I have just pushed a more-or-less-working version of my "Org Writer's
Room" mode to github:

https://github.com/titaniumbones/org-writers-room

It's a very simple set of mostly-trivial minor modes that creates a
Scrivener-like writing environment for org users.  put
org-writers-room.el in your load path, load or require it, and then,
in an org-mode file, type M-x org-writers-room.  This will close all
but one of your existing windows, split the remaining window into 3
columns, and populate them as follows:

- left-hand column contains your unnarrowed original org file.
Ideally it should be org-global-cycle'd to "children" but I can't see
how to instruct org-cycle or org-global-cycle to set visibility to a
particular level.  (I would also like to have the entire "PROPERTIES"
drawer and ALL NON-HEADING CONTENTS of the heading hidden at all
times, but I can't figure that out either).
- wide center column contains an indirect buffer narrowed to the
subtree at point in the main buffer.
- right-hand column contains a second indirect buffer narrowed to the
properties drawer of the subtree at point.

In the left-hand column, press C-c C-x b or just RET on a heading to
"activate" it and place its contents in the other two columns.

It could definitely be a lot better but it's not so terrible!  It
allows you to have an overview of the project as a whole, a clean view
of the section you're writing at the moment, and a look over at the
metadata -- the "back of the index card" from Scrivener -- to remind
you of what you're trying to do in the setion you're currently
writing.

I would really like to make the metadata part more robust, with maybe
some functions that let you edit the property values without touching
the property names, and perhaps some fontlock trickery to make it look
prettier.  Siilarly, I'd like to do a bit more with the guide and evne
with the main section.  Eventually, I'd also like to make it
compatible with zotero-plain so I can start to use citations properly
in org-mode instead of inserting them post-facto in libreoffice
(ugh!).    But for now I'm pleased it works at all.

 I would love it if people would try it out.  It should be much more
stable than the last, awful version I posted some months ago.  The
code is very simple and mostly just

(1) rewrites the org functions for dealing with indirect buffers, so
that the indirect buffers don't need to be clones of the parent buffer
(2) changes some keybindings
(3) sets up the stable window configuration described above.

I would really love it if some other people would try it out, and (oh
please!) suggest/implement improvements.  I am well aware of my
terrible coding limitations.

Thank you,
matt

PS, the readme on github is a little out of date, but the code itself
is mostly documented so I hope that helps.  Though there's no general
documentation at the top of the file -- oops, sorry.