Chapter 3

Manuscript

The Manuscript is where the book is written: its parts, chapters and scenes in the sidebar, and the scene you’re writing in the editor beside them.

The Manuscript sidebar

The sidebar shows the whole book, in order:

• at the top, the book’s title, with the fold button and the + button beside it;
• Corkboard, the whole book as index cards (see The corkboard);
• Title Page, the book’s and your details (see The Title Page);
• Front Matter, the pages before the story;
• the story itself: its parts, if it has them, its chapters, and their scenes;
• Back Matter, the pages after the story;
• the Stash, for what you’ve taken out of the book.

Each scene shows a coloured dot for its status, its name, its word count and, if it has one, its synopsis on a line underneath. A scene with drafts has a small page mark beside its name; hover over the mark to see their names. Hover over a scene to read its synopsis in full, or, if it has none, where its file is in the book’s folder.

Each chapter shows its number and title, with the words in its scenes, and its target if it has one. Each part shows its title and its words. Chapters are numbered through the whole book, so a new part doesn’t start them again at 1.

Word counts are live: they include what you’ve written but not yet saved. The scene open in the editor is highlighted. A scene whose file can’t be found shows its name in red, struck through, and the status bar reports a problem; see Appendix E.

Click a scene to open it in the editor. Click a part’s or chapter’s name to see its scenes on the corkboard. To fold a part or chapter away, click the triangle (▸) beside its name, and click it again to open it; ⌥-click a part or chapter to fold or open all of them. The fold button beside + offers Collapse All Chapters and Expand All Chapters and, in a book with parts, Collapse All Parts and Expand All Parts; the Manuscript menu has them too. Expanding the chapters opens the parts too. Chapter 2 describes the sidebar’s headings that stay in view, and how to resize or hide it.

Every part, chapter and scene has a menu: right-click it, or click its ⋯ button.

Adding scenes, chapters and parts

The + at the top of the sidebar adds to the end of the book:

To add something in a particular place, use the menu of the scene, chapter or part it should follow: New Scene After on a scene, New Scene in This Chapter (at its end) or New Chapter After on a chapter, and New Chapter in This Part (at its end) or New Part After on a part.

A box appears in the sidebar where the new item will go. Type its name and press ↩, or press Esc to change your mind. Clicking elsewhere keeps what you’ve typed; leaving the box empty adds nothing.

A new scene opens in the editor, ready to write. A new chapter comes with a first scene named after it, and a new part with a chapter called “Chapter One” holding a first scene; that scene opens, ready to write. New scenes start with the status draft.

A new scene’s file is made when you next save, named after the scene and placed beside the book’s other scenes. Like every change to the book’s shape, an addition is unsaved until then.

Renaming

Choose Rename Scene…, Rename Chapter… or Rename Part… from its menu. The name is selected in place, so typing replaces it; press ↩ to keep the new name, or Esc to leave it as it was. Renaming a scene changes its name in the book, not its file’s name.

Dividing a book into parts

A book doesn’t need parts. If you want them later:

• Divide into Parts…, on the + menu or a chapter’s menu, puts every chapter into a first part, and asks for its name.
• Start a Part Here…, on a chapter’s menu, starts a new part at that chapter: it and the chapters after it in its part move into the new part. It isn’t offered for the first chapter of a part.
• New Part at the End and New Part After add more.

A book with parts always keeps at least one: a part can’t be moved to the Stash or deleted when it’s the only one.

Rearranging the book

Dragging

Drag anything to a new place. A line or a highlight shows where it will go.

While you drag a chapter, the scenes fold out of the way; while you drag a part, so do the chapters. They come back when you let go.

A step at a time

Each scene’s, chapter’s and part’s menu has Move Up and Move Down, greyed when it can’t go further. To move the scene you’re writing without reaching for the mouse:

The status bar says when something moves into another chapter or part, and when it’s already first or last in the book. Scenes in the Stash can’t be moved like this: drag them back into the book instead.

Empty chapters and parts

If a move, or taking something out, would leave a chapter or part with nothing in it, Septangular asks first. Remove It goes ahead and takes the empty chapter or part out of the book too; no scene files are deleted. Cancel leaves everything as it was. A book always keeps at least one chapter.

Every change to the book’s shape is unsaved until you save, and then becomes part of the same version as your words.

Status

Every scene has a status, shown by its dot in the sidebar and in the header above the editor. To change it, choose Status from the scene’s menu; the current one is ticked.

Status decides what goes into a build. Each build configuration has a least finished status it includes, and takes scenes with that status or a later one: a submission manuscript can leave out everything still in draft, while a reading copy takes it all. Chapter 9 explains configurations, and Chapter 7 shows how many words the book has at each status.

Synopses

A synopsis is a line or two saying what happens in a scene. It shows under the scene’s name in the sidebar, and beside its name above the editor.

To write or change one, click the synopsis in the sidebar, or choose Add Synopsis… (or Edit Synopsis…) from the scene’s menu. Type in the box, and press ↩ to keep it, or Esc to leave it as it was. A synopsis is always one line: line breaks become spaces. To remove one, clear the box and press ↩.

To keep a long book compact, turn off View → Show Synopses. Synopses still show when you hover over a scene, and Edit Synopsis… still works. Septangular remembers the setting for next time.

Chapter word targets

To give a chapter a word target, choose Set Word Target… from its menu (Change Word Target… once it has one). A box takes the place of its word count: type a whole number of words and press ↩, or Esc to cancel. The chapter then shows its words against the target, such as “2,104 / 3,000”. To remove a target, clear the box and press ↩.

The book’s own target, your daily goal and a due date are set on the Statistics page (Chapter 7).

The corkboard

The corkboard shows scenes as index cards, so you can read a stretch of the story at a glance and rearrange it. It takes the editor’s place:

• click a chapter’s name in the sidebar to see its scenes;
• click a part’s name to see the part’s scenes, chapter by chapter;
• click Corkboard, above the Title Page, to see the whole book, chapter by chapter.

On a part’s or the book’s board, click a chapter’s name to see just its cards. Click a scene in the sidebar to go back to writing.

Each card shows the scene’s name, its synopsis, its status and its words, with a stripe across its top in the status’s colour. To colour the stripes by plotline instead, choose Colour by plotline at the top of the board: each card takes the colour of the plotline its outline items belong to (Chapter 4), and a scene in no plotline keeps its status’s colour. The top of the board also counts its scenes and words.

These are the same changes the sidebar makes. They’re unsaved until you save, and if a move would leave a chapter empty, Septangular asks first (see Empty chapters and parts).

The Title Page

Click Title Page at the top of the sidebar to see the book’s details and yours. These go on the front page of every manuscript you build. A preview beside the form shows that page as you type: your contact details at the top left, the book’s length at the top right (“about 85,000 words”, rounded to the nearest hundred under 10,000 words, and to the nearest thousand above), and the title and byline in the middle.

An empty field shows in grey the default it will use. The title and your legal name can’t be left empty: the field is marked, and until it’s filled in again, the details keep their last good value.

Changes to the Title Page are unsaved until you save, like any other. Choose a scene in the sidebar to leave it.

Writing in the editor

Click a scene to open it. The editor is a plain page of prose. Scenes are written in Markdown, so styles show as simple marks around the words, such as *italics*; you never need to type them yourself. Appendix B describes everything a scene can hold.

The Format menu, the editor’s right-click menu and the keyboard all format text:

With nothing selected, Bold, Italic and Clear Formatting act on the word the cursor is in. A selection across several paragraphs is styled one paragraph at a time.

Your Mac’s spelling checker underlines misspelt words as you type. Right-click one for up to five suggestions, or Learn Spelling to add the word to your dictionary.

Turn on View → Show Style Checks to underline what the style checks find in the scene you’re writing, such as an overused word, a filter word or a very long sentence: repetition in amber, wording in blue, and sentences in violet. Point at an underline to see which check found it, and why. The underlines follow your typing. They show in scenes, not in Story Bible entries or notes, and Septangular remembers the setting. Chapter 7 describes the checks and their settings.

In the editor, ⌥↑ and ⌥↓ move the paragraph the cursor is in up or down, and ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ go to the start or end of the scene. Appendix A lists the rest.

When a book is built, Septangular takes care of its typography: straight quotes become curly, two or three hyphens become an en or em dash, and three dots become an ellipsis.

Each scene keeps its own undo history and place. Nothing is written to disk until you save; see Saving your work.

Comments

A comment is a note in the margin: on a passage that needs work, or at the spot where something’s missing. Comments are never part of the book.

Adding a comment

Select a passage and choose Edit → Add Comment ⌥⌘M, or right-click it and choose Add Comment. The passage is highlighted, and a card opens in the margin, level with it. Type the comment and press ↩ (⇧↩ starts a new line), or press Esc to drop it. With nothing selected, the comment goes at the cursor, shown as a small marker in the text.

A comment covers a passage within one paragraph, and comments don’t overlap: a passage that’s already commented on can’t have a second comment, and the status bar says so. Comments work in Story Bible entries and notes too.

Changing and deleting comments

Click a card to change its comment. ↩, or clicking elsewhere, keeps what you’ve typed, and Esc leaves the comment as it was; a comment left empty is deleted. Click a card’s × to delete the comment and keep the passage. The card for the passage the cursor is in is outlined, so you can tell which comment is which.

Comments are edits like any other: unsaved until you save, and ⌘Z undoes them, bringing back a comment you deleted.

Hiding comments

Turn off View → Show Comments to hide the cards. Markers stay, and commented passages keep a dotted underline, so you can still see where the comments are. Click a marker, or add a comment, and they show again. Septangular remembers the setting.

Writing round them

Each comment is kept in the scene’s own file, in a plain-text standard called CriticMarkup (Appendix B). The editor hides those marks, and keeps your typing from breaking them. ⌫ just after a commented passage deletes the passage’s last letter, and ⌦ just before one its first; deleting the passage’s last letter deletes its comment too. A deletion that would take only part of a comment’s marks is refused, unless it takes the whole comment, passage and all.

Builds, previews and word counts leave comments out and keep the passages. When you send the book to an editor, your comments go with it as Word comments (see Working with an editor).

Splitting and combining scenes

Split

To split a scene in two, put the cursor where the second scene should begin and choose Manuscript → Split Scene at Cursor ⌘K, or Split at Cursor on the scene’s menu. A box under the scene in the sidebar asks for the new scene’s name. Press ↩, and a new scene appears after the first, holding everything from the cursor on, with the same status. It opens, ready to write. Press Esc instead to cancel.

Split at a scene break, and the break goes: the two scenes are separated by being two scenes.

Combine

To run a scene and the one after it together, open the first and choose Manuscript → Combine with Next Scene ⇧⌘K, or the same command on its menu. The next scene’s text goes onto the end of this one, after a scene break, so the book reads exactly as it did; delete the break to run them together. The combined scene keeps the first scene’s name, status and synopsis.

The scene that was absorbed is deleted: it waits in the Stash, struck through, until you next save with ⌘S, and then goes to the Trash (see Deleting). The status bar says what was combined, with an Undo Combine button.

Only the next scene in the same chapter can be combined: the last scene in a chapter has none. Scenes in the Stash can’t be split or combined, and neither can a scene while one of its drafts is showing: switch back to Original first.

Undoing a split or a combine

Right after a split or a combine, Edit → Undo ⌘Z takes the whole thing back: both scenes’ text and the book’s structure together. The Edit menu says what it will undo, Undo Split or Undo Combine, and Redo ⇧⌘Z does it again. It works from either scene of a split.

• Undoing a split puts the text back in the first scene, and takes the new scene out of the book altogether. You can undo a split even after saving; the new scene’s file then goes to the Trash at the next save.
• Undoing a combine puts the first scene’s text back, and the second scene back after it. A combine can only be undone until you save, because the save sends the absorbed scene to the Trash.
• If you’ve written in either scene since, undo that writing first; Septangular says so if you try the other way round.

Two scenes side by side

To keep one scene open beside the one you’re writing, ⌥-click it in the sidebar, or choose Open Beside from its menu. It opens in a second editor to the right, and the sidebar marks it with a bar.

Each side has its own header, text, undo history and cursor, and both save as usual. The header over the scene beside has two buttons: Swap trades the two scenes’ places, and × closes the scene beside, leaving the editor on its own. A scene you close keeps its unsaved changes, like any other.

Clicking another scene in the sidebar opens it on the left. Split Scene at Cursor, Combine with Next Scene and Scene History… act on whichever side you were last writing in. The preview and a scene beside take the same place, so opening one closes the other. For more room, hide the sidebar with View → Hide Sidebar ⌃⌘S: the two editors share its width.

Focus mode

View → Focus Mode ⇧⌘F takes the window full screen and shows only the text you’re writing: no section icons, sidebar, header or status bar. Every paragraph but the one you’re in fades back. With two scenes side by side, it shows the one you were last writing in. It works for Story Bible entries too.

A reminder, “Focus mode: press Esc to leave”, shows for a few seconds. To leave, press Esc, choose Focus Mode again, or leave full screen. If the window was already full screen, it stays that way; if the sidebar was hidden, it stays hidden.

The live preview

The preview shows the book’s finished pages beside the editor, laid out exactly as a build would lay them out. To show it, click Preview in the scene’s header, or choose View → Show Preview ⇧⌘V; the same command hides it again, and so does the preview’s ×.

At the top of the preview:

• the configuration picker chooses which build to preview. It offers the configurations that make pages (PDF or Word), not those that make only an ebook, and starts with the book’s default configuration if it makes pages;
• −, Fit and + zoom out, fit the page to the pane’s width, and zoom in;
• a line gives the book’s words and pages in that configuration, and how many scenes it leaves out because of their status.

The preview updates a moment after you stop typing, before you save, and redraws only the pages that changed. It follows you: open another scene, and the preview scrolls to its start. Click a page to open the scene on it. When the preview is already showing, the Preview button refreshes it and takes it to the scene you’re writing.

If the scene you’re writing isn’t in the configuration you’ve chosen (a draft, say, in a submission that takes only revised scenes), the preview says why, and offers a button to preview a configuration that includes it. A scene in the Stash isn’t in any build or preview, and the preview says that too.

Alternative drafts

A draft is another version of a scene, written alongside it, such as a darker ending you’re not sure of. The scene’s own text, its Original, stays exactly as it was until you choose to use the draft.

Starting a draft

Click Try a Rewrite… in the strip under the scene’s header, or choose it from the scene’s menu. Name the draft (“Darker ending”) and click Start Draft or press ↩; Cancel or Esc changes your mind. The draft begins as a copy of the text showing: the scene’s own, or the draft you’re in. A name already taken gets a number (“Darker ending 2”).

Switching between them

Once a scene has drafts, the strip under its header has a menu listing Original (the scene’s text) and each draft. Choose one to write in it. While a draft shows, the strip is tinted, so you can’t mistake it for the original, and the status bar counts the draft’s words. Writing in a draft is unsaved until you save, like any writing, and a save leaves the scene’s own text alone.

Septangular remembers which text each scene was showing while the book stays open.

Compare, use or discard

While a draft shows, the strip has three buttons:

Straight after Use This Draft…, Edit → Undo Use Draft ⌘Z takes the whole step back: the scene has its own text again, the draft is back and showing, and “Before …” goes. Redo Use Draft does it again. Once you’ve written in the scene, Undo undoes your writing instead.

Drafts stay out of the book

Builds, previews, word counts and Find always use the scene’s own text. Each draft is a plain file in the book’s drafts folder, saved in every version, and it stays with its scene wherever the scene moves (Appendix C).

Today’s writing

Turn on View → Highlight Today’s Writing to tint everything you’ve written or rewritten since midnight, as if with a highlighter. Septangular compares each scene with the last version saved before midnight, so the marks follow your typing, unsaved words included, and stay after you save. A scene that didn’t exist before today is all new, and a draft started today counts from its scene’s text at the start of the day.

While it’s on, the status bar shows the open scene’s words for today, less any you’ve cut: “+312 today”, or with a minus sign on a day of cutting. It works in Story Bible entries and notes too, and starts afresh at midnight. Septangular remembers whether it’s on.

Revision heat map

Turn on View → Show Revision Heat Map to tint each scene in the sidebar by how many saved versions changed it, from cool blue (few) to warm orange (many), against the most revised scene in the book. Chapters and parts are tinted by their scenes together. Hover over a row for its count, such as “Changed in 12 saved versions”.

A picker at the top of the sidebar, Revisions since, sets the range: the beginning, the last 7 days, the last 30 days, or any snapshot or published edition. Since a snapshot such as “First full draft”, the heat map shows exactly which scenes a revision has reached; a scene it hasn’t says “Not changed since “First full draft””. Snapshots and editions are described in Chapter 8.

Working with an editor

Your editor can work on the book in Word, Google Docs or Pages while you keep writing. When their copy comes back, you go through their changes one by one, and take in the ones you want.

Sending a copy

1. Choose File → Send to an Editor…. A page takes the editor’s place.
2. Type who it’s for, such as “Cassandra Austen”, and click Make the Editor’s Copy… or press ↩. Cancel or Esc changes your mind.
3. Choose where to save the copy. It’s named after the book and the editor, such as “Pride and Prejudice for Cassandra Austen.docx”.

Septangular saves the book, then takes a snapshot named “Sent to Cassandra Austen” (Chapter 8), and makes a Word document of the whole book: every scene, whatever its status, laid out as the book’s default configuration lays it out. Your comments go in it as Word comments. The status bar says how many scenes went, and names the snapshot.

Each scene in the copy starts with a bookmark your editor won’t see, and the copy records which version of the book it was made from. That’s how Septangular knows, when it comes back, which scene is which and exactly what was sent. Your editor can track changes and add comments as they usually would. If they delete a scene’s opening paragraph with tracking turned off, the bookmark can go with it, and Septangular can no longer find that scene in the copy.

Reviewing their changes

When the copy comes back, choose File → Review an Editor’s Changes… and pick the file. Septangular reads the copy as if every tracked change were accepted, compares each scene with how it was when you sent it, and lists every scene they changed, in the book’s order. Each change shows the words cut, struck through in red, and the words added, in green, with any new comments they wrote; an editor’s comment starts with their name. Changes are compared paragraph by paragraph, so curly quotes or dashes changed on the way through Word don’t count.

Click a scene’s name to open it in the editor; that closes the review. Choose Review an Editor’s Changes… again to carry on: changes you’ve accepted don’t show again, and neither do the ones you rejected, which Septangular remembers for that copy. To decide on those again, click Show them again at the top of the review.

When you’ve written since

Because the snapshot holds exactly what was sent, what you’ve written while the copy was away stays yours. A change to a paragraph you haven’t touched goes into the scene as it is now. A change to a paragraph you’ve rewritten since is a conflict: it’s marked “You’ve rewritten this since it was sent”, with Yours now beside The editor’s. Choose Use the Editor’s to replace your version with theirs, or Keep Yours.

A scene you’ve taken out of the book since isn’t reviewed, and the page lists it. A copy sent from another copy of the book can’t be reviewed, because the version it was made from isn’t in this book’s history.

Accepted changes are edits

Accepting a change is an ordinary edit to the scene: it’s unsaved until you save, and the top of the review page counts the changes you’ve accepted so far. Each one is a step of its own in the scene’s undo history, so ⌘Z in the scene takes it back. After saving, Versions can compare the book with the “Sent to” snapshot or bring back how it was (Chapter 8).

Find

To find words anywhere in the book, choose Edit → Find → Find… ⌘F. The Manuscript sidebar becomes a search box; type, and every match is listed in the book’s order, each on its own line under the scene or page it’s in, with its chapter beside it. Every match is also marked in the editor. If you had words selected in the editor, Find starts with them.

Click a match to open its scene with the words selected. Edit → Find → Find Next ⌘G and Find Previous ⇧⌘G step through the matches, from scene to scene and round to the start again; in the search box, ↩ and ⇧↩ do the same. The list keeps up as you write. Press Esc, or click the ×, to go back to the book’s parts, chapters and scenes; the marks go too.

⌘F works from any section, and takes you to the Manuscript, except in Notes, where it goes to the notes search (Chapter 6).

What counts as a match

• Capitals don’t matter, unless you tick Match case.
• Whole words finds only whole words, so “art” doesn’t find “heart”.
• Curly and straight quotes match each other.
• Italic and bold marks between words don’t get in the way, so “never minded” finds “*never* minded”, and a line break counts as a space.

What it searches

Find searches the book as it is now, unsaved writing included: front matter, every scene of the story, back matter and the scenes in the Stash. It doesn’t search drafts, the Story Bible, notes, or the Title Page. If a scene is showing one of its drafts when you go to a match in it, Septangular switches it back to its own text, where the match is, and says so. Above the list, it says how many matches there are and in how many places; when there are more than 500, the first 500 are listed.

When a search finds nothing, Look for it in the history… searches every saved version instead, with the same words and options, for text you’ve since cut. Chapter 8 describes Find in History.

The Stash

The Stash, at the end of the sidebar, holds scenes, chapters and parts you’ve taken out of the book, with their text, status and synopses. Stashed scenes aren’t built, previewed or counted, but you can still open them, write in them and find words in them.

• To take something out of the book, choose Move to Stash from its menu, or drag it onto the Stash heading or the space below it.
• To put something back, drag it into the book, or choose Put Back at the End of the Book from its menu: a scene goes to the end of the last chapter, a chapter to the end of the last part, and a part to the end of the book. A part can only go back into a book that has parts.

Click the Stash heading to fold it away. Files can be dropped into the Stash too; see Adding scene files you already have.

Deleting

Deleting takes two steps, so nothing goes by accident.

1. Choose Delete from a scene’s, chapter’s or part’s menu, or from the menu of something in the Stash. It moves to the Stash, struck through in red, and the status bar says “1 delete waits for Save (⌘S)”. Until you save, choose Undelete from its menu to take the mark off. An item waiting to be deleted can’t be dragged.
2. Save with ⌘S. Septangular saves as usual, then finishes the deletes as a version of their own, and moves the scenes’ files to your Mac’s Trash. Auto-save leaves deletes waiting.

A new scene that’s deleted before it was ever saved never gets a file. A deleted scene that was open closes when you save.

To get a deleted scene back, drag its file from the Trash into the sidebar: Septangular moves it out of the Trash when you next save, and gives it back its original name. The version before the delete still holds its text too, so Versions can find and bring it back (Chapter 8).

Adding scene files you already have

To bring in scenes written elsewhere, choose Add Existing Scene File… from the + menu and pick one or more files. They’re added at the end of the book, and the first opens in the editor. Or drag files from Finder straight into the sidebar:

• onto a scene, to go before or after it;
• onto a chapter, to go at its end;
• onto the Stash heading or the space below it, to go into the Stash.

Septangular takes Markdown (.md or .markdown), plain text (.txt) and rich text (.rtf, from TextEdit, Word or Scrivener, say). Rich text comes in as Markdown, its italics and bold kept. Each file becomes a scene with the status draft, named from its file name: “03-the-storm.md” becomes “The storm”.

A file from outside the book’s folder is copied into it, as a Markdown file, when you next save; until then, the addition is unsaved like any other. A Markdown file that’s already inside the book’s folder is used where it is, and one that’s already in the book is refused, with a message saying so. A file from the Trash is moved out of it, rather than copied, and gets back the name it had before it was deleted.

Front and back matter

Front Matter, above the story, holds pages such as a copyright page, a dedication or an epigraph; Back Matter, below it, holds pages such as acknowledgements and About the Author. Ebooks and printed books include them; manuscripts don’t.

To add a page, click the group’s +, right-click its heading, or use Front Matter or Back Matter on the sidebar’s + menu. Clicking an empty group offers pages too. A page you write opens in the editor like a scene; a page that’s made when the book is built, such as Next in the Series, says “made when built”, and clicking it explains what it will hold. Right-click a page to move it up or down, or to remove it from the book (its file is kept); a page of your own, added with Other Page…, can be renamed too.

To keep back matter close at hand in a long book, turn on View → Back Matter Under Front Matter, or Show Under Front Matter on the Back Matter group’s menu. The sidebar then lists it under Front Matter; the book’s order doesn’t change.

Chapter 9 describes every kind of page and how each is built.

Undo and redo

Edit → Undo ⌘Z and Redo ⇧⌘Z work on the text of the scene you’re in, with each scene keeping its own history, even when you move between scenes and sections. Comments, and an editor’s changes you’ve accepted, are part of a scene’s text, so Undo takes them back too. Three changes to the book are undone whole, straight after you make them: Undo Split, Undo Combine and Undo Use Draft, as the Edit menu says.

Other changes to the book’s shape (moving, adding, renaming, setting a status, a synopsis or a target, moving to the Stash), whether made in the sidebar or on the corkboard, aren’t undone with Undo. Until you save, put them back by hand: move the scene back, or rename it again. A deleted item can be undeleted until you save. After saving, Versions can restore the book as it was at any save (Chapter 8).