The manuscript and scenes
How a book is organised in Author: parts, chapters and scenes, their status and mode, time and place, word counts, and the four places of a book.
The tree#
A book is a tree of parts, chapters and scenes, in reading order. Each node has a title, a synopsis and a status: idea, outline, draft, revised or final. Word counts are kept per scene and per book. You can move a node, and you can shift a node's scenes (and the timed events that go with them) in story time.
A scene#
A scene's text is Markdown. Besides the text a scene can carry:
- When: a start and an end or a duration, or a relative time ("the next morning", an offset from another scene).
- Where: a place, from your cast.
- Point of view: a character. The check for point of view warns if that character is not in the scene.
- Present: the characters in the scene.
- Weather: a weather entry and its state.
- Mode: present, flashback, dream or memory. Flashbacks, dreams and memories do not count for the presence checks.
- Assertions: facts the scene states, such as an age or a weekday, which the checks compare with the calendar and the story.
Four places in a book#
| Place | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Write | The scene page, with an inspector for time, place and cast |
| Story | The timeline, the board of strands against chapters, the outline and the events |
| Bible | The cast and the places, as cards or a ruled list |
| Share | Versions, readers and export |
Your place is kept in the address, so a refresh or a shared link returns you to the same scene or view.
Time#
Story time is text in the book's calendar: 2024-03-04 18:00, 2024-03-04, 1923-04, 1923, or Day 3 14:05 for relative calendars. A leading ~ marks it approximate. Durations are minutes (90) or 1h 30m, 2d. See Events and state.
Writing with care#
- Save a version before a big rewrite.
- Mark what happens as events instead of keeping it in your head: the state and the checks work from them.