Introducing Rule of Words
A workspace built around how novelists actually work
Most writing tools fall into one of two camps. Word processors that don't understand story structure, and AI tools that want to write your book for you.
Rule of Words is neither.
It is a structured writing workspace designed specifically for long-form fiction. Your manuscript lives in chapters and scenes that you can drag to reorder. Your characters have deep profiles with over twenty fields - and a progression system that tracks how they change scene by scene. Your plot threads are tracked from the moment they are planted to the moment they are resolved.
What makes it different
Character progressions are something no other writing tool offers. When you are writing Chapter 14, the AI assistant knows that your protagonist has been carrying guilt since Chapter 8 and that the confrontation with the antagonist in Chapter 12 changed his outlook. It does not just know who your characters are - it knows who they are right now.
The continuity report analyses your entire manuscript and flags issues before your readers find them. Missing character assignments, POV gaps, stale plot threads, characters who disappear for too long - all caught automatically, with no AI required.
Story architecture gives you arcs and threads as first-class objects. Your A-story, B-story, character arcs, and thematic arcs each have their own status. Plot threads track from planted through developing to resolved. The timeline view shows your entire manuscript as a sequence of scene cards with character appearances mapped beneath.
The AI assistant - optional, not mandatory
The AI assistant is powered by Anthropic's Claude, chosen because it excels at nuanced understanding of creative writing. It reads your project context - genre, POV, tense, characters with their current progression states, locations, story arcs - and gives feedback that is specific to your manuscript.
Select any passage and choose from six inline tools: Rewrite, Expand, Tighten, Fix Dialogue, Add Senses, or Show Don't Tell. The AI suggests an improvement, and you accept or discard with one click.
But here is the important part: the AI is entirely optional. The Author plan at $15 per month gives you every writing tool without any AI involvement. Many of our best features - the continuity report, character progressions, the reference panel, focus mode - use zero AI. If you are a writer who prefers to work without artificial assistance, Rule of Words still offers more than any comparable tool.
Series support for multi-book authors
Writing a series? Group your books together and the AI assistant automatically pulls in synopses, characters, locations, and unresolved plot threads from earlier books. Current book data always takes priority, with series context filling remaining space in the token budget.
Focus mode for deep work
Click the expand icon and everything disappears except your text, a word count, and a save indicator. Toggle between light and dark themes. Press Escape to return. It is the closest thing to a blank page on a screen.
What it costs
Two plans. Author at $15 per month includes every writing and editing tool. Author +AI at $20 per month adds the AI assistant, inline editing tools, blurb generator, and voice matching.
No hidden fees, no word limits, no project caps. Upgrade or downgrade at any time.
Get started
Create an account at ruleofwords.com. No credit card required until you choose a plan.
We built Rule of Words because we could not find a tool that worked the way novelists think. If you have been looking for the same thing, we think you will feel at home here.