WritersBox

Free for 30 days · no card

Write the script.
Keep the world.

Every other screenwriting program gives you the page and stops. WritersBox holds the script and everything underneath it, in one program.

Mac, Chromebook or Linux? It runs in your browser. Same program, no download.

8 script formats 26 kinds of world entry Your files stay yours

A buffet for screenwriters. Everything on one table, and nothing you have to leave the room for.

The problem

Your world lives in twelve documents

Who rules what. What the magic costs. Which war the grandmother died in. Where the map puts the harbour.

None of it fits in a screenplay, so it ends up scattered across Word files, a Notion page, a wiki nobody updates and your own memory. That works until the third draft, or until somebody else has to read it.

WritersBox keeps the script and the world in the same program, and the paperwork falls out of both.

0script formats, each paginating by its own rules
0kinds of world entry, in seven families
0program, on your machine, that holds the lot

01 · Writing

A page count you can quote down the phone

A true 8.5 inch page, correct industry margins, and a live count worked out the way a printed screenplay is measured. The PDF comes out at exactly that many pages.

  • Eight formats. Feature, television, sitcom, stage, radio, two column audio visual and more, each paginating by its own rules.
  • Two people talking at once, formatted properly.
  • Find and replace, undo, revision colours, draft comparison.
  • Beat sheets, outlines and treatments as real pages, not notes stuck to the side.
  • The script reads itself aloud in your computer's own voices, so you hear the rhythm instead of guessing at it.

02 · Moving in

Bring your scripts. Take them out again.

Nobody is locked in, and that's deliberate.

  • Opens .fdx, Final Draft's own format.
  • Exports back to .fdx, so you can leave whenever you like.
  • Also reads and writes .fountain, .docx and plain text.
  • Drag the file in. It's copied into your library and your original stays exactly where it was.

03 · The world

Worldbuilding that isn't a wiki

A wiki hands you a blank page and wishes you luck. WritersBox asks what the thing wants, what it costs and who it answers to.

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Kinds of entry

Places, factions, peoples, relics, powers, history and customs, organised into seven families, each asked its own questions.

A world atlas

Upload your real maps, drop pins on them, and travel between maps. A pin on the continent opens the city.

Trees, webs and timelines

Family trees, faction webs, era timelines and corkboards, built out of the connections you've already named.

Characters with real dossiers

What they want, what they need, what the wound was. Photographs, several roles at once, and a relationship web.

Type @ and link the lore

Mention a name anywhere and it connects to the entry behind it.

Franchises

Put a film and a series in one universe and get a board with both, with continuity checked across them.

04 · Out of the door

Paperwork that can't disagree with the script

Breakdowns, reports and sides are worked out from the words every time you open them. Nothing is stored, so nothing goes stale after a rewrite.

  • PDF with the fonts embedded, optional watermarking, and a submission package.
  • Production breakdowns, reports and sides, derived from the script rather than typed out again.
  • A query tracker for agents and managers. Who has it, when it went, what came back.
  • Presentation decks.

05 · Using it

It walks you through it

It asks what you're making

First time in, it sets the project up with you. A film, a series, an episode. It knows the difference and it doesn't make you work it out.

Prompts, not empty boxes

Every page asks the question the thing actually has, so you're answering rather than staring at a blank field wondering what belongs there.

Themes, and text you can read

Eight themes, adjustable text size throughout, and you can build a theme out of a photograph. See all eight.

Almost nothing to set up

Make an account, confirm the email, and write. On Windows your work lands in Documents\WritersBox, a plain folder you can copy to a stick.

The difference

We never see a word of your screenplay. No telemetry. No AI reading your script. No column in our database for it.

The account holds your name, your email, your plan and which machines you've signed in on. That's the whole of it. On Windows your work sits in a plain folder in Documents that you can open, copy to a stick and back up yourself.

Away from the internet

Seven weeks off the grid, or for ever

Bought outright

Lifetime and founders licences never need the internet again after the first sign-in. No check, nothing uploaded, nothing phoning home.

On a monthly or annual plan

It checks in quietly about once a month. If it can't, on a train or in a cabin or on bad hotel wifi, you keep writing for around seven weeks before it turns read-only.

And read-only never means locked out. If a plan runs out, WritersBox does not hold your screenplays hostage. It stops you writing new ones. Everything you've already written stays readable and exportable, for good.

Road map

What's up next

In the order I'm actually going to build them. None of it is in the program yet, so judge WritersBox on everything above this line rather than anything below it.

Next · being worked on now

Selling it In progress

Getting payment set up so the founders edition can actually be bought. This is the one holding everything else up, and it's what the waitlist is for.

Opening the beta wider In progress

Right now I hand out access one person at a time, because I read every reply. That gets less careful and more automatic as I get better at it.

Later · wanted, not started

Google Drive saving Not built

Backed up to your own Drive. Your account, your files, nobody else's servers.

Optional AI Not built

Off by default, running on your own machine rather than sending your script anywhere. For the people who want it, and equally for the people who never will.

iPhone and iPad Not built

Left for later on purpose. The browser version is built for a desktop-sized screen, and a phone is its own project rather than a smaller copy of this one.

Further out · ideas I like

A Mac app you install Not built

Mac already works today through the browser, and that's the whole program rather than a lite one. A proper Mac app is something I'd like to do properly rather than quickly.

Writing together Not built

Two people in one script. I've thought about it a lot and I've not worked out the version I'd actually be proud of yet, so it's an idea rather than a promise.

Get it

Thirty days, free, no card.

It's young, and it's used every day by the person who made it. It's also the only one of these that keeps your world. Try it for a month and see whether that's worth anything to you.