Quick Start

This walkthrough takes you from nothing to an exported manuscript in about ten minutes.

1. Create a book

Launch Writingale. On the welcome screen, click Create a New Book…, give it a title and author, and choose where to keep it.

Writingale sets the folder up for you — a place for chapters, characters, locations, items, and notes. Everything it creates is a plain text file you could open anywhere.

2. Add a chapter and write

The main window has four columns: sidebar (the kinds of things in your book, and the views), list (everything of the selected kind, with the manuscript tree), editor, and inspector.

1. Select Chapters in the sidebar.
2. Click + above the list to create a chapter.
3. Type. The editor styles your text as you write — headings, **bold**, *italic*, lists, quotes. Press ⌘S to save when you're happy; unsaved documents are marked with a * and a dot in the list, and Writingale asks before anything unsaved could be lost.

3. Link your world together

Create a character the same way (select Characters, click +). Back in your chapter, type [[ — a popup lists everything in your book, grouped by kind. Pick the character.

The mention appears as the character's name, in the accent color. It's a link: it points at the character herself, not at her current spelling — rename her next month and every mention across the book follows. ⌘-click any link to jump to what it names.

Your own wording

Sometimes the narrator wouldn't use a name. Pick the entity, then write it your way: a link can display any text you choose — "her brother" — while still pointing at the right character underneath.

4. Fill in the story facts

With a chapter selected, the inspector on the right holds the chapter's facts: its completion status (outline → draft → revision → final), its place in story time (0 is where your story starts; negative numbers are before it), the POV character, the cast, and the locations.

These facts are what power the graph, the timeline, and each character's journey — the more you fill in, the more the views can tell you.

5. Set a goal

Click the ring in the sidebar header to set a writing goal — e.g. at least 60,000 words by December 31 — and to see your writing history: words today, daily average, best day, and the last week at a glance.

6. Export

Press ⌘⇧E (or Book → Export Manuscript…). The export sheet shows a live preview of the finished manuscript: chapters in order, headings tracking parts and chapters, every link written out as a proper name, your private %% comments stripped. Save it as one clean file — markdown or PDF — ready for an agent, an editor, or a printer.

Where to go next

• Books & Entities — the mental model behind everything
• The Editor — markup, writing modes, and tabs and split panes
• Manuscript Structure — parts, chapters, scenes, and material
• Entity Types & Traits — make the app fit your book