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Editorialist turns outside feedback and author notes into controlled revision workflows inside Obsidian.

It is for writers who get notes from human editors, beta readers, or AI and want to work through those notes without losing control of the manuscript. Editorialist gives the Ed side panel four modes: Revision plan, Review, Pending edits, and Editorialisms. Plan the work together, then resolve each item in its source workflow.

The plugin does not rewrite your prose on import. Line edits, memos, author questions, and pending-edit notes stay reviewable until you decide what to do with them. Any passage can be archived to a per-scene cut file — from the editor's right-click menu, the suggestion toolbar, or the command palette — and completed sweeps update revision history, contributor stats, and per-scene progress.

Important

Radial Timeline + Editorialist
Editorialist is designed to tightly integrate with Radial Timeline, creating a synergistic relationship: use RT for manuscript design, planning, project management, and analysis; use Ed for systematic editorial sweeps.

Editorialist can use Radial Timeline for active-book scope and scene IDs, but it also works on its own.

AI-Agnostic by Design

Editorialist ships a review format, not an AI. It makes no network calls and holds no API keys — a review batch is just text you paste in, however it was produced. It works the same way with an AI model, a human editor, or beta readers: whoever (or whatever) can follow the format can contribute suggestions.

What It Helps With

• Turning AI, editor, or beta-reader feedback into reviewable suggestions.
• Walking a revision pass scene by scene instead of managing loose notes.
• Keeping every manuscript change explicit and reversible during the session.
• Tracking accepted suggestions and revision progress, and seeing which readers, editors, and AI models give the most useful feedback.
• Keeping structural guidance separate from line-level edits through Editorialisms.
• Scheduling all of it against a deadline and seeing progress across the whole book.

Standard Review Operations

The standard Review workflow supports a full set of scene-level editorial moves:

Operation	What it lets you do
Edit	Review a specific suggested change against the original passage.
Move	Relocate a passage before or after a named destination anchor.
Cut	Remove a passage, with optional backup to the scene's cut file first.
Condense	Tighten a passage between two anchors into a shorter version.
Expand	Develop, slow down, or decompress a beat with finished prose or advisory guidance.
Memo	Keep general thoughts, strengths, issues, or scene notes beside the sweep without changing prose.

Four Panel Modes

Use the view name beside the Ed logo to switch modes. Every mode shares the active-book header, Import, and the … actions menu.

Mode	Use it for
Revision plan	See progress across the whole book, then prioritize and schedule work from the three sources below: by hand, with Auto-plan across the book, or for one editor’s delivery.
Review	Imported review batches: scene-level edits such as expand, condense, cut, move, and line edits, plus %%ai: question%% responses and scene memos. Each batch is a review block appended to the scene, worked through, then cleaned away. Each scene can carry multiple batches from different manuscript shares or review passes.
Pending edits	The notes in each scene’s Pending Edits property (the revision notes you keep with Radial Timeline, including Inquiry follow-ups), walked scene by scene across the active book.
Editorialisms	A long-form checklist of directives pinned to the passages they concern, kept permanently as its own document: structural guidance, theme/subplot notes, and general feedback with no line edits. Record decisions or questions on directives and hand them to AI.

Alongside these, the Contributor directory (Settings → Contributors) shows which readers, editors, and AI models give the most useful feedback. The Review panel’s How Editorialist works section sums up the same four workflows: imported review batches, Editorialisms, pending edits, and the contributor directory.

What You Work With

Object	What you get	When you get it	Where it lives
Review batch	The AI's formatted response: line edits, cuts, moves, condenses, expands, and memos	After you send the formatting instructions and manuscript text to an AI, or ask an AI to convert human notes	On your clipboard until you import it
Review block	The imported part of a review batch for one scene	When you import a review batch through the launcher	Appended to the bottom of each targeted scene note until you clean it away
Editorialism	A structural checklist or manuscript-level directive set	When a reviewer gives broad guidance that should be worked over time	A separate markdown file under Editorialist/<Book>/, kept permanently
Editorial delivery	One editor’s handoff, with attribution, received date, return deadline, and links to feedback	After importing and linking its sources	Plugin data for the book
Planning session	A dated or unscheduled task with an effort range	When you add work or apply a draft schedule	Revision plan, linked to the original feedback
Pending edit	A note-to-self or Inquiry follow-up to review later	When a line is added to a scene’s Pending Edits property, by you or by Radial Timeline	The scene’s Pending Edits property, read across the active book and shown in Pending edits mode

Core Workflow

1. Copy the formatting instructions from the review launcher — they include the format specification and your book's scene IDs.
2. Get suggestions. Paste the instructions into your AI conversation along with the prose. For human feedback, collect your reviewer's notes in any form — a photo of a marked-up page, a document, an email — and have an AI shape them into a batch using the same instructions.
3. Import the batch through the launcher; Editorialist appends review blocks to the bottom of the targeted scene notes.
4. Walk the guided review sweep — accept, reject, rewrite, or defer each suggestion.
5. Finish. Per-scene progress, contributor stats, and revision history update as each sweep completes.

To schedule everything at once, open the Revision plan and choose Auto-plan; it spreads every open batch, directive, and pending edit across your working days. For one editor's handoff, group its imported batches and Editorialisms into an Editorial delivery, then choose Plan this delivery. Review the draft before applying it; priorities and estimates are editable. See Revision Plan.

Pages

Page	What's there
Getting Started	Commands and your first review sweep
Revision Plan	Progress across the book, priorities, deadlines, auto-planning, and delivery tracking
Review Panel	The main working surface — sessions, the suggestion toolbar, statuses
Pending Edits	The active-book queue for author notes and Inquiry follow-ups
Editorialisms Panel	Structural guidance documents and the checklist workflow
Importing Reviews	Review batches, review blocks, and Editorialism files
Settings Reference	All three settings tabs: Core, Contributors, Configuration
Radial Timeline Integration	What the companion plugin adds

License

Source-available, non-commercial software license. Free for personal, educational, and professional creative work — including manuscripts and other commercial creative output produced with the plugin. Commercial use of the software itself, redistribution, and forks for public distribution require written permission. See LICENSE for full terms.