Chapter 06 · research & sources

Canvas: research on a board

Some thinking only happens spatially. Canvas is the corkboard where research piles up, connects, and eventually turns back into prose — with its citations still attached.

7 min read

A physical-feeling surfaceThe board

The board is a dotted grid on warm stock. Cards sit with a slight rotation and a soft shadow, so the surface reads as physical — a desk, not a database. Drag the cards below; this board is live.

Drag the cards. In the app, the dashed threads stretch as cards move — here they hold still.

Six kinds of cardCard types

• Web clip — a saved page, stored offline, so the source survives the link.
• Photo — documents, whiteboards, locations.
• Interview clip — audio-linked to Studio; the ♪ time is on the card.
• Character sheet — who they are, what they want, what they hide.
• Chapter / draft card — a piece of the manuscript, on the board.
• Evidence card — a pin's exhibit, living where you can see it.

Relationships you can seeThreads

Connect cards with dashed threads to keep a relationship visible: this clip contradicts that minute; this character was on that ferry. Threads are meaning, not decoration — they are how a pile becomes an argument.

Freeform and orderedThree lenses

The Spatial Board you just dragged stays freeform. Two more lenses — theManuscript Board and the Outline — show the Project Map's order as cards or as a list. All three read the same structure: reorder chapters on the Manuscript Board and the Navigator follows. Switching lenses is a change of view, never a copy of your structure.

↳ the payoffWrite from board

Select the cards that matter and hit ↳ WRITE FROM BOARD: the window splits, cards on one side, a draft on the other — and the citations come with them. The quote you draft from an interview card keeps its ♪ link; the exhibit keeps its E badge.