# Backstory — Story Studio — Fiction that keeps secrets > Fiction that keeps secrets (iPhone/iPad app by SARAH MICHELLE GROVES.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/backstory-story-studio/id6792038352 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [SARAH MICHELLE GROVES](https://appshunter.io/developer/1896767626) - Category: Entertainment, Productivity - Price: $9.99 - Age rating: 17+ - Requires: iOS 17.0 · 10 MB - Languages: American English, Japanese, Korean - Released: 2026-08-12 - Data updated: 2026-08-23 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/backstory-story-studio/id6792038352/reviews.md ## What is Backstory? Backstory is a studio for writing fiction with an AI cast — built around one idea the chat window can't do: characters should only know what they actually know. Every character keeps a knowledge ledger. Secrets ship only to the character who holds them. A lie believed stays believed — played with full conviction, never confirmed by the world. Two characters can watch the same moment and walk away with different stories. When someone leaves the scene, what they learned leaves with them. YOUR CAST, NOT OURS No presets, no licensed characters. The Card Studio builds your people with you: a one-question-at-a-time interview, an importer that restructures your existing notes, and a scaffold that keeps characters from going flat — what they want, what flips them, what they are NOT, and who gets the soft register. SEALED ENVELOPES Ask a question you don't want answered yet — "Who sent the letter?" — and seal it. The AI decides the answer once, hides it even from you, and steers the story toward it, dripping evidence naturally until you break the seal. Your own story gets to surprise you. A REAL WRITER'S ROOM · Scenes with rosters — off-stage characters know nothing new and cost nothing · Walk-ins ("what did they see coming in?"), asides, and automatic exit harvests · An objective timeline that outranks everything — no drift, no forgetting · Directional relationships: how A sees B is not how B sees A · An item ledger, so nobody holds a sword that's somewhere else · One rolling summary: the arc, plus what every character is pursuing right now PRIVATE BY ARCHITECTURE No account. No servers. No analytics. Your stories live on your device with automatic local backups you own. Backstory talks to exactly one thing — Anthropic's API, with your own key, to write the next line. You pay once for the app and pay Anthropic only for what you use, at cost, with every reply's real price shown in the app. Bring your own Anthropic API key (console.anthropic.com). Backstory is a tool for adult writers; you direct the story. ## Version history (last 2 releases) ### 1.2 — 2026-08-23 The biggest update yet. Since launch, Backstory grew rooms, gave its characters memories that move, and turned time itself into something you write with. FOUR ROOMS, ONE STORY Opening a story now lands in four tabs, one per question you actually ask: WRITE (what happens next), CAST (who these people are), PLOT (where it's going), CANON (what's true — searchable across facts, events, items, and pins). The spine shows the whole shape: scenes, forks, chapters, the folded past. CHARACTERS WHO GROW Every character carries living state — needs, and reads on the people around them, felt as "trust: high, rising," never numbers. Closing a scene runs one reviewed pass: how everyone grew, how their views shifted, which threads to keep. You approve every line. And when a beat changes who someone IS, the close-out notices — proposing a Turning point that colors every scene after. TIME IS A TOOL NOW Jump ahead and the app comes with you: fold everything before the gap into era-level backstory, and age any character's card across the years — now optionally their voice too, for when decades should change not just who someone is but how they sound. TWO TIMELINES, ONE WORLD Fork from any beat and a sibling story diverges right there — cast, canon, sealed answers, all of it — while the original stays untouched. Spin-offs go further and leave the arc: same world and history, your pick of who crosses over. The spine draws the whole family tree — every fork and chapter, and where each picked up. AN INBOX FOR IDEAS Park a plot idea the instant it strikes — the AI can't see parked ideas, so capture costs nothing. Arm one to let the story pick it up when a natural opening appears, or push it to steer every turn. STAYS CURRENT WITH CLAUDE When Anthropic releases a new Claude, tap Update model list in Settings and it's there — ready to write with, no app update needed. Set its price once and the cost meter picks it up. Your key, your models, your call. Backstory speaks Japanese and Korean, fully — every screen, switched in Settings independently of your phone. ALSO: a catch-up card when you return after a while · Close scene / New scene / New chapter right in the scene bar · turns survive a locked phone, and a failed turn tells you why — your message is always saved · one-time tips exactly when you need them · dozens of refinements from a season of daily writing. ### 1.0 — 2026-08-12 No release notes. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-23.*