A novel-writing app, built on the Snowflake Method
Write the novel
you keep meaning to.
Quilt walks you from a single sentence to a finished first draft, one step at a time. You make the choices that matter. Thimble, your editor, does the sewing.
Free while in early access · On the web and the Mac · iPhone and iPad on the way
How it works
Ten patches
make a novel.
The Snowflake Method starts small and grows: one sentence becomes a paragraph, the paragraph becomes a page, the page becomes your scenes. In Quilt each step is a patch. Sew all ten and you have a planned book and a first draft.
Step 1 of 10
One-sentence summary
The whole novel in one line
Your part
Thimble wrote
The sample is The Keeper of Halloran Light, a novel Quilt ships with so you can see every step filled in before you write your own.
Thimble
An editor who has read every word.
Thimble is the AI in Quilt, and Pip is its face. It writes each step from your answers and the whole book so far, then sits in the margin like a sharp friend with a pencil: short, specific, a little warm.
Listening. Press / to ask me anything about the book.
- Ask about the bookPress / and ask. What does each character want? Where does it sag? Answers point to the step they came from.
- A read-throughFinish a step and Thimble reads it, leaving notes where the story drifts, the timeline slips or a rule you set gets broken.
- It learns your tasteWhat Thimble has learned about how you write is a short list you can read and edit. It goes into every draft.
- Jobs for ThimbleTag @Thimble in a comment and it goes off to make the change anywhere in the book, then brings you a list to take or keep.
The margin
Mark it up like a real manuscript.
Comment on any line, even mid-sentence while you're writing. React with a tap. Pick the hat Thimble wears for the job, and every change it suggests sits right in your words until you say yes.
Chapter 1 · The bottle
She walked the strand line with her hands in her father's oilskin, counting what the sea had left. Kelp. Rope. A gull's wing with nothing attached. She had done this every evening for eleven years and had never once found what she was looking for, which was the point. A thing you never find is a thing you can keep looking for.
The bottle was green, and it was sealed with candle wax, and it was sitting upright in the weedstanding upright in the weed, the way nothing the sea leaves ever stands as if someone had set it there for her.
She knew the handwriting before she had the paper flat. The long tail on the y. The way the line leaned uphill. Don't trust the harbour wall, it said, and under that a date ten winters from now, and under that her own name.
The water was at her ankles. She read it twice more, folded it into her pocket, and told herself it was a joke someone on the mainland was playing.
Too neat? Feels placed.
It should feel placed. That is the hook. Maybe lean on it.
↑ In your draft
Thimble wears
- Reactions on the leftLove, confusing, slow, cut. One tap, in their own margin, so you can see how a chapter felt at a glance.
- Comments on the rightEach one is a little thread. Talk it through with Thimble, then take the change or keep your words.
- Your notes travelNotes and reactions go straight to Your notes and feed the next rewrite, so nothing you said is lost between drafts.
Looks
Eight looks.
Each one light and dark.
Riso inks on paper, a dot-grid notebook, onionskin and a red ribbon, plain print, rain on the glass, a neon sign, stickers, lilac. Pick one and this page wears it too.
Riso inks on paper.
The manuscript
And then it's a book.
Every scene you draft lands in the manuscript, chapter by chapter, with a title page and a drop cap. Read it straight through, and click any scene to open it where you wrote it.
- An editor's letter. Thimble reads the whole draft with your plan and notes, and writes back: what's working, the big things, scene notes, and a plan for the next draft.
- To review. Every change Thimble has ready, in one list. J K to walk it, Y to take, N to keep yours.
- Versions. Every rewrite is kept. Go back to any draft of any step.
- Take it with you. Save for Word in manuscript format, print it as a book, or export the plan and the draft as Markdown.
Apps
Wherever you write.
Write in your browser at quiltwriter.com, or in the Mac app, whose Dock icon follows your look. iPhone and iPad are on the way. Sign in with just your email and every book follows you.
- Sync without fussSign in with a six-digit code from your email. No passwords. Books sync in the background.
- Never lose a wordIf two devices change the same book, you keep both copies, side by side. Your book is saved on your device as you go.
- Made for the keyboard⌘K goes anywhere, / asks Thimble, ⌘↵ writes the step, ? shows the rest.
Start with one sentence.
What is your story about? Tell Quilt in your own words, and take it from there.
Free while in early access. Bring your own Anthropic key any time, if you'd rather.