Creating Acts, Chapters, Scenes & Beats
The node tree is the backbone of your story in Writan. It’s a hierarchical structure that organises your work from broad dramatic movements down to atomic moments of change.
The Hierarchy
| Level | Unit | Required? | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Series | Optional | Container for multiple related books |
| 1 | Book | Always | Top-level unit for a standalone work |
| 2 | Act | Optional | Distinct dramatic movements |
| 3 | Chapter | Optional | Publishing units |
| 4 | Scene | Always | The fundamental dramatic unit |
| 5 | Beat | Always | A single, focused moment of change |
Book and Scene are the only mandatory levels. Everything else is optional scaffolding.
Adding Nodes
- Click the + button on any node in the document tree
- Select the type of child node to add
- The new node appears in the tree, ready to be named and populated
Structure by Form
| Form | Typical Structure |
|---|---|
| Novel | Book → Act → Chapter → Scene → Beat |
| Novella | Book → Chapter → Scene → Beat |
| Short Story | Book → Scene → Beat |
| Series | Series → Book → Act → Chapter → Scene → Beat |
The Beat
A beat is defined as: “A single, focused moment of change, action, or emotion.”
A beat has one job. It may generate multiple paragraphs of prose, but it represents a single unit of narrative movement — a decision made, a revelation landed, an emotion shifted. If a beat is doing two things, it should probably be two beats.
View Modes
Each node can display in one of three view modes, controlled by the global toggle in the top bar or a per-node toggle on each row:
| Mode | Icon | What It Shows |
|---|---|---|
| Tree | List | Just the node title and hierarchy |
| Input | Sticky note | Beat notes editor with bullet formatting and entity highlighting |
| Output | Document | The prose editor (TipTap) |
Per-node view modes override the global setting. This lets you, for example, view your tree structure while having one specific scene expanded in Input mode.
Reordering
Nodes can be dragged to reorder within their level. The position is persisted and determines the reading order of the final output.