Chapters and plot

A chapter is one section of the story in order, and a plot is the order in which events are told inside one chapter.

Chapters

A chapter has a title and What this chapter is about. In that field, write in a line or two what the chapter is about. For Pride and Prejudice's “2. Wickham and Collins,” it helps to write the question the chapter holds onto, like “Whose word does Elizabeth believe?”

Chapters have an order. The canvas lays chapters out three to a row in a snaking line, and that order is the plot of the whole work.

Chapter boxes aren't numbered. If you want a number to show, put it in the title, like “2. Wickham and Collins.”

Making and editing chapters

Add chapter

Press Add chapter at the very end of the chapters and a new chapter appears after the last one. The chapter panel opens so you can type the title right away. If you leave the title blank, it shows as “Untitled chapter.”

You don't have to start with chapters. You can write characters or events first, and when some events feel like they belong in one chapter, make the chapter and drag those events in and drop them.

Editing the title and what it's about

Press a chapter's name on the canvas and the chapter panel opens. Edit the title and What this chapter is about there. They save as you type.

Changing the order

Drag a chapter's name onto another chapter's name and drop it, and it moves to that spot. Move it later and it goes after the chapter you dropped it on. Move it earlier and it goes before. For example, drop “4. Pemberley” onto “2. Wickham and Collins” and Pemberley becomes second, and the rest each move down one.

Changing the order also changes where relationship names given from that chapter on start to apply. Relationship names carry forward in chapter order. More in Relationships.

Deleting a chapter

Press the trash icon (Delete) at the top of the chapter panel and the chapter is deleted. It's deleted right away without asking, so be careful.

What goes with the chapter is its plot (the order of events) and the By chapter (memo) entries each memo had for that chapter. Relationship names given from that chapter on don't show anymore either. Event and memo cards stay. Events that were in that chapter become events outside every plot and go back to Whole work at the top.

If you deleted it by mistake, Undo in the canvas tools brings the chapter back. Its plot and By chapter entries come back too. Undo only remembers the screen you have open, so do it before you refresh.

Plot: the order of events in a chapter

An event is a memo with the Event tag. One thing that happens in the story, like a ball, a proposal or reading a letter, is one event. On the first line of an event's body, write what the event changes. For “Wickham's Grievance,” something like “Wickham claims Darcy wronged him, and Elizabeth's prejudice hardens.” For memos and tags in general, see Memos and tags.

The Plot inside a chapter box holds the events told in that chapter, numbered and in order. Events in order in the chapter panel shows the same order as a list, and pressing a row opens that event. The small circles on an event card are the first letters of the memos that appear in it.

Add event

There are two ways to make an event.

• Press Add event at the end of a chapter box's plot and a blank event goes at the very end of that chapter's plot. The event panel opens so you can type its name.
• Press Add event in the canvas tools and an event that isn't in any chapter appears in Whole work. This is handy for jotting down something before you know where it will be told.

Placing events in a plot

Drag an event from Whole work into a chapter box and drop it, and it goes at the end of that chapter's plot. To put it between two events in the plot, drop it on the left or right edge of an event card.

Drop it in the middle of an event card and it doesn't go in between. Instead the two events are connected as Related events. If you meant to change the order, drop it again toward the edge. How the drop spot is shown is in Using the canvas.

Changing the order and moving to another chapter

Drop an event in a plot onto the edge of another event card and the order changes. Drop it between events in another chapter's plot, or into another chapter box, and it moves to that chapter. When it moves, it leaves the original chapter's plot. An event is only ever in one chapter's plot.

Taking events out of the plot

Taking an event out of the plot doesn't delete the event card. There are two ways.

• In the plot in the event panel shows the chapter it's in and its spot, like “No. 2.” Press the × next to it (Take out of the flow).
• Drag the event card in the plot into the Whole work box at the top and drop it.

An event taken out of every plot goes back to Whole work.

Events not in any chapter's plot

Events that aren't placed in any plot are in Whole work. Open such an event's panel and it says “Not in any chapter's plot.” Things that are only mentioned and never told directly, like a character's past or something that happened outside the story, are left like this.

Pride and Prejudice's “Darcy and Wickham's Past” is one of those events. Wickham squandering his legacy and trying to seduce Georgiana never appears as a scene in the text. It only comes through as a story someone tells. If you later decide to tell it as a scene in some chapter, drag it into that chapter's plot and drop it then.

Memos in a chapter

Related memos, at the bottom of a chapter box, gathers the memos that appear in that chapter, like characters, places, rules and clues. There are two ways a memo comes into a chapter.

• By appearing in an event. A memo connected to an event in that chapter's plot is in that chapter on its own. If Wickham and Elizabeth are connected to “Wickham's Grievance,” the two of them come into “2. Wickham and Collins,” where that event is placed. Drop a memo onto an event card and it's connected as appearing in that event.
• By putting it straight into the chapter. For a memo that doesn't appear in an event but is mentioned in that chapter or changes there, drag the memo into an empty spot in the chapter box and drop it. It goes into that chapter.

One memo can be in many chapters. There's one card, and you write By chapter entries separately for each chapter. A card in Related memos shows the first line of its By chapter entry if there is one, and the first line of its body if not.

Drop a memo onto another memo in the same chapter and the two are connected with a relationship. You can give the relationship a name that applies from that chapter on. That's covered in Relationships.

By chapter (memo)

By chapter in the memo panel lists, in order, the chapters the memo is in, with one field for each chapter. There, write what the memo's situation is in that chapter, what it wants and what it knows. The body holds what doesn't change, and what changes from chapter to chapter goes here.

For Elizabeth, it changes like this.

Written like this, you can see at a glance how the character changes as you follow the chapters. Places work the same way. “Pemberley” can be written in Chapter 4 as “The estate that shows Darcy's dignity and character.”

A memo that came into a chapter by appearing in an event can have its By chapter entry written right away too.

Event memos don't have this field. How an event stands in that chapter is told by its place in the plot and its body.

Take out of this chapter

A memo you put straight into a chapter, or one with a By chapter entry, can be taken out with the × (Take out of this chapter) next to that chapter's row in the memo panel. You can also drag the memo from the chapter box's Related memos into the Whole work box at the top and drop it. The memo card isn't deleted.

Taking it out also removes its By chapter entry for that chapter. If it was a mistake, Undo brings back what you wrote too.

A memo that's in a chapter because it appears in an event can't be taken out this way. An event is the reason the memo is in that chapter. If you take out a memo that has a By chapter entry, only what you wrote is removed, and it stays in the chapter as long as it appears in the event. To take it out of the chapter completely, remove its link to that event (Relationships), or take the event out of that chapter's plot.

Point of view

Whose eyes the story is told through is set in three layers.

1. The work's default point of view. Write it in About the work, in the work's settings. Write it freely, like “Third person, following Elizabeth.” See Works.
2. The chapter's point of view. In Related memos in the chapter panel, press the eye icon next to a character to turn on “(name)'s POV for this chapter.” You can pick one person per chapter, and pressing it again turns it off. If no one is on, the chapter follows the work's default point of view.
3. The event's point of view. To tell a single event through another character's eyes, press the eye icon next to a character in Related memos in the event panel to turn on “(name)'s POV for this event.” An event with no point of view of its own follows the chapter's, and the eye icon then says “following the chapter's.”

In the Pride and Prejudice example, all six chapters are from Elizabeth's point of view. But “Bingley's Sudden Leave for London” and “Darcy Settles the Affair” are things Elizabeth doesn't see herself, so their event point of view is set to Darcy. When an event has its own point-of-view character, that person's circle shows filled in on the event card in the plot.

Only memos with the Character tag can be a point of view. That's why the eye icon only appears next to character memos. An event's point of view can only be turned on while the event is in a plot.

Any AI you connect reads this point of view too when it reads a chapter.

Read next

• Memos and tags: The Event tag and how to write a memo body
• Relationships: Connecting memos and changing relationship names by chapter
• Using the canvas: Drag and drop, moving with the keyboard, undo
• Works: Where to write the default point of view in About the work