Septangular
Quick start
Your first hour with Septangular: from a new, empty book to a manuscript you can print, in seven steps.
We’ll follow a new novel, The Long Tide, from its first page. Each step shows only what you need to get going, with a link to the full story when you want it.
Start a book
Choose File → New Project… ⌘N, or New Project… on the welcome screen. Give the book its title and choose where its folder goes. Septangular makes the folder, with a first chapter holding an empty first scene, and opens the book on its Title Page.
Fill in your name and contact details: they go on the front page of every manuscript you send out, and the preview beside them shows how. Only the title and your legal name are required; leave a field empty and the default shown in grey applies. Write under a pen name? Put it in Pen name, and it becomes the byline. You only type these once: your next book takes them from this one.
More: Starting a book and The Title Page.
Write your first scene
Click First scene in the sidebar and start writing. To give it a better name, right-click it and choose Rename Scene….
The editor is made for prose: ⌘I for italics, ⌘B for bold, and ⇧⌘Return for a scene break. Each scene’s word count shows beside it in the sidebar, and the book’s at the bottom of the window.
Press ⌘S to save. Septangular also saves every five minutes on its own, and you can change that in Versions. Every save, yours or automatic, is kept as a version of the whole book (more on that in step 6).
More: Writing in the editor.
Shape the book
A book is made of scenes, grouped into chapters, and, if you like, chapters grouped into parts. Click + at the top of the sidebar for New Scene at the End or New Chapter at the End, and type its name. Right-click a scene for New Scene After, or a chapter for New Chapter After.
Write in any order you like: drag scenes and chapters to move them, and the book follows. Right-click a scene to give it a Status (outline, draft, revised or final, shown by the coloured dot) or a one-line synopsis with Add Synopsis…. Statuses matter later, when you build: a manuscript for agents takes only revised and final scenes.
More: Parts, chapters and scenes, Status, synopses and targets, and the Stash, for scenes you take out but want to keep.
Keep track of your world
Open the Story Bible (the third icon on the left) and click + for a new entry: a character, a place or a thing. Give it a name and a category, and any other names the book uses for it, such as a nickname or a title. The entry opens in the editor, ready for whatever you need to remember.
The other names you gave sit at the top of the entry, between the --- lines; you can change them there. For scraps that don’t belong to one character or place, such as research, pictures, links and stray ideas, there’s Notes.
More: Entries and categories.
Set a goal
Open Statistics and, under Targets, enter how long the book will be and, if you have one, when it’s due. Septangular works out how many words a day will get you there, and keeps that goal up to date as you write.
The gauges show the book, today and this week against your goals; below them, your streak, your projected finish, and every day’s writing for the last month.
More: Targets and a due date.
Know that nothing is lost
Every save is a version of the whole book, listed in Versions by day. Pick one to see what changed since, compare a scene with how it was, or put it back. Before a big change, click Take Snapshot… to give the book as it stands a name you’ll find again.
More: Versions, and Find in History, for a passage you cut long ago.
Build a manuscript
Open Publishing. A new book comes with four ways to build it: a submission manuscript for agents and publishers, a reading copy with your drafts, an ebook and a paperback. Choose Reading copy (drafts included) and click Build. A moment later the PDF is ready, with Open and Show in Finder beside it.
The submission manuscript is in standard manuscript format, as PDF and Word, and takes only revised and final scenes, so mark scenes revised as you finish them. Ebooks and print-ready books come with Septangular Publish.
More: Build configurations and Manuscripts for agents and editors.