How it works
A walk through the studio in the order most novels need it. Use as much or as little as helps — every part works on its own, and all of it works from the same scenes.
Step 1
Import a Word document, RTF, EPUB, Markdown or plain text, or a zipped Scrivener project, and the studio finds your chapters and scenes. Before anything is created you see what it found and anything that couldn't come across — a table that will become plain paragraphs, say. Or start on a blank page.
Step 2
Each scene saves to this device as you type and to the cloud moments later, and the status line tells you which. Type @ to link a character, leave yourself a margin note, start a sprint, look up a word, or turn on read aloud to hear a paragraph back. Press ? for every keyboard shortcut.
Editor & recovery Open with no connection Stats, goals & focus
This scene changed on another device
Nothing has been overwritten. Compare the versions and choose.
Step 3
Select a sentence and choose Cite selection: the detail joins your story bible with its passage attached. Mark it canon, planned, a belief or a rumour. Add portraits, relationships, family trees and maps when they help — never because a form demands it.
Mara Holloway
Character · also “Mrs. H”, “the orchard girl”
Ch. 3 · The oath Source changed — review
“Her eyes, grey as the river in March, gave nothing away.”
Step 4
A board by chapter, a timeline that keeps story time apart from reading order, plotline lanes, a pacing view and beat sheets — all views of the same scenes you write. For ideas that aren't scenes yet, there's a corkboard and notes.
Step 5
When a draft is ready, run a story scan — if you've allowed AI for this book. Possible slips arrive with both passages quoted side by side. Basic checks run without AI at all, and you can ask factual questions answered only from your manuscript, with quotes.
Possible slip · an objectNeeds your decision
These passages may conflict. Was this change intentional?
Ch. 4 · The bargain
At the gate she pressed her grandmother's silver ring into his palm. “Keep it until the frost is over,” she said.
Ch. 9 · Frost
Mara sat by the window and turned the silver ring on her finger, waiting for the bell.
Step 6
Findings, your margin notes and readers' comments become tasks on the revision desk, each opening its passage. Work the book in passes. Thinking of a bigger change? Rehearse it first and see which passages depend on it. Renaming something everywhere? Preview every match before you replace. Near the end, a copyedit style sheet flags spellings and commas that don't match your choices.
Step 8
Choose one of ten themes, add front and back matter, preview the ebook on a phone, tablet or e-reader, and export an EPUB or a print-ready PDF from your browser. If you like, add a “Written by a human” page built from the book's writing history. DOCX, TXT and a complete project archive are there whenever you want them, on every plan.
Step 9
Away for a week? The re-entry card shows where you stopped, the note you left yourself and the next task. Your stats show what you did, kindly. And your desk is on every device: desktop apps that also keep a restorable backup of each book on your computer, an installable app for phones and tablets, and books that open with no connection once you've opened them on that device.
Where AI is — and isn't
Most of the studio never sends a word anywhere. Here's the whole list.
| Step | Sends text to an AI provider? |
|---|---|
| Importing, writing, saving and version history | Never |
| Dictionary look-ups | Never — only the selected word goes to a public dictionary service |
| Book-wide replace and the copyedit style sheet checks | Never |
| Building the story bible by hand, world-building, notes | Never |
| Planning views, pacing, stats and the lexicon lens | Never |
| Basic continuity checks | Never |
| Story scan and suggested story-bible entries | Only for books where you've allowed it, after an estimate |
| Cited questions | Only for books where you've allowed it, after an estimate |
| Beta-reader links, book design, the “Written by a human” page and every export | Never |
| Co-authoring, saved views and working offline | Never |
When something is sent, it's only the excerpts that step needs, never scenes you've marked private, to the provider named on screen. More on the privacy page.
AI runs draw on your plan's monthly allowance, shown as approximate words of reading. On Free, or once the month's allowance is used, a one-time reading pack covers them. A run that doesn't fit doesn't start and nothing is spent; writing, search and export keep working. See pricing and reading packs.
Example workflows
Illustrations, not testimonials: how the parts fit together for different kinds of novel.
Pin every clue to a corkboard and link each one to the scene where it's planted. Record the secrets in the story bible and check the reveal order in the reveals lens. Before the final draft, a story scan looks for alibis that contradict each other.
Put all three books in a series workspace so the magic system's rules cite the books that established them. Thinking of letting a dead character return? Rehearse it to see every passage that mourns them.
Give each viewpoint its own plotline and use the pacing view to keep the chapters balanced. Share the middle third with readers and watch where consensus forms. Then work the notes in a character pass.
Import your draft from Word, Scrivener, RTF, EPUB or Markdown, or start on a blank page. The 14-day trial needs no card, and your book is exportable from the first word.
Lore & Lilac
“Sam” · reader
I wasn't sure what she understood here.