Scene titles, paging and the manuscript menu
Optional scene titles, paging between scenes, the manuscript … menu of book actions, and a character’s age in a scene.
Plenty of writers never name their scenes, so Mythforge doesn't ask you to. A scene is its chapter's text, in order; a title is something you can add. This guide covers how untitled scenes are named, tagging scenes, how to move through a book scene by scene, the … menu on a manuscript, and the age a character has in a scene.
Scene titles are optional
A new scene has no title. Open it and the editor leads with its chapter, in large type ("Chapter 1: Ten Thousand Lamps"), with the scene's title in smaller type beneath. In a scene with no title that line reads Untitled scene in a faint, italic placeholder (and stays quieter still when the scene is the only one in its chapter, where the chapter's name says it all). Select it to name the scene, or leave it alone.
How an untitled scene is named
Lists, search results, links and the corkboard need something to call a scene. Mythforge uses the first of these that applies:
Anything that isn't a real title is shown dimmed (and in italics), so it never reads as one. The name follows the text: change how the scene opens and its name in the lists changes too. Clear a scene's title at any time to go back to this.
A chapter of one scene
When a chapter has a single scene, its row on the manuscript's page opens that scene straight away, so a book with one scene to a chapter reads as a plain list of chapters. The small chevron beside the row opens the chapter's own panel instead, with Add scene, Edit and Delete.
Tag a scene
Tags are your own labels for scenes: a storyline, a mood, a draft note such as #needs-research. Open a scene's details (… on a phone, the details panel beside the editor on a wide window) and type in Tags. Press Enter or type a comma to finish one. Tags you've already used in the world are suggested as you type.
Scenes share tags with lore entries, so one tag can gather a character's page and every scene they hide in. Select a tag on a page, or search for it with # (see Search, find and replace), to see everything with it: pages first, then scenes in story order. Rename there changes the tag on pages and scenes alike.
Tags are stored as written but tidied up: lowercase, with hyphens for spaces, so Night Watch becomes #night-watch. A scene's tags are its own: chapters don't have any to pass down.
Page through a manuscript
You don't have to go back to the manuscript's page to reach the next scene.
On a computer, the outline in the sidebar is the way: it lists the manuscript's chapters and scenes, so click one to switch to it. Hover a scene and a + appears at the end of its row: it adds a new scene right after that one. Hover a chapter's heading for a + that adds a scene at the end of the chapter. Both open the new scene with its title selected, ready to name. The same commands are in the right-click menu on a scene or chapter in the outline, and the keyboard has them too (below).
On a phone, the scene itself has the controls:
- At the top of a scene, beside the book's title, three small buttons: Previous scene, Next scene and New scene after this one. Between the first two, a counter says where you are, such as 3/10.
- At the bottom of a scene, two cards, Previous and Next, name the neighbouring scenes. When turning the page crosses into another chapter, the card names that chapter. Below them, New scene after this one.
- From the keyboard (anywhere): ⌥ ⇧ ↑ and ⌥ ⇧ ↓ for the previous and next scene, ⌥ ⇧ N for a new one (Alt Shift ↑, ↓ and N on Linux, Ctrl Alt on Windows).
Paging follows the manuscript's reading order, through every chapter, and stops at the first and last scene. With the keyboard on a computer it swaps the scene in the same tab rather than opening a tab per scene (if the scene you're moving to is already open in another tab, you go to that tab). On a phone the page slides like a screen being pushed or popped.
A new scene is added to the same chapter, right after the one you're in, and opens with the title selected so you can name it. Start typing in the text instead, or click or tap away, and it stays untitled.
The manuscript's … menu
Everything you can do to a whole book is in the … (Manuscript actions) menu at the top of its page. The parts of the page are doors too: select the cover to change the picture, the line with the stage and word count to set the goal, and the synopsis to edit the details.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| Edit details… | The Title, Synopsis, Stage (Drafting, Revising, With beta readers, Submitting or Published) and Series. |
| Goal and deadline… | A Word target and a Deadline; with both, the page says about how many words a day it takes. See Stats and goals. |
| Book matter… | The pages around the story: Author name, Dedication, Epigraph, Acknowledgements and About the author. Every export includes the ones you fill in. See Compile and export. |
| Acts… | Name, colour and remove the acts that group the chapters. |
| Threads… | The book's plot threads. See Plot threads. |
| Mark a milestone… | Saves a named snapshot of every scene that has writing in it, such as "First draft". See Snapshots. |
| Duplicate… | Copies the manuscript, with every chapter and scene, to start a new draft. You name the copy (it suggests "… (copy)") and it opens when done. |
| Prose report | Statistics and findings for the whole book. See Prose feedback. |
| Stats | Opens the world's Stats screen on its manuscripts. |
| Archive / Unarchive | Moves the book to Archived on the shelf, out of the way but kept. A banner on its page offers Unarchive, and the toast has Undo. |
| Delete manuscript… | After asking, moves it, its chapters and scenes to Recently deleted. The world's lorebook is kept. |
The button beside … opens Compile and export: see Compile and export.
A duplicate is a standalone work, even if the original is in a series, and it doesn't take the original's scene snapshots with it. Words in a copy don't count towards today's writing.
A character's age in the scene
Give a character a Born date (see Timeline) and Mythforge works out their age wherever the story is set. Select their name in a scene: the card that opens says Age in this scene.
The scene's date is its own When, or the one it takes from its chapter: see Chapter plans and scene defaults. A scene with no date has no age to show.