Writing tools close. Small ones close quietly, larger ones are acquired and wound down, and services change owners and priorities. The question for an author is not whether this will happen to a tool they use but what state their work is in when it does, and that is entirely within your control.
What is at risk
| Asset | Risk |
|---|---|
| Manuscript text | Usually recoverable |
| Chapter and scene structure | Frequently lost in export |
| Notes and world reference | Often the worst affected |
| Version history | Almost always lost |
| Comments and annotations | Usually lost |
| Metadata and tags | Usually lost |
| Anything only viewable in the app | Gone |
The pattern is that words survive and organisation does not. For an author mid-series, the notes and structure are frequently the more painful loss.
The preparation
- Export everything now, before you need to, and look at what comes out.
- Note what the export loses. That's the part you'd have to rebuild.
- Keep exports in an open format, locally.
- Repeat quarterly, or at the end of each draft.
- Keep the world reference outside the tool if the tool's export is poor.
- Watch for signals: support slowing, updates stopping, an acquisition announcement.
Step two is the useful discovery. Most authors have never looked at their export, and finding out that it produces a wall of text with no chapter breaks is much better discovered now than during a shutdown notice.
Rebuilding reference material
If world notes are lost, the books still contain most of what mattered. The Novel Kit reads the published or exported manuscripts and returns their proper nouns and unusual terms with counts and first appearances, which regenerates the naming layer of a lost reference document quickly.
The full rebuild method is in what to do when you lose your notes.
A practical next step
Export your current project today and open the result. Whatever is missing is what you'd lose, and now you know.
Sources checked
- Exporting your work from writing software
- What to do when you lose your notes
- Lock-in and how to avoid it
Frequently asked questions
How much warning is there?
Usually some, and sometimes weeks rather than months, and occasionally a service simply stops working with an announcement afterwards.
What actually gets lost?
Structure and metadata, usually more than text. An export often produces the words without the organisation.
What is the preparation?
A regular export in an open format, kept locally, so a shutdown is an inconvenience rather than a loss.