Two authors, one book.And no more emailed drafts.

Why co-writing a novel usually goes wrong

Most co-written books start in a shared folder and slowly turn into an archaeology project. There is the draft, the draft with your notes, the draft with their notes, and a file called “final” that isn’t. Someone fixes a timeline problem in one copy while the other author is rewriting the same scene in another, and one of those fixes quietly disappears.

The deeper problem isn’t the files. It’s that two people are holding two slightly different versions of the story in their heads. One of you remembers that the brother died in the fire; the other wrote him into the wedding. A shared document solves the first problem. Only a shared memory of the story solves the second, and that is what Authrot is built around.

Same chapter, same moment

Every chapter in Authrot is a live document. Open it alongside your co-author and you each see the other’s cursor, named and coloured, and every keystroke as it lands. There is no locking, no “this file is open elsewhere”, and nothing to merge at the end of a session. The manuscript is one book on one page, with chapters loading as you scroll, so you can work at opposite ends of it without getting in each other’s way.

If your train goes into a tunnel, keep typing. Edits stay in the tab and sync when you reconnect, with a review of what changed while you were away. The margin marks recent edits, and clicking one shows a word-by-word diff, which is the quickest way to see what your partner did to your favourite paragraph overnight.

Six roles, so access matches the job

Not everyone on a book should be able to do everything. A co-author needs to draft and change the bible; a line editor needs to work in the text and restore an older version when an edit goes wrong; a trusted early reader may only need to read. Authrot gives each person one of six roles, and the owner (or an admin) can change it at any time.

You invite people by email from the project’s settings. You get a link to send them yourself, and it works only for that address, so a forwarded link is no use to anyone else. When a book changes hands, ownership can be transferred, and the other person accepts it.

A common setup for two co-authors is one owner and one editor, so both can draft, change the bible and restore old versions, while only the owner can publish. A developmental editor might be an editor too; a copy editor who should work in the text but leave the bible alone fits the writer role; beta readers who should only read the book fit viewer. Start people with less access than you think they need. Raising a role later takes a moment, and nobody can grant a role above their own.

• Owner: everything, including publishing and deleting the project
• Admin: everything but publishing and the owner’s settings, and manages people
• Editor: writes, edits the story bible, rules and formatting, and restores old versions
• Writer: writes, with the assistant
• Commenter: reads, with no AI (comment threads aren’t built yet)
• Viewer: reads only

A branch each, when you disagree

The best co-written books come out of arguments that were settled on the page rather than in a chat thread. When you and your co-author want to take the story two ways, each of you can write your version on your own branch: from everything so far, or rewound to just after a chosen chapter, with the bible cleaned of everything that no longer happened.

Read both. Keep the better one, or pieces of each. Merging shows what will change before it changes anything, and asks a question for each real conflict instead of guessing. For a smaller disagreement, a single chapter can hold alternate takes side by side, and the book uses whichever one you pick. Every version of every document is kept in History, so any change, yours or theirs, can be undone on its own.

Dividing the work without dividing the book

Co-authors split the work in different ways. Some alternate point-of-view characters, one writing her chapters and the other writing his. Some have one person draft and the other revise. Some pair a plotter with a discovery writer. Each split has the same weak spot: the moment one author relies on something the other wrote and remembers it wrong.

Authrot keeps that shared memory for you. When a chapter is read, the bible records who appears, what they carry and where they go, and the chapter brief shows what’s fixed and what’s overdue as each chapter opens. Anchor the facts neither of you may contradict, and a line that breaks one is flagged beside the fact it breaks, whichever of you wrote it. Promises and threads show which setups are still waiting for a payoff, so nobody drops the other person’s foreshadowing.

• Writing rules (tense, point of view, words you never use) held for everyone
• Voice drift flags chapters that read unlike your voice samples
• Chapter status from idea to final, with a progress bar per book

AI, for whoever wants it

Co-authors often feel differently about AI. In Authrot the assistant proposes exact edits and nothing changes until someone with the right role applies them, and each collaborator runs the AI on their own credits. If the two of you would rather keep the book free of it altogether, one switch per project turns the AI off for everyone: no model reads a word, and every AI control leaves the screen. Live editing, roles, branches, history and the bible by hand all still work.

Whatever you decide, write it down where you both work. Writing rules (must, should, avoid and never) live with the project, so a shared style decision such as past tense, close third person, or no semicolons in dialogue is held on every line the AI writes and checked when chapters are read. It is the house style sheet two authors usually keep in a forgotten document, kept where it does some good.