Manuscript structure

The Explorer panel shows your book as a tree of story units and is your main way to move through the manuscript. It opens on the left and toggles from the toolbar.

The hierarchy

A scene is the only unit you must have — it holds the manuscript prose. Parts (or acts) and chapters are optional containers you add when they help. Any combination works: scenes directly under the book, chapters with no part, or the full spine:

Book
└── Part (or Act)
    └── Chapter
        └── Scene

You never have to set up containers before you start. A new book can be a single scene, and you can write the whole first draft that way. Add parts and chapters later — or never. Writer Studio will not force acts or parts on a first project.

Structure can also emerge from text you already have. As a draft grows or after you import material, split it into scenes and group them into chapters when the shape becomes clear (see Extract to scene and Import).

Navigate

Click a scene to open it in the editor.
Click a part or chapter to open a read-only reading preview of its scenes; use the row's chevron to expand or collapse its contents in the tree.
The tree shows the active item, its place in the hierarchy, each container's expand/collapse state, and a word count per item.
To find an item by title quickly in a large book, use quick open (Cmd+P / Ctrl+P) instead of browsing the tree — see Search and Navigation.

Create, rename, reorder, delete

Right-click an item (or empty space in the tree) for its actions, or use the + button in the Explorer header to add a part, chapter, scene, or note:

Action	What it does
Create	Add a new part, chapter, or scene at the chosen place
Rename	Rename the item
Move / reorder	Move Up / Move Down reorder an item among its current siblings; moving between chapters, parts, or book level is drag-and-drop only (see below)
Delete	Send the item, with everything inside it, to Trash

Moving or renaming an item keeps its text, metadata, story links, and version history intact. After a move, a story entity's appearance still resolves to the scene's new location. Deleting sends a container and its contents to Trash as one unit, and restoring brings them back together.

You can also drag and drop: drag a scene into another chapter or part, or a chapter into another part. The target highlights as you hover — drop to nest.

Extract to scene

When drafting reveals a better boundary, select a passage in the editor, then choose Extract to Scene from the right-click menu. The selection becomes its own scene next to the source scene, the source keeps the rest, and no text is lost. The new scene behaves like any other — rename, move, or revise it freely.

Templates

When you create a book you can start from a structure template instead of a blank scene. Templates pre-create ordinary parts, chapters, and scenes with titles you can edit — use one as a starting shape or an outline. Every template-created item is just like a hand-made one: rename, move, or delete it freely. No template locks you into one way to write.

See also: Editor | Item properties | Search