Write your first scene

Chapters and scenes

A book in Write is made of chapters, and each chapter is made of one or more scenes. The chapter is what your reader sees—the title, the number, the heading at the top of the page. Scenes are for you: a chapter with three scenes prints as one chapter with a scene break between each, but you can move, set aside or rewrite any one scene without disturbing the others. If you've always written in one long document, this takes a day or two to get used to, and then you won't want to go back.

Starting the first chapter

In a new book, click Add the first chapter. It arrives with one empty scene, already open.
Click into the page and begin. Enter starts a new paragraph, and the page shows the real indent, font and spacing from your page setup, so what you see is close to what you'll print.
Give the chapter a title whenever you're ready: point at the chapter in the manuscript list, click the small gear beside it, and choose Rename chapter. Or leave it numbered—plenty of books do.

Adding more

Another scene in the same chapter: open the chapter's gear menu and choose Add a scene. It goes to the end; drag it, or use Move scene up and Move scene down from the scene's own menu, to put it where you want.
Another chapter: click + Chapter at the bottom of the manuscript list, or the + beside Manuscript. Drag it into place.
Parts: if your book is divided into parts, you can turn them on and drag chapters into them. See Organize chapters and scenes.

Screenshot: The manuscript list on the left of the editor with a chapter's gear menu open, showing Rename chapter and Add a scene, and + Chapter at the bottom of the list.

Scene breaks take care of themselves

You don't type them. Between two scenes in a chapter, the finished book prints the scene-break ornament from your page setup; in the editor, each scene is its own page. If you'd like a break partway through a scene, make it two scenes: put the cursor where the second should begin and choose Split the scene here from the Paragraph menu (or press Ctrl+Shift+Enter).

Chapter numbers

A new chapter takes the next number. Moving a chapter doesn't renumber anything on its own, so you can try a chapter in a new spot without its number changing under you. When the numbers are out of order, the manuscript list says so, with a Renumber button to put them straight.

Setting a scene aside

Archive scene takes a scene out of the book without deleting it, and nothing is lost. Show archived, in the … menu beside Manuscript, lists your archived scenes, and Restore scene puts one back where it was. Only an archived scene can be deleted, with Delete scene for good. That can't be undone, so it asks you first.

For everything else you can do with chapters, scenes and parts, see Organize chapters and scenes.