Narrative User Reviews

Name: Narrative: Novel Writing App
Rating: 4.39534 (43 reviews)

Narrative: Novel Writing App

Mark Muhleder

📊 Productivity

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Perfect device sync. A+ features

Kudos to dev-Mark. Perfect, rapid cross device sync. All the useful features: word count, etc. Will still back up multiple ways cuz glitches happen. I’m more excited about this app than a grown man should be

nut useful

5 months ago

sooooooo.......

it didnt even open

hope1776

7 months ago

Response from developer

Hi, thanks for letting us know. Could you get in touch with us at hello@gonarrative.app and let us know which model mac you have and which version of macOS you're running please? We're not seeing any matching reports in our crash logs, it would be good to figure out why it's not working for you.

I previously gaze this app 4 stars. Now its zero

This app was sleek and simple to use. A dummy proof interface that I absolutely loved. Truly I cannot speak highly enough about the simplicity and usability for writers. But the caveat is it’s better for smaller projects. Not full length novels. In the beginning. As time has gone on, I simply cannot recommend it for anyone intending to write longer length material. It has progressively grown in lag time with typing since the point of about 20k words, and now at 40k I find myself incredibly frustrated as the lag seriously disrupts work flow. If this is fixed in the future, I would be happy to return. I would even happily pay for it. This is a deal breaker for someone who relies heavily on the emotional outpouring to be able to write well. Until there’s an update to address this, it’s back to Scrivener and the expensive Mac and iPhone downloads. Sigh. Edit to add: I have lost over 5k words from a writing session today because I wasn’t aware that switching from my laptop to a mobile device completely over writes the progress you have made. Words cannot express how infuriating it is to lose an entire chapter. I want to scream

Imcheapashell

7 months ago

Response from developer

Hi, if you get in touch with us we will be able to recover your chapter from any point in time it was saved to the cloud. Also, if you look at the Versions feature (available from the red button on the chapter edit screen), you should have a series of previous versions of the chapter which you can recover straight away. You can get in touch with us either through the in-app chat or via email at hello@gonarrative.app.

No UNDO button

Please! Add UNDO button for accidentally deleted lines inside the chapters. I accidentally deleted almost 500 words and it made me so anxious. I couldn’t recover it after all, it was so perfectly written…

Fantasticmom1987

a year ago

Response from developer

Hi, there is an undo button on the command bar above the soft keyboard if you are typing on screen. If you are using a keyboard then the Apple-Z shortcut should perform an undo action. You can use Apple-Shift-Z to redo, and you should have a fairly long undo history available. Also, for recovering words after you have left the editor, there is a versions section which you can reach from the FAB button on the bottom-right of the screen. A new version should be saved every couple of hundred typed characters or so, and if you make a big change (such as deleting a large amount of text) then a new snapshot should be saved before and after that point.

Used to love this app

I used to really like using this app. It was easy to use and was accessible over both my phone and laptop. However, now the whole app lags, it won’t let you scroll down and re read or edit previous work, and the interface is buggy. It’s so frustrating to use at this point that I’m now looking into other apps t use instead.

M4743c

2 years ago

Response from developer

Hi, so sorry for this. The 6.1.38 version did have a bug in it which we didn't spot until after it had been published. We've published a new version 6.1.39 on both macos and ios which should fix the issues you've been seeing.

My First Novel with your App

I am writing my first novel in your app. I went through all the top rated app and landed on this one accidentally. I loved the surface and design. The goals , stats and set up of chapters is unique and simple. As if it understands a novelist more than anyone. I am spending more than 5-6 hours per day in your app and no complains so far. I believe it will soon be a top rated app in its genre.

I wrote this review months back and got a writting pause. I got back and now using the paid version. Still in love with it.

Khadiza21bd

3 years ago

Response from developer

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience here. It's heartening to hear that you appreciate the app. We strive to understand the needs of all writers, and your kind words do help motivate us to continue refining Narrative. We are delighted to be a part of your creative process. If you ever need us, or if you ever have any more suggestions or feedback, do feel free to reach out.

Be great if helps writing a novel

Like if person doesn’t have any experience writing a novel this app can help writing a story of rephrasing

Gian9456

3 years ago

Randomly deletes parts of your writing

This has happened twice now. I got the paid version so I can have it on multiple devices but when I went to write my novel again, I noticed a good chunk of the chapter I was working on was suddenly GONE. I even made sure to save the latest version too! I’m so angry!

Lady Mantis

3 years ago

Response from developer

Hi, First of all we're extremely sorry and you have every right to be angry. We've obviously messed up somehow and we'd like to fix it for you if we can. If you do not have your words backed up outside of the app, the first place you could look would be in the versions section for the affected chapter(s). If a chapter is updated during sync a backup of the original words should be saved there. Failing that, if you could get in touch either through the in app chat or via email at hello@gonarrative.app we will see if we have backups online of your chapter(s) before the words went missing. Either way we would really like to get some more info from you on the details of what happened so that we can investigate and stop it from happening to anyone else. Once again, we're very sorry to hear this has happened to you and we look forward to you getting in touch so that we can fix it for you. Mark

My First Novel with your App

I am writing my first novel in your app. I went through all the top rated app and landed on this one accidentally. I loved the surface and design. The goals , stats and set up of chapters is unique and simple. As if it understands a novelist more than anyone.

I am spending more than 5-6 hours per day in your app and no complains so far. I believe it will soon be a top rated app in its genre.

Khadiza21bd

3 years ago

Loved it but price is high

The interface and userfriendlyness I loved. Time stats goals thoughtful for any writter who consider writing everyay.

The subscription price is too much. It could be way better with 0.99$ monthly sub. Consider the pricing and it will fly over the shelf.

Khadiza21bd

3 years ago

No use at all

What use is 1500 words per month to waste of space

marvin 58

3 years ago

Keep it awesome. I’m a subscriber by the year

A fairly “new” app in the writing space (to me) and already I love it. Mostly because so few apps are friendly to all of my devices. I like working on my transcript here…then a bit more on my pc and so on. It’s worth considering. Also 5 stars for customer support. I had a question which was answered asap. I’m frankly surprised at the lower ratings since this has been so useful to use. I particular like toggling grammar/spell check on/off. Thanks guys. 5 stars and keep it awesome

Appthinker

4 years ago

Perfect

I am shocked that this app is this good. Normally apps either are too complicated or you have to pay. But this is a really good app for young writers. I totally reccomend this to others. Thank you

Customer Feedbackm323

4 years ago

Well I used to like it

This app was fine, simple and very straightforward. Today I go to write and then all of a sudden I have to agree to pay 4.99 a month. So I do. Then before get to where I left off I decide to copy and past into another app I store stuff in. Nope, can’t, Narrative won’t let me copy my own writing. So unless I want to rewrite everything I didn’t store I'm what? So I guess I’m happy I'm paranoid because at least I have 20 out of 21 chapters + screen shots. Cuz I’m unsubscribing.

sydwina122

4 years ago

Response from developer

Hi, we did move the toolbar with the copy functionality in the version 4 update, but you absolutely can still copy and export your work. The copy button is now a a button on the formatting toolbar attached to the soft keyboard with a clipboard icon. You can select the entire chapter by clicking 5 times in a row, (double click selects a word, triple click selects a sentence, four clicks in a row selects a paragraph, and five clicks in a row will select the entire chapter). Then just press the clipboard icon to copy the selected text. You can also export the entire novel in plain text or word format from the main Novels screen, click the three dots to the right of the novel name, click Export from the dropdown menu, and then click whichever export format you prefer. You can of course export your words without being subscribed, and if you do have any trouble, please contact us either at hello@gonarrative.app or using the in-app chat, and we'll be happy to help. I'd like to apologise for the bad experience you've had, and thank you for letting us know that the copy button is hard to find, we will fix this. Kind regards, Mark