The writing editor
When a chapter is selected, the main area becomes the writing editor. Your scenes appear stacked vertically in a single scrolling column.
The prose column
Text is displayed in a centred column with generous side margins — similar to iA Writer. The column width is fixed at 680 pt. There is no formatting toolbar; all text is plain, with no Markdown rendering or hidden formatting.
Scenes in the editor
Each scene is a separate block of text. Scene titles appear in the left margin as Scene N or the scene’s custom title (set in the Scenes panel). Click a margin title to focus that scene.
Between scenes there are thin drop zones — drag them to reorder scenes, or watch for an accent bar when dragging from the Scenes sidebar.
When the Scenes sidebar is open (⌘4), scenes that are not in focus dim to 45% opacity to help you concentrate on the current one.
Navigating between scenes
- Arrow key at the start or end of a scene moves the cursor into the adjacent scene, so the chapter reads as one continuous flow
- ⌘A selects the current scene; press ⌘A a second time to select all scenes in the chapter
- A sticky title briefly pins the scene title at the top of the window when a scene scrolls out of view
Creating a new scene
- ⌘↩ — with no selection: inserts a blank scene immediately after the current one
- ⌘↩ — with text selected: splits the scene; selected text becomes one or more new scenes
- The + button in the Scenes panel header (tooltip: ⌘↩)
- Write → New Scene from the menu bar
Selection actions
When you select text in the editor, a small action bar appears in the left gutter:
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Copy to Drafts | Keeps the text in the scene and copies it to a new draft |
| Move to Drafts | Removes the text from the scene and puts it in a new draft |
| New Scene | Creates a new scene from the selected text |
Undo & redo
Standard macOS undo (⌘Z) and redo (⇧⌘Z) work throughout the editor, both for prose edits and structural changes.
Typographer (⌘T)
Open the Typography dock with ⌘T, then tap the Typographer button to automatically fix:
- Straight quotes → curly quotes
- Hyphens → en/em dashes in context
- Multiple spaces and punctuation spacing
- Ellipsis characters
Typography preferences (⌘T)
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Font | Sans (system), Mono (IBM Plex Mono), Serif (Times New Roman) |
| Size | S (15 pt) / M (18 pt) / L (22 pt) |
| Line height | S (1.35×) / M (1.50×) / L (1.65×) |
| Theme | System / Light / Dark |
Preferences are stored per device and restored when you reopen the app.
Bottom stats block
Hover the bottom-left corner to see counts broken down into four tiers — selection, current scene, current chapter, total novel:
- WORDS — includes session delta (words written since the chapter was opened)
- CHARS — character count
- PAGES — estimated at 100 words per page
Chapter cursor bar
The 4 px bar at the very bottom of the window shows how far through the chapter your cursor is.