A desktop app for novelists

See the whole shape of your story, not just the next page.

Murasaki turns your novel into a corkboard of index cards — one per chapter — that you can pin, drag, and rearrange until the structure finally clicks. Then write, right there, with your whole book laid out in front of you.

Keep your work on your own computer. No AI. No Cloud. Your book is your property.
Murasaki's corkboard view, showing a novel split into parts and numbered chapters as index cards

Murasaki is named after Murasaki Shikibu, a Japanese court lady traditionally credited as the world's first novelist. Around 1008 CE, she wrote The Tale of Genji — widely regarded as the first novel in history.

Murasaki (紫) is also the Japanese word for purple — historically the most prestigious color at the Heian court.

What's inside

Everything a novel needs while it's still taking shape

Not a word processor pretending to help you plan — a planning board that happens to let you write.

A corkboard that renumbers itself

Parts are columns, chapters are cards. Drag one to reorder it, or into another part entirely — numbers are never stored, so nothing is ever left stale. Give a chapter a title and it replaces the number; clear it and the number comes back.

The drawer, and Zen mode

Text, Notes, Characters, Places, Threads, Feelings — six tabs per chapter, with a one-line Key Moment always in view. The expand icon strips it all down to just the heading and the page, centred, nothing else in sight.

Variation, with a live diff

Draft a second version of a chapter beside the first. What you cut shows struck through in pink, what's new shows in green, recalculated as you type. Keep it as final, or discard it — the old version waits in History either way.

Four tag systems, one glance

Phase, Scene Type, Pace and Technique, each with its own vocabulary and its own colour. A quiet summary shows what's chosen; an Attributes lane lines the full names up beside the chapters themselves.

Story Arc

Tension and pace plotted across every chapter, continuously, never resetting per part. Lay a reference curve for Thriller, Horror, Drama, Bildungsroman or Psychological Novel over your own, just to read against.

Plot, above the chapters

Synopsis, central conflict, a messy working outline, and named plot threads — each with the chapters that carry it forward, marked with a coloured strip on the card itself.

Progress

Words written and net growth, chapters touched, a day-by-day chart, and your current and longest writing streaks — for one novel or all of them. A writing quote greets every visit.

Manuscript-ready export

Manuscript .docx with a title page and running header, plain Text, plain Docx, or a valid EPUB with your cover and metadata in place. Every format prints the same thing: title, parts, chapters, text — nothing you planned along the way.

Import from Word, backed up whole

Point it at a .docx and it reads Word's own heading structure to find your parts and chapters — nothing is written until you approve what it found. Back up the whole library to one file, or a single novel with its full planning layer intact.

A look inside

It looks like your desk, not like software

A novel's structure shown as parts and chapters on Murasaki's corkboard
The board — your whole novel, at a glance
Murasaki's library screen with a cherry blossom backdrop
Murasaki 紫
The Story Arc chart plotting tension and pace across a novel
Story Arc
Pricing

Free to start. Yours to keep.

One-time payment for Full — no subscription, ever. Your novels live in a database file on your own computer either way.

Light

Everything you need to start structuring and writing.

Free
 
  • Corkboard & drag-and-drop chapters
  • Writing editor with autosave
  • Chapter titles, Notes & Zen mode
  • Exact Light/Full split — coming soon
Download Light
Full

The complete planning toolkit, unlocked for good.

€10.08 €20.26
Launch price · one-time payment
  • Everything in Light
  • Phase, Scene Type, Pace & Technique tags
  • Characters, Places & Plot threads
  • Story Arc, with genre comparison
  • Variation editor with live diff & History
  • Manuscript, Text, Docx & EPUB export
  • Progress tracking & writing streaks
  • Import from Word
Get Full — €10.08

Feature split between Light and Full is still being finalized.