Your script stays yours
Two questions stop a writer uploading a draft: will this overwrite my work, and will you train on it. Both have real answers, and both answers are mechanisms in the product rather than promises on a page.
Before you upload anything
Nothing changes until you Merge
Every edit opens an A/B compare — nothing changes your scene until you Merge.
Your script is never used to train AI
Zero Data Retention on every model — your script is never used to train AI. Zero Data Retention means the model providers we send your pages to are contractually barred from storing them: your script is processed to produce your result and then it is gone from their side. Read the policy.
You stay the author
These tools read your script and tell you what they found. Where they suggest a change, it arrives as a proposal beside your original, never in place of it.
Your work stays yours, and you can delete it
Your projects stay in your account for as long as you use it. An account left completely inactive for 2 years is notified before anything is removed, and you can delete a project or your whole account at any time. Full terms in the privacy policy.
What “A/B compare” means in practice
- Character Voice
- “Rewrites only this character's dialogue — action and other characters stay untouched.”
- Alternate Takes
- “Two contrasting rewrites of this scene, compared side-by-side — pick one, or blend the best of both.”
Both quoted from the editor itself. Every suggestion lands next to your original with a Merge button; declining it leaves the scene exactly as you wrote it.
What Zero Data Retention actually means
When you generate something, the relevant pages of your project are sent to a model provider, the result comes back, and that is the end of it. Zero Data Retention is the contractual term for the provider not keeping a copy: your pages are held only for as long as the request takes, and they are not retained, logged for review, or used as training data.
This applies to every model we route to, not to a premium tier or an enterprise plan. It is the default and the only setting. The published privacy policy §3.1 states it in the binding form: your materials are not used to train, fine-tune or improve any foundation model, and the processing agreements with providers prohibit it.
There is no opt-out to find, because there is nothing to opt out of. If we ever ran a research programme it would be explicit, informed and revocable opt-in, presented separately, and never a condition of using the service.
How long anything is kept
- At the model provider — nothing
- Zero Data Retention. The pages are processed and gone.
- In our processing layer — up to 72 hours
- Prompts and outputs are cached briefly so a failed or interrupted generation can be recovered without charging you twice, then permanently deleted. Policy §3.3.
- In your account — until you delete it
- Your projects are yours to keep or remove. An account left completely inactive for 2 years is warned 4 times — at 90, 30, 7, 1 days before deletion — so nothing disappears without several chances to log in and export. Policy §7.0.
Nothing is written to your script without you
The second fear is not about privacy at all — it is about waking up to a draft that is no longer the one you wrote. Every tool that proposes a change to your pages does it as a proposal: the suggestion appears beside your original, you read both, and the scene changes only when you press Merge.
That is why the analysis tools are the ones we lead with. They read your script and tell you what they found — coverage, notes, a score with its reasoning, a continuity pass — and they do not touch a word of it. You can use this product for months without ever letting it write a line. See what the analysis produces.
You can leave, and take everything with you
Screenplays export to Final Draft (FDX), Fountain, PDF and Word. Production documents — breakdowns, schedules, budgets, call sheets — export to PDF, Word and Excel. Nothing is held in a format you cannot take to another tool, and export is not gated behind a higher tier of spending.
What this page does not claim
We are not going to put a badge on this page for a certification we have not been through. What is written above is what we can point at: a published policy, a contractual term with our providers, and a merge step you control.
If your production needs more than that — a signed data processing agreement, a completed security questionnaire, a written deletion confirmation for a rights holder — ask us and a person will answer. The full detail sits in the privacy policy, including sub-processors, international transfers and your rights under GDPR and CCPA.
Questions people actually ask
Does The Story Maker train AI on my screenplay?
No. Your scripts, beats, characters and uploaded files are never used to train, fine-tune or improve any AI model. Every model we route to runs under Zero Data Retention, which means the provider is contractually barred from storing your pages: your script is processed to produce your result and is then gone from their side.
Who else can see my script?
Nobody, unless you invite them. Projects are private to your account. Team workspaces share only within the team you create. We do not sell personal data, and we do not publish, index or showcase user work — the sample project on this site is our own, written for the purpose.
How long is my script kept?
Your projects stay in your account for as long as you use it, and you can delete a project or your entire account at any time. AI prompts and outputs are cached for up to 72 hours so a failed generation can be recovered, then permanently deleted. An account left completely inactive is notified four times over three months before anything is removed.
Can an AI edit my scene without me approving it?
No. Every suggested change opens an A/B compare beside your original and nothing is written to your scene until you press Merge. Declining a suggestion leaves the scene exactly as you wrote it.
Can I get my work out if I stop using it?
Yes. Screenplays export to Final Draft (FDX), Fountain, PDF and Word; production documents export to PDF, Word and Excel. There is no format we hold your work in that you cannot take somewhere else.
Do you keep a copy after I delete a project?
Deleting a project removes it from your account. Backups age out on their own retention cycle, and we do not restore deleted work into any other context. If you need written confirmation of deletion for a production or a rights holder, contact us and we will provide it.
The fastest way to judge any of this is to look at a finished project before you upload anything of your own.
Open the sample project