Free
£0
For writing every day and being part of the community.
- Private writing, private by default
- Daily writing prompts
- Reading, quote responses and craft notes
- Groups and writer matching
Only Prose
Human writing in the age of AI.
A home for writers now: a calm place to write, revise and find the readers who make your work better. Next, a library where readers pay writers directly.
Private betaMac & iPhone prototypeStarting with the Oxford creative-writing community
Why Only Prose
The problem
Writing has never been easier to generate, or harder to make feel human.
Generative AI has made text abundant. What is scarce now is a human voice: memory, attention, perspective, lived experience.
Writers still work across a patchwork of tools, forums, courses and group chats for drafting, feedback and accountability. None of it was built around the writing life, or the relationships that sustain it.
The writing loop
How it works
Idea → Develop → Write → Revise → Share → Human response → Connect → Write again
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Write
Private by default. Start from a blank page, a long project, or the day’s five-minute prompt.
Today, write Describe somewhere you miss without naming it. 5 min · Memory -
Share
When a piece is ready, choose who sees it: a group, a small trusted room, or everyone.
- Keep private
- Share with a group
- Invite a trusted room
- Publish
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Respond
Readers quote the line that stayed with them, or leave a craft note. There are no likes to chase.
Line actionsQuoteCraft noteSaveDiscuss -
Connect
Get matched by genre, goals and feedback style, with people to write with, not just follow.
3 people you should write with- Memoirgentle notes, weekly
- Short fictionclose reading
- Poetryline by line
For writers
The desktop workspace
Where the actual work gets done.
A complete writing environment for drafting, structuring, researching and revising long-form projects, shaped with ongoing input from professional writers.
A room with no photograph · Memoir
Somewhere I miss
It was not the place itself, exactly. It was the sound the street made after rain.
Everyone walked more slowly there. The bakery on the corner kept its door propped open with a chair, and you could hear its radio from the bus stop.
I have been back twice. The street is still there. The rain is still there. It is the slowness I cannot find.
Current
Try it: tap Earlier or Future.
Book Map
Scenes, characters, places and notes on one board, joined by the threads between them. Drag cards around, zoom out, or switch to an outline when you need order.
In the prototypeEvery paragraph remembers
Each paragraph keeps its earlier and later versions. Step back, step forward, or bring back an alternative future you abandoned last week.
In the prototypeNothing is lost
Every edit is journalled before it reaches the page. If the app closes mid-sentence, it reopens with the sentence and tells you what it recovered.
In the prototypeFocus mode
Press Write and everything but the page steps aside. No metrics, no audience, no feed.
In the prototypeCommunity first
Read first. Reveal the writer later.
On Only Prose you meet a paragraph before a profile. Read someone’s work, answer a line, and only then choose to see who wrote it. Attention stays on the writing, not on follower counts.
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Quote responses
Select the line that stayed with you and answer it: privately in your own draft, in a thread on that line, or in a room.
In the prototype -
Craft notes, not likes
Feedback is attached to the sentence it is about, so a note like “this opening wants one more concrete detail” lands where it is useful.
In the prototype -
Beta readers and writing buddies
Invite a small trusted room to read a draft before anyone else, or find a buddy who writes at your pace.
Planned
9:41
Read
Maya L.
A room with no photograph
The rooms we remember are never accurate.
They keep the angle of light and lose the furniture.
They keep a voice and forget what it said.
I think memory edits for tenderness.
Line actions
QuoteCraft noteSaveDiscuss
Quote
“They keep a voice and forget what it said.”
from Maya L., A room with no photograph
This is exactly how I think childhood works: not as evidence, but as weather.
PrivateLine threadRoom
Add response
9:41
People
Read first. Reveal writer later.
People are matched by what they are making, how they read, and what kind of attention they can offer.
A scene can be honest and still be badly lit. I keep rewriting the same doorway.
WritingShort fiction
FeedbackClose reading, precise questions
Looking forA patient structural reader
The city appeared first as a sound: shutters, buses, the wet scrape of shoes near the station.
WritingMemoir fragments
Matching
Matched on how you write, not on how many people follow you.
Only Prose matches people by genre, goals, experience, location and working style. Three questions, then a short list.
PlannedWhat do you write?
FictionMemoirPoetryEssaysScreenplaysJournal
Why are you here?
Build a habitFinish a bookImproveFind readersMeet writers
Who are you looking for?
Writing buddyBeta readerCritique partnerMentorLocal group
Then3 people you should write with.
For readers
A library of human writing
One membership for readers. Direct income for writers.
Coming 2027Reader membership
One monthly membership opens a library of memoir, fiction, essays and poetry. Like a streaming library, except every page was written by a person.
Writers set the price
Writers can also sell their books and collections at a price they choose. Only Prose keeps a platform fee; most of the money goes to the writer.
Membership price and revenue split will be published before launch.
Your rights
Your writing belongs to you.
Only Prose is designed to protect original work and reduce unwanted extraction. These are the rules the platform is built on, not settings buried in a menu.
- Private by default
- Everything you write starts private. Nothing is shared until you choose a group, a room or publishing.
- No public indexing
- Work on Only Prose is not indexed by search engines by default. Members-only and private publishing are standard.
- Crawlers and bots restricted
- We restrict crawler and bot access and limit copying and bulk extraction.
- AI training only if you opt in
- Your writing is never licensed for AI training without your permission. If you opt in, your work can be included in curated, rights-cleared literary datasets, and you are paid a share of the licence revenue. You can opt out at any time.
- Planned
- Representation for your work
- Editors, producers and screenwriters will be able to discover work on Only Prose. When they want to option or buy it, we act as your agent for film, TV and publishing deals.
- Planned
Licensing
Include my writing in licensed AI datasets
Off unless you turn it on. If you opt in, you are paid a share. Turn it off any time.
The space
A creative space, not just a tool.
Writing is personal, vulnerable and often solitary. Only Prose is designed to feel calm, warm and creatively safe, rather than clinical or productivity-driven.
A small frog lives in the corner of the workspace. It keeps you company while you write. It does not interrupt, suggest or grade. It is simply there.
Solitude
Connection
- Private journal
- Focused writing
- No metrics
- No audience
- Space to think
- Prompts
- Responses
- Groups
- Feedback
- Matching
Plans
Pricing
Free to write. Pay for the full workspace when your project needs it.
Pro
£10/ month
The full desktop workspace for long-form projects.
- Book Map
- Unlimited paragraph version history
- Beta-reader rooms
- Read aloud
- Export
Reader
Price to be announced
A membership library of human writing.
- Read across the library
- Buy books at the writer’s own price
- Most of the money goes to the writer
Prices in GBP. Pro and Reader are planned plans; features and prices may change before launch.
Vision
The place people go because writing matters to them.
- A place to have an idea.
- A place to build a world.
- A place to write a book.
- A place to organise the mess around it.
- A place to practise, and to revise.
- A place to find feedback, and your people.
- A place to publish.
- A place to recognise yourself in a stranger’s paragraph.
For investors
We’re raising our pre-seed round.
Request the deck and data room.
Today: a working Mac and iPhone prototype with a crash-safe editor, paragraph-level version history and the Book Map. Next: the writers’ beta with the Oxford creative-writing community, then Cambridge and other universities.
- Contact
- Lisa
- [email protected]
- Phone
- +44 7786 373982
Private beta
Join the writers’ beta
We are opening the beta to writers from the Oxford creative-writing community first, then more widely. Places are limited while the prototype grows up.
Readers: reader membership opens in 2027. Write to us if you’d like to hear first.
- [email protected]
- Phone
- +44 7786 373982
In your email, tell us
- What you write, and what you are working on now
- Whether you write on a Mac, an iPhone, or both
- What kind of feedback helps you most
Privacy
This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics or advertising trackers. If you email us, we use your address only to reply and to manage the beta, and we delete it on request.
In the prototype, drafts are stored on your own device. When accounts and sharing arrive, your writing stays private by default and is never licensed for AI training unless you opt in.
Terms
This site describes a product in development. Features marked Planned or Coming 2027 are not available yet and may change, and prices shown are planned prices.
Beta access is by invitation and the prototype is provided as it is. You keep all rights to everything you write on Only Prose.