Writing a manuscript

A manuscript in Mythforge is organised the way most novels are written: chapters that hold scenes. This guide covers planning that structure, moving things around as the story changes and keeping track of how far you've got.

Create a manuscript

From a world's Manuscripts tab, choose + (New manuscript) and pick:

• Title: you can change it later.
• Structure: Blank, or a story structure such as Three-Act or the Hero’s Journey, which creates the chapters, acts and word targets for you.
• Form: novel, novella or short story.
• Series: optional. Pick an existing series, start a new one, or leave it standalone.

Open Manuscript details (the … button) at any time to change the title, add a synopsis or set a word target.

Plan chapters and scenes

In a manuscript, the Chapters list shows every chapter with its scenes.

• + Chapter adds a chapter. Choose its Kind, and if you like a Title, a Synopsis, a Word target, the chapter it Goes after and its Act, then choose Add.
• Open a chapter and choose Add scene to add a scene to it. A chapter's synopsis shows at the top when it's open.
• Edit (to change any of those, or move the chapter) and Delete sit beside Add scene for each chapter.
• The Collapse all / Expand all button folds every chapter at once, handy in a long book.

Prologues, interludes and epilogues

A chapter can be a Prologue, a Chapter, an Interlude or an Epilogue. Each kind is numbered on its own, by where it sits in the book: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Interlude 1, Chapter 3, Interlude 2, Epilogue. When there's only one prologue, interlude or epilogue it isn't numbered.

The number comes from the chapter's place, so you never type it, and moving a chapter renumbers the rest. A title is optional and shows after the number: Chapter 2: Hollowgate.

Goes after suggests where each kind belongs: a new prologue after any prologues at the start of the book, a new epilogue at the very end, and anything else before the closing epilogues. Choose another chapter (or The start of the book) to put it somewhere else.

Acts

Acts are optional. If you'd like to, group chapters into acts, parts or books: in + Chapter or Edit, choose an Act, or New act… to start one. Leave it at None and nothing changes; a book without acts looks just as it always has, and chapters can be in an act or not, in any mix. A new chapter joins the act of the chapter it goes after, unless you choose another.

Each act has a colour. In the chapters list a heading marks where each act starts, with a thin coloured edge down its chapters, and the planner shows the same colours. To rename, recolour or remove acts, open the manuscript's … (Manuscript details) and edit them under Acts. Removing an act keeps its chapters; they're just no longer in an act.

A good habit is to sketch the whole story first: add chapters and scenes with just a title, and mark them as outlines (see below). The structure then becomes your to-do list.

To see the whole book as index cards, switch Show scenes as to Cards, and filter scenes by point of view or status. See Planning and the corkboard.

Reorder as the story changes

Choose Reorder above the chapters list:

• Use the arrows to move a chapter up or down. Chapters are renumbered as they move.
• Use the arrows beside a scene to move it within its chapter. Moving past the first or last scene carries it into the neighbouring chapter.
• Use Move to another chapter to send a scene anywhere in the book.

Choose Done when you're finished.

Track each scene's status

Every scene has a status, shown as a coloured dot:

To change it, open the scene and choose … (Scene details), then pick a status. On a wide window, the same details sit in a panel beside the editor. Scene details also has:

• the scene's word count, today's progress towards your daily goal and where the scene sits in the manuscript,
• Synopsis, Point of view, Location and When (see Planning and the corkboard),
• Snapshots, earlier versions of the scene (see Snapshots),
• Comments on the scene (see Comments),
• Find and replace and Focus mode,
• Delete scene.

Deleted scenes and chapters go to Recently deleted for 30 days, and Undo appears straight after, so a slip of the finger is never a disaster.

Word targets and progress

Set a word target in Manuscript details and the manuscript shows a progress bar and how many words you've written towards it.

For a goal that resets every day, set a Daily goal in Settings → Writing. See The editor.

Pick up where you left off

A world's Home tab shows where you were last writing, so carrying on is one step away. Inside a world you can also jump to any scene or lore entry with the quick switcher: press ⌘ P on a Mac or Ctrl P on Windows and Linux.

Share it

When a draft is ready, choose the share button at the top of the manuscript to compile it into a Word document for agents and editors, an EPUB for e-readers, a PDF or markdown. See Compile and export.