NewConflict Detection is live
Catch plot holes early.
Map your characters, rules and timeline on one canvas, then scan the whole world for contradictions — before you write the first draft.
“Every writer has found the hole
in the third act
— and had to rewrite the first.”
A world gets too big to hold in your head, and prose returns no errors. CanonBoard keeps it as connected cards and reads the whole thing back to you — so the contradictions surface before a scene is written around them.
How it works
One canvas. Four steps. A world that holds.
You build the world as connected cards, the canvas checks it against itself, and you fix what breaks — before it is a scene.
Start a project
Put in what you already know: the characters, the places, the rules that cannot be broken. Nothing has to be finished.
Connect it up
Link a character to a place, an object to its owner, an event to a date. The canvas holds the relationships, not just the notes.
Scan for contradictions
Conflict Detection reads the whole world on demand and flags what cannot both be true, with an explanation for each one.
Fix it before you write
Resolve the clash on the canvas, where it costs a card. After the first draft, the same fix costs a rewrite.
The Canvas
Bring your story. Give it a structure that holds.
Put your world in and connect it up. The canvas reads the whole thing back to you and flags what cannot both be true. It stays private to you and the people you invite.
CharacterCanon clear
Eli Vance
Lighthouse keeper, 47. Built the signal that pulls the drowned back.
CharacterCanon clear
Maren Vance
Drowned at 9, returned at 9. Hasn't aged in 11 years.
World RuleCanon clear
The drowned return at the age they died
Who it’s for
Anyone holding a world in their head.
If the story is bigger than the thing you are writing in it, the canvas is for you — whatever form it finally takes.
- Screenwriters and showrunners
Hold the canon line across seasons, staff turnover and late notes. The rules stay checkable when the team changes.
- Novelists with a series
Ten years of continuity in one place, and a scan that finds the contradiction before a reader does.
- Comic and manga creators
Arcs, casts and world rules that have to survive a long serialisation and a team that rotates through it.
- Game narrative teams
Branching state, factions and lore that several writers touch at once, with the relationships drawn rather than remembered.
- Audio and vertical drama
Episode counts that climb fast, on a shape where a broken rule in episode nine is expensive to unpick.
- Anyone with a world in five documents
Notes, a whiteboard and two files that disagree. The canvas is where they stop disagreeing quietly.
The power tools
Tools that read the world back to you.
They organize and pressure-test your world. They never write your story.
Smart Import
Core and above
Drop in a script, treatment, or document and CanonBoard reads it and builds your board automatically — characters, locations, world rules, lore, plot points, and a starting timeline, all extracted and connected.
Refine
1 credit per session
It interviews you one question at a time and shapes your answers into structured canon. It never writes your story — it draws out what you already know and files it where it belongs.
Conflict Detection
Core and above
Cross-references your entire world against your canon — dead-then-alive characters, broken rules, two people in one place at once, age inconsistencies — and surfaces every contradiction in plain English with an explanation.
Conflict Detection
CharacterCanon clear
Eli Vance
Lighthouse keeper, 47. Built the signal that pulls the drowned back.
World RuleCanon clear
The drowned return at the age they died
CharacterCanon clear
Maren Vance
Eli's daughter. Drowned at 9, returned at 9 — and hasn't aged since.
Conflict Detection
CharacterCanon clear
Maren Vance
Eli's daughter. Drowned at 9, returned at 9 — and hasn't aged since.
Pricing
From a single project to an entire studio.
Free to build. Upgrade when the world grows, or the team does.
Contributors
Free
$0
- ●Canon Canvas
- ●1 project
- ●1 seat
- ●Canon Credits
- ●Locked Vault + version history
- ●Priority support
Most popular
Solo creators
Core
$7/mo
- ●Canon Canvas
- ●1 project
- ●3 team seats
- ●10 Canon Credits a month
- ●Locked Vault + version history
- ●Priority support
Studios
Pro
$19/mo
- ●Canon Canvas
- ●Unlimited projects
- ●8 team seats
- ●30 Canon Credits a month
- ●Locked Vault + version history
- ●Priority support
Reviews
What writers are saying.
I really like the idea behind this platform, and I’m already enjoying using it. As a filmmaker, I especially love the storyboard feel of it all, and I’ve already begun setting up a book with an entirely new world, alongside characters that users can literally click on to learn more about. It feels very interactive and makes readers genuinely feel like they’re part of the experience.
The team has also been friendly and supportive, and their enthusiasm for what they’re building is infectious. Overall, this is a top-tier platform.
Belinda
Filmmaker
One of my favorite parts of writing is brainstorming ideas with other creative thinkers, and I love that CanonBoard makes it so easy to collaborate on publicly-available stories. It’s like having access to an online writer’s room whenever you want!
Piper
Writer
The safe space from writer’s block and decreased creativity! Truly, here you will find no shortage of ideas, stories, themes, or plots. You can always receive and view others’ ideas for your project and intertwine them with your own creative writing, and truly give your viewers the best, most interactive creative process for your medium.
Angel
Writer
FAQ
What people ask before they write.
What does "pre-writing" actually mean?
The layer before the script: who your characters are, what your world's rules permit, how every thread connects, what happens when. Most tools start checking your world after you've written it. CanonBoard works before — when contradictions are cheap to fix.
What can you do with cards on the canvas?
Every card, image, note, and frame can be moved, resized, and locked in place; connected to other cards with labeled relationship lines; grouped and multi-selected to move or delete together; and copied and pasted between different projects' canvases. You can also pin reference images, sticky notes, free text, and labeled frames anywhere on the infinite canvas.
Does Conflict Detection use AI?
Yes. Conflict Detection reads your full world on demand and surfaces direct contradictions — dead-then-alive characters, broken rules, two characters in the same place at the same time — with an explanation per conflict. Available on Core and above; each scan costs 1 Canon Credit.
Will Refine write my story?
Never. Refine interviews you — one question at a time, about ten per session — and parses your answers into structured cards on the canvas. It never generates story content and never suggests plot decisions. If you want a tool that writes for you, we are cheerfully the wrong product.
What's the Locked Vault?
A sealed section for intentional mysteries — the season-two reveal, the hidden motivation, the twist. The conflict engine never flags what's in the Vault, because a deliberate gap isn't a mistake. It's kept completely separate from active canon.
Will my work be used to train AI models?
No. Your story content is never used to train AI models — not ours, not our AI provider's, not anyone's. It only leaves CanonBoard when you trigger one of the three tools that need it: Smart Import, Refine, or Conflict Detection. Everything else — the canvas, relationship mapping, the timeline, the Vault, version history — runs on our own infrastructure and never goes anywhere. When those three do send content out, it goes under commercial API terms that forbid training on it and cap how long it can be kept. That is a contractual commitment from the provider, not a promise we are making on their behalf, and changing any of it would take your explicit opt-in rather than a quiet update to our terms.
Your world, stress-tested. Before you write it.
Every contradiction you catch on the canvas is one you never have to write your way out of. Free to start, and your world stays private.