Organize chapters and scenes

This page is about the shape of your book: adding chapters and scenes, moving them around, grouping chapters into parts, and putting aside the ones you're not sure about. All of it happens in the manuscript list down the left side of the editor.

Screenshot: the manuscript list on the left, with a chapter open showing its scenes, and the gear menu beside a chapter.

How the list works

Your book is a list of chapters, and each chapter holds one or more scenes. Click a chapter to open it and see its scenes; click a scene to write in it. The number at the right of each row is its word count.

Point at a row and a small menu appears beside it—a gear for a chapter, three dots for a scene. Almost everything on this page starts from one of those two menus. (On a phone or tablet the menus are always showing.)

Add chapters and scenes

To add a chapter, click the + beside Manuscript, or + Chapter at the bottom of the list. A new chapter arrives with one empty scene, ready to write in. If the chapter before it has header fields (a date line or a point-of-view line, say), the new chapter gets the same fields, empty, so you don't have to add them again.

To add a scene, open the chapter's gear menu and choose Add a scene. The new scene goes at the end of the chapter.

Rename a chapter or scene

Choose Rename chapter or Rename scene from its menu. A chapter's title is the one that prints; a scene's title is for you—it shows in the list and the outline, but never in the book.

Move things around

Drag and drop

Drag a chapter up or down the list to move it. Drag a scene to move it within its chapter, or into a different chapter altogether—the space opens up where it will land.

Or use the menus

If dragging is fiddly, Move chapter up and Move chapter down (or Move scene up and Move scene down) do the same thing one step at a time.

Renumber your chapters

Moving a chapter doesn't change its number on its own—that way a chapter you're trying out in a new place keeps its name while you decide. When the numbers no longer run in order, a note appears at the top of the list: Chapter numbers are out of order. Click Renumber there, or choose Renumber chapters from the … menu beside Manuscript. Chapters without a number, like a prologue or an interlude, stay unnumbered, and the count skips them.

Merge two scenes

Sometimes two scenes turn out to be one. From the scene's menu, choose Merge into the scene above or Merge into the scene below. The text joins its neighbor, with any comments and suggestions still attached where they were. The neighbor keeps its own title, point of view, date, place and status; the two synopses and sets of notes are joined together.

You won't lose anything. Before the merge, the neighbor's text is saved in its history, and the scene you merged is archived rather than deleted. There isn't an "unmerge," though—restoring the archived scene brings back its text as a separate scene, alongside the merged copy. (Splitting the scene again, below, is usually the easier way back.)

Split a scene in two

Put your cursor where the new scene should begin, then choose Split the scene here from the Paragraph menu, or press Ctrl+Shift+Enter (Cmd+Shift+Enter on a Mac). Everything from the cursor on becomes a new scene right after this one, and it opens so you can carry on.

The new scene starts with the same point of view, date, place and status. Its title and synopsis are empty for you to fill in, and the scene's notes stay with the first half. Comments and suggestions go wherever their words went.

Nothing is lost here either: the scene as it was before the split is kept in its history, labelled Before a split.

Parts

Parts (or acts, if you prefer) group your chapters. Each part prints on its own page, with a number line over its title, and the list groups its chapters under it. Chapter numbers carry on from one part to the next.

Turn parts on

Parts are off until you want them. Open Chapter header setup (beside Manuscript) and find the Parts card. Set Use parts to On. While you're there, Called chooses between Part and Act, and Number reads as sets how the number prints.

If you turn parts off later, your parts are kept—they just stop showing and printing until you turn them back on.

Screenshot: the Parts card in Chapter header setup, with Use parts set to On.

Add a part

With parts on, the + beside Manuscript asks whether you'd like a chapter or a part, and there's a + Part button at the bottom of the list too. Give the part a number, a title, or both. The window shows you how the number line will print.

Put chapters into a part

Drag a chapter into a part, or out of it. To add a fresh chapter straight into a part, choose Add a chapter here from the part's menu. To move a chapter out without dragging, choose Take out of its part from its gear menu. Drag a part itself and its chapters come along with it.

Change or remove a part

If your parts end up out of order, Renumber parts in the … menu beside Manuscript puts their numbers back in sequence.

Archive a chapter or scene

Archiving puts a chapter or scene aside. It disappears from the list and from your book—it won't print, and its words don't count—but nothing is lost, and you can bring it back whenever you like.

Choose Archive chapter or Archive scene from its menu. To see what you've put aside, choose Show archived from the … menu beside Manuscript; archived rows appear, dimmed. Choose Restore chapter or Restore scene to bring one back, and Hide archived when you're done.

Delete for good

Only something you've archived can be deleted. With archived rows showing, its menu offers Delete chapter for good or Delete scene for good. It asks first, because this one can't be undone. Archiving is usually the better choice—an archived scene costs you nothing.

Who can do this

Owners and co-authors can reorganize the manuscript. Editors can write and suggest but don't see these menus, and readers only read. For more, see What each role can do.