Outline a novel or screenplay with index cards, on a board you can share

What this outline board can't do

• It holds the outline, not the script. There is no screenplay format, no scene headings, no page count and no word count. You write the pages in your script software or word processor.
• No export to Final Draft, Scrivener or Plottr and no import from them. Selected cards and lists can be saved as a PNG.
• No timeline view and no character database. The Characters list is four plain cards. You can't filter by character.
• 150 items on the free plan, across your account. Each card and each list is 1 of the 150. The example board is 45 cards and 5 lists, so 50. A 90-scene novel in four act lists is 94 before any characters (our arithmetic), and a story bible on top passes 150. Pro is $5 a month billed yearly ($59.99 a year) and removes the item limit.
• 5 boards and 3 images per board on the free plan. Keep one board per project. The example board has no images.
• You arrange cards by hand. Cards stay where you put them, and a list keeps its cards in the order you give them.

How to outline with index cards on the board

Screenwriting.io describes the Save the Cat method as breaking a screenplay into 15 beats and then into 40, with 10 cards each in Act 1, Act 2A, Act 2B and Act 3. That 10/10/10/10 split is the layout of the example board. The card text on it is our own invented story, and the beats are described in our own words. Save the Cat has its own Beat Sheet Mapper on the Save the Cat site; this page copies none of its beat names.

1. 1Make one list per act. Name them Act 1, Act 2A, Act 2B and Act 3 (or Act 1, 2 and 3 if you prefer three).
2. 2One beat per card, in a few words. John August's hints for index cards say to keep them short, up to seven words, and that most movies can be summarized in fewer than 50 cards. Every card on the example board is seven words or fewer.
3. 3Code the cards by storyline. August suggests a letter code for characters. On the board, a card colour does the same job: blue for Lena, orange for Theo, green for the street, red for Dale. The colour key sits at the bottom of the board.
4. 4Mark the turning points. The last card of Act 1 and of Act 2B starts "Turning point:" and the last card of Act 2A starts "Midpoint:". Name them however your structure does.
5. 5Move cards until the order holds. Drag a card to another spot in its list or into another list. That is the whole method.

Writers disagree about whether software helps. In r/Screenwriting (January 2022), one person who works with four rows of ten cards said that software notecard modes are usually lacking the ability to arrange each row separately, and that they used MURAL to co-write with a partner far away. That is one person's view. A list on this board keeps its own cards, so each act is its own column of cards.

Follow a subplot with arrows

On the example board, three red arrows labelled "the lease" join the third card of each act list in turn: Dale's offer, his lawyer's notice, his doubled offer and his inspector. You can read the landlord's thread without reading every card. Arrows and sections don't count toward the 150 items. The arrows are part of the example board, and you can delete or redraw them.

An arrow can join cards in different lists, and it can carry a caption and its own colour. It stays attached when you reorder a card inside its list and when you move a whole list, so the thread survives a restructure. Each card also takes its own colour, separate from its list's colour, which is how the example board marks Lena, Theo, the street and the landlord. Lists reorder independently of each other, and you can drag a card from one list into another when a beat moves to a different act.

The novel version: four acts of equal length

Phil Halton's index-card method for a novel, from his own page, plans in four acts of equal length, or in a 5/10/5 split for a 20-chapter book, and notes the subplot on the cards. On the board that is the same four lists, with a card per chapter or per scene instead of per beat.

• Use a short title and one line. A card can hold a bold title and a body, so a scene fits as "Chapter 7: the letter arrives" with one line under it.
• Keep the draft elsewhere. The cards are the plan. Word count, chapters and prose stay in your writing tool.
• Watch the count. One card per scene adds up, so a novel of a hundred scenes uses most of the free plan on its own.

A chapter list or book outline on the same board

A chapter-by-chapter outline is the same job with a different card. Make one list per part (or per act), put one card per chapter in it, and start each title with the chapter number, like "7. The letter arrives", with one line of what changes in the chapter underneath. Colour the cards by point of view or storyline, and drag a chapter to another list when the book's shape changes.

The count is the limit: a 30-chapter book in three part lists is 33 items (30 cards and 3 lists), and a 60-chapter book in four lists is 64 (our arithmetic). A story bible, a character list and notes on the same account share the same 150, and Pro removes the limit.

Outlining with a co-writer

This is a smaller part of the page, because we found no searches for it. It works like this:

1. 1In the share menu, set "Anyone with the link can edit".
2. 2Send the link, or the 4-digit join code. The code expires after 2 hours of inactivity, so send the link to someone you'll need later.
3. 3Your co-writer signs in free (Google, Apple or email) to write. Someone who isn't signed in can open the link and read everything, but can't change anything. Once they're signed in, what they add shows up on your board within a few seconds.
4. 4The board counts as one of their 5 free boards, and the cards they add count toward their own 150. If they're already at 5 boards, they can still open the link and write; the board just isn't added to their boards.

Outlining a pilot or a season

The same layout works for a TV pilot or a season, as a smaller use. Make one list per episode, put a short card for each beat in it, and start each card with "A:", "B:" or "C:" for the story it belongs to. Use arrows for a thread that runs across episodes.

The count is the limit: 8 episodes of 10 cards each is 88 items (8 lists and 80 cards), and 10 episodes of 15 cards is 160 (10 lists and 150 cards), which passes the 150 free items and means Pro (our arithmetic).

One person's view from r/Screenwriting (August 2020, the top reply, 87 votes) was that for a spec series you don't plan the whole thing: "Pilot and a bible" and move on. Whether that holds for your project is your call. The board is useful for the pilot and a short season outline, not for planning 360 pages.

If you work on a TV writers' room project, Final Draft, WritersRoom Pro and Arc Studio are made for it (table below).

Index card tools for writers, side by side

Each row is from the maker's own pages, read on November 7, 2026. Prices change, so check the page before you buy.

When another tool is the better choice

• You want a cork wall for writing and nothing else. Cork is made for it, with columns per act and a free plan of 3 boards. The free plan counts boards, not cards.
• You are planning a whole series or book with a bible. Plottr is built for that, with templates, a series bible and word-count tracking, from $60 a year on the desktop. Live co-plotting there is on Pro; see a free way to plot with a partner.
• You write the whole manuscript in one place. Scrivener ties each section to a virtual index card, so moving a card moves the text. Instaboard holds no manuscript text.
• You like Scrivener's corkboard but write on a device it doesn't list. Scrivener's overview page names iOS, macOS and Windows. The board here runs in a browser, so it is a way to lay out and move index cards there. It does not write or compile a manuscript, and moving a card here does not move any text.
• You write a novel and want plot and co-writing in one writing app. Dabble's pricing page lists a Plot Grid and co-authoring on its Writer plan.
• You need to put a beat board into a script. Final Draft's Beat Board sends your outline to the script. Its product page lists Mac and Windows, not Chromebook.
• You work on a TV series. WritersRoom Pro has Season, Character and Scrap boards and revision history; its Indie edition is $9.98 a month and its Partner edition $17.98 a month, both for personal, non-commercial use. Arc Studio's Pro plan ($99 a year) lists outlining tools and inviting collaborators, and its Free plan lists neither.
• You have a lot of images. Milanote's free plan allows 100 items and 10 uploads. Instaboard allows 3 images per board.

For scene cards by point of view, drafted ticks and a corkboard look, see the digital corkboard for writers.

Questions