Getting started

Mythforge is built around worlds. A world holds everything for one setting: the books you write in it and the lore that makes it feel real. This guide takes you from an empty library to your first written scene in a few minutes.

Open Mythforge

Mythforge runs in your web browser, on a phone, tablet or computer. There's nothing to download and no account to create.

Open Mythforge and you'll land in your Library, the list of your worlds. It starts empty, with a short welcome.

Look around a demo world

Want to see what a lived-in world looks like before you build your own? In the empty Library, choose Explore a demo world. Later, open Settings and choose Add the demo world under Help.

It adds The Lantern Fens, a finished-looking world of its own: a series of two books and a prequel story, chapters with synopses and statuses, scenes with comments and earlier versions, a full lorebook, a timeline with its own calendar, and weeks of writing stats. Change anything you like; it never touches your own worlds. When you're done, delete it like any other world from World details on its Home tab.

Create a world

1. In the Library, choose + (New world).
2. Give the world a Name, for example The Ashen Reach.
3. Optionally add a Tagline: one line that captures the world.
4. Save, and the world opens.

Every world has these tabs along the bottom (on a wide window they are sections in the sidebar, see the desktop workbench):

You can rename the world or change its tagline at any time from World details on its Home tab.

Start a manuscript

A manuscript is one book or story: a novel, a novella or a short story.

1. Open the Manuscripts tab and choose + (New manuscript).
2. Give it a Title and pick its Form.
3. Leave Series empty for now. You can group books into a series later (see Series and related books).

Add a chapter and a scene

Manuscripts are made of chapters, and chapters are made of scenes. Scenes are where the writing happens.

1. In your manuscript, choose Add the first chapter. Leave the kind as Chapter (or choose Prologue), add a title if you like, and choose Add.
2. Open the chapter and choose Add scene.
3. The scene opens in the editor. Give it a title and start writing.

There's no save button: Mythforge saves as you type.

Where to go next

• Writing a manuscript: plan chapters, reorder scenes and track progress.
• The editor: formatting, the toolbar and daily goals.
• The lorebook: build up your cast and places, and mention them as you write.
• Planning and the corkboard: outline scenes and lay them out as index cards.
• Import a manuscript: bring in a draft you started in Word or another app.
• Moving from Scrivener: bring your Scrivener project across and find your way around.
• Backups and moving devices and Where your writing lives: worth reading early, so your words are always safe.