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, from the … menu beside it in the manuscript list (Rename chapter). Or leave it numbered—plenty of books do.
Adding more
- Another scene in the same chapter: open the chapter's … menu and choose Add a scene. It goes to the end; Move scene up and Move scene down put it where you want.
- Another chapter: Add a chapter at the bottom of the manuscript list, or Add a chapter here from a chapter's menu to slip one in the middle.
- Parts: if your book is divided into parts, Edit part and Take out of its part on a chapter's menu control which part it sits under.
Screenshot: The manuscript list on the left of the editor with a chapter's … menu open, showing Rename chapter, Add a scene and Add a chapter here, and Add a 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, splitmake it into two scenes.scenes: add a scene after it and move the second half across with cut and paste.
Chapter numbers
Chapters number themselves in order, and the numbers follow when you move one. Renumber chapters is there for the times you've given chapters their own numbers and want them put straight.
Setting a scene aside
Archive scene takes a scene out of the book without deleting it. It stays listed under archived, and Restore scene puts it back where it was. Delete scene for good is permanent, so it asks you first.