Narrative Mode
Keyboard Shortcut: 2
Narrative Mode is your primary manuscript-order workspace. It displays all scenes from all subplots on the outer ring, organized by act divisions (default 3 acts, configurable in Settings → Core → Acts). Each act spans an equal segment of the 360° circle. This view emphasizes Narrative time (the order readers will experience the story).
- Structure: Scenes are distributed across Act 1..Act N (based on your Settings → Core → Acts → Act count).
- Book or Saga scope: Switch between one active book and a combined Saga view.
- Subplot Colors: The outer ring segments are colored by their subplot. This lets you quickly visualize which plot threads are dominant in each section of the book.
- Publishing markers: Optional outer-ring placards can show chapter starts and part boundaries from your active novel PDF layout.
- Story Beats: Displays story beats (like Save the Cat) along the timeline, helping you pace your narrative structure.
- Interactive Reordering: You can drag scenes on the outer ring to reorder them. See Reorder Scenes for details.
- Scene right-click menu: Add a scene after the current one, change Status, change Publish Stage, or flag it for Pulse — see below.
- Recent moves overlay: Narrative Mode can show a top-left list of recent committed scene and beat moves. Toggle it in Settings → Advanced → Configuration.
Right-click any scene on the timeline to open a context menu that lets you add a scene or update scene frontmatter without opening the note. The current value in each group is marked with a checkmark.
Add scene — inserts a new scene after the selected one, using that scene as the anchor for placement and context.
Status — set Status to Todo, Working, or Complete. When you mark a scene Complete, the Due date is automatically set to today, keeping the Progress Mode completion estimate and pace tracker accurate.
Publish Stage — set Publish Stage to Zero, Author, House, or Press. Useful for moving scenes through revision tiers without leaving the timeline.
Flag Triplet Pulse — sets Pulse Update: Yes on the scene so the next Scene pulse analysis run will reprocess it.
The timeline refreshes immediately to reflect the change.
The title-bar book selector controls which manuscript the timeline shows.
- Choose a book to inspect one Book Manager profile.
- Choose Saga to combine all configured books into one multi-book Narrative timeline.
- Saga scope is available when more than one Book Manager profile is configured.
- Saga scope stays in Narrative Mode, because multi-book scene order is a narrative-structure view rather than a chronology or progress view.
Narrative Mode can show publishing-aware placards on the outside of the scene ring:
-
C — a
Chapter:field starts a chapter at that scene. - P — the selected PDF layout prints a Part opener at that act boundary.
- P/C — a Part and Chapter begin at the same boundary.
These placards reflect the novel PDF layout selected in the Manuscript Export panel. For example, a layout that prints chapter openers can show C markers, while Signature can also show P markers for Parts. Changing the selected export layout updates the timeline markers after the layout is saved.
When a scene belongs to multiple subplots, the outer All Scenes ring must choose one color. You control which subplot wins:
- Click a scene: Sets its dominant subplot. That subplot's color is used for the scene on the outer ring, taking precedence over all others.
-
Folded corner indicator: Each subplot ring shows a small folded corner motif at its start. The corner has three states:
- Missing — the subplot is not assigned to this scene.
- Gray — the subplot is assigned but is not dominant.
- Darker hue of the subplot ring color — this subplot is dominant and expressed on the outer ring above all others. This mode hides status and progress stage overlays to keep the focus on story structure and the weaving of subplots.