he liked. We wanted one that allowed and encouraged the writer to jot down notes and grab images, links, and files quickly but also helped them take those items, refine them, and turn them into something structured, valuable, and easy to find for convient reference while writing.

Using Word Weaver Pro, the creators of this website have been more productive in three months than they had been in the last three years. An Idea they had been tinkering with now has structure and depth. It inspires them as they write with images and notes about their fictional world and encourages them to create and refine it day after day.

What was once blobs of text in a notes app, folders of images, and a vague outline took shape and became a structured story. No other tool was able to facilitate that as well as this one.

There are a couple ways.

One is to go ahead and make each story its own Project. This is most applicable if the short stories are are the longish side. However, you will not be able to export them all at once.

Another option is to create a Project that will contain all of them. Then build each Chapter like it was its own story, and the Scenes can be used as Chapters. Remember that Scenes can have headings, However, Scenes cannot have page breaks causing the short story chapters (Sections) to be inline.

If you would like us to add page breaks as an option for Scene breaks, let us know on the contact form.

Make sure you really want to delete it. You can also just make it inactive. Making something inactive is safer and will let you remove things from view without permanently deleting them. 

To permanently delete an item, it must be made inactive first. Then, view the item, and the delete option will appear.

You will see the trashcan in the top menu bar for most inactive items. On a Webpage, you will see the delete option in the toolbox once it is inactive.

Easy: multiple characters. For example, you can have three Characters representing the same person on the heroes’ journey: “Wizard (untrained),” “Wizard (in the magic academy),” and “Wizard (after Skull battle).”

You can then assign them all to the sections in your Project where they make sense. You might also create a Note called “Growth of the Wizard” with a Folder that puts all three in one place for easy reference and editing.

Another option would be just to add headings to a single Character.

Yes! You can use the link in the version and copyright display at the site’s footer, which goes to the changelog page.

Yes. Our awesomely cool status page is at https://status.wordweaver.pro.

You won’t need it since we never go down. Well… almost never.

You might want to bookmark it separately, just in case.

Yes. This site uses the latest in SSL (TLS 1.3) to connect. That means that all Internet traffic is highly encrypted until your browser shows it. The server runs behind a firewall and CDN and is on a very secure Linux server running up-to-date software. There are almost no external libraries.

The only external scripts are:

• The player for pages with a video (from the CDN that hosts the videos).
• Some text editor libraries from CKEditor (the text editing area tools).

The underlying content management system is open source and very secure. The server software and the CMS are updated with security patches at least weekly.

Passwords must meet a security requirement, and the user’s email is validated as being from a legit email provider. As long as you don’t give your username and password to someone, they won’t be able to see what you have on the site.

While there is no such thing as 100% security, the architecture of this site is highly secure.

You can see a privacy comparison with other products here.

They identify what item type an item is. To help you as you use the site, most areas that show items you have created will display an icon next to the title.

Occasionally, you might have things with similar or exactly the same names. For example, you could have a Location called "Space station" and a Resource also named "Space station" with things like photos, deckplans, and various you have collected online that can inspire you when giving life to your space station. The icons show you which item is which item type.

Here is what they represent:

• 
  Project
• 
  Character
• 
  Location
• 
  Chapter
• 
  Scene
• 
  Resource
• 
  Folder
• 
  Webpage

A Resource is intended to be used in three ways:

1. You can create a Resource any time you have an idea or find something you want to use later. This can be some text you want to write down while it is fresh in your memory, some images you have created or found on the web, a link to a website you want to keep, or files (such as Word documents or PDFs) you want to keep with your project. You can expand on and associate Resource to parts of your project later.
2. A Resource can hold details of a subject that is not a Character or Location.
3. Folders can be added to a Resource that allows you to organize your items. A folder can contain Characters, Locations, and other Resources.

A Resource cannot contain Characters, Locations, Sections, or Subsections. However, a Resource can contain Folders that can then contain Characters, Locations, and other Resource to help you organize your creations.

Projects are the primary way you organize things. Projects are used to contain Chapters, Subsections, Characters, Locations, and Notes.

Some examples of Projects are:

• A novel or short story.
• An adventure for a TTRPG.
• An episode for a TV series.*
• A comic book script.*

Projects are generally divided into Chapter and Scenes. Characters and Locations can also be associated directly with Chapters. For example, you can assign a Location and Characters to a Chapter specifically, not to the overall Project. You can organize things however makes sense for you.

In addition, items also exist outside the Project. For example, you can assign a Character you created in one Project, and use them in another. Only one of each Character exists in that case. If you edit a Character, those changes apply everywhere on the site.

*Scripts have a format very different from a typical novel manuscript. The script formatting is being worked on and is not yet currently available.

Word Weaver Pro utilizes these great products and services.

Code

Drupal 11.2

Bootstrap 5.3

CKEditor 5

Sienna Accessibility Widget

Along with many others too numerous to list.

Services

Linode

Bunny.net

GitHub

Pulsetic

Fonts

Public Sans

Fraunces

Bootstrap Icons

OpenDyslexic

A web app for writers of fiction. Word Weaver Pro is an innovative writing tool for fiction writers. It organizes and inspires, letting your creative efforts flow. 

The focus is on the most essential part of writing: creating a well-organized, effective, and inspired manuscript.

We love this quote. The idea of the texture of words is fascinating.

Thought is a thread, and the raconteur is a spinner of yarns - but the true storyteller, the poet, is a weaver. The scribes made this old and audible abstraction into a new and visible fact. After long practice, their work took on such an even, flexible texture that they called the written page a textus, which means cloth.

— Robert Bringhurst The Elements of Typographic Style

Elsewhere. We use AI ourselves to create images of characters for use while we are writing, or to mock up a cover. Never for publication, however. To us, having a unique image that is tailored to our vision for a character is invaluable.

We have contemplated integrating some AI features into Word Weaver Pro, but it would be a monumental task. And really, why? We have a great iOS app that we use to create an image, which we then import into Word Weaver Pro for further use.

In addition, using AI is inherently insecure. When you use it, all your writing is sent and stored in a database we have no control over. For example, Grammarly actually stores parts of your writing indefinitely. As privacy is a big issue here, we don’t allow any information to be stored at any third party.

Each author can use whatever AI tools they want, of course. Instead of doing it in Word Weaver Pro, you can use another provider and then import the results into your work.

There is a lot of debate on AI as it applies to copyright and being truly “original.” Word Weaver Pro is all about human creativity in the written word, and it always will be.

First, we recommend looking at the Quick Start tutorial.

You build your work in components. Writing and editing as you go.

• Create a story or novel (Project)
• In the Project, create your first Chapter
• You enter the chapter right there.
• You can also add separate Scenes to allow you to outline and rearrange scenes.

This illustration shows the breakdown of a simple chapter with three scenes (the first one in the Chapter text, and two added as Scenes).

You can turn these options by going into your account using the “My account” link in the footer, and editing your account.

We are working on it! We have the basics in place; it is just a matter of determining and recording if a Section or Subsection will appear in screenwriting format. We would really like to avoid checking a box for every item. We are considering a setting per user. The user setting may set the default for all Sections and Subsections being created, but it could be overridden.

The only issue with it being per user is someone working on both a novel and screenplay simultaneously. Does that even happen? Somehow, we don’t think so.

Look for that new feature by the third quarter of 2026.

Because… reasons. The creators of Word Weaver Pro gave this significant consideration. Apps have the advantage of working anywhere, even without an Internet connection. A website works on any device you can use, even someone else’s device, as long as you have an Internet connection.

It boiled down to a few key factors that have changed in recent years:

• Almost everyone pretty much has Internet access everywhere.
• Mobile browsers are now very capable and performant.
• A website can perform as well as apps can.
• With a website, you can use any reasonably modern browser from anywhere in the world to do your work.
• You won’t lose anything in a “sync.”
• You often can’t log into your Apple or Google account to install an app on a device you might be borrowing.

Warning, developer rant: To have an app that anyone could use means developing one for macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. That is three app stores to manage and submit new versions for approval before people can benefit from new features and fixes. That is also four times the potential bugs and issues. 

In addition, as anyone who develops on mobile will tell you, there are enough differences between various devices (particularly on Andriod) and screen sizes that you need to do a lot of testing every time a new version is being prepared. On the web, there are four browsers: Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Chrome. They are so good and similar these days that it’s extremely rare to have one incompatible with a website.

Finally, there is no practical way to have a common code-base for all these environments without it being an app built in some flavor of JavaScript, aka a website.

Inspiration. From our experience, as well as listening to interviews and speaking with many authors, having an image of the characters and locations while writing is a huge help. You can almost hear the dialog, and it helps to be able to see one character through another character’s eyes. 

Some of us had been using Pinterest and adding personal notes to various images as a starting point for many characters, locations, and specific scenes. However, that is really limited, and if the creator of the pin removes it, you lose your notes. That only happened a couple of times before we moved to another tool.

That was the original version of Word Weaver Pro. It started as a personal tool to organize things beyond some social media sites and our phone’s notepad full of blobs of text. We looked for a tool to help and tried a bunch (including some costly ones), but none fit how we wanted it to work.

Since then, others have used the site, and we have refined and built it into the web application you see today.