NovelShaft
Plan and write fiction with manuscript, notes and AI in one workspace
Fiction writing workspace keeping your manuscript, planning notes and AI conversations connected, with consistency checks against your world reference.
Pricing
$0 - $90/mo
- Free$0/mo
- Light$15/mo
- Standard$30/mo
- Pro$90/mo
From the vendor pricing page, 2026-09-13
About NovelShaft
NovelShaft is a fiction writing workspace that keeps a manuscript, its planning notes and the AI conversation about it in the same place. The problem it targets is specific to novelists using general AI chat: the useful thinking happens in a chat window, the actual book lives somewhere else, and the connection between them is copy and paste. NovelShaft treats the conversation as part of the project, so a discussion about what drives a character can be kept as reference material attached to the work rather than lost in a scrollback.
The structure has three parts that stay visible to each other. The manuscript holds chapters and their text. Reference material holds characters, the timeline and the rules of the world. Conversations sit alongside both, and what you choose from a conversation can be moved into the manuscript or into reference material rather than being retyped. AI observations can flag possible inconsistencies against that reference, though the vendor is careful to say this does not guarantee catching every one. Built in Japan with an explicit focus on light novel culture, it runs on the web and as an iPhone and iPad app sharing one account.
Start from a fragment: type or speak a character, a place or a line of dialogue. Explore it in conversation with the AI, then keep the parts worth keeping by moving them into the manuscript, the outline or the reference collection.
As the project grows, the outline shows where each chapter sits and the reference material holds the facts the story has to stay consistent with. Returning to a project gives you the draft, the material and the earlier conversations together, which is the point: the context does not have to be rebuilt each session.
Usage is metered in AI credits rather than messages, and the amount each action costs varies by model and by action. A new account gets 1,300 welcome credits on top of the regular 200, valid for the first thirty days, with no payment details required.
- •Manuscript, outline and reference in one workspace - Chapters, structure and world facts stay connected instead of living in separate documents.
- •Conversations that become project material - Keep a chosen passage from an AI conversation straight into the manuscript or reference, rather than copying it across by hand.
- •Consistency observations - AI can review a draft against the reference material and raise possible inconsistencies, with the vendor stating plainly that detection is not guaranteed.
- •Tiered model access - Lightweight models on Free, Standard added on paid tiers, and Advanced models only on Pro.
- •Credit based metering - Plans differ by monthly credits, reference storage, how much context the AI can draw on, and long response limits.
- •iPhone and iPad app - Shares an account with the web app, aimed at working on an idea away from the desk and continuing on a computer.
Aimed at novelists and serial fiction writers who want AI in the drafting process without giving up ownership of structure, particularly anyone working on a long project where continuity across chapters is the hard part. Light novel and web serial authors are the explicit target, and Japanese is a first class interface language rather than a translation.
Writers who want a whole book generated for them are not the audience, and the vendor says so directly in its own FAQ. Anyone needing a collaborative multi-author editor, or working mainly in a language other than Japanese or English, should check fit before committing. The MCP and CLI integrations are documented as in preparation rather than available.
Tags
Pricing
$0 - $90/mo
- Free$0/mo
- Light$15/mo
- Standard$30/mo
- Pro$90/mo
From the vendor pricing page, 2026-09-13
