Chapter 03 · write

Project Map & organization

A novel, an investigation, or a single essay all live in the same place: one Project Map per project. It grows with the work, and it never punishes you for starting small.

9 min read

Not a dashboardOne structure for the whole work

The Project Map is the single tree that holds everything the project knows: groups and manuscript sections, notes, sources, and the people and places that keep showing up. You do not maintain a separate outline, a separate research folder, and a separate character list — they are all here, in one structure, visible from the Navigator on the left.

Two rules keep it trustworthy. Structure changes are append-only: moving a chapter changes its place in the map, never the history of its prose. And the map isoptional: a short essay can ignore all of it and remain a blank page with a title.

Same order, three readingsThree lenses, one order

The Navigator shows the map as a tree. The Manuscript Boardshows the same items as ordered cards. The Outline shows them as a indented list. All three read and write the same order — rearrange in one and the others move with it. Switching lenses is contextual and adds no new mode; it is a different way of looking at one structure, never a second structure to keep in sync.

Read a part like a draftThe continuous manuscript

Select a group — a part, an act, an investigation — and its descendant sections open asone continuous editable flow, with quiet hairline boundaries where one section ends and the next begins. You read and revise across chapter lines the way a reader would. Every keystroke still routes to the section that owns it, so the structure underneath stays exact.

A group selected in the Navigator, read as one flow. The hairline is semantic, not a page break.

Before you have to organize itCatch it first

Ideas do not arrive filed. Send them to the Inbox — from inside the app or with Quick Capture — and keep writing. Later, file an Inbox item where it belongs, link it to what it relates to, or promote it into the manuscript when it has earned its place.

Notes, margin notes, links, backlinks, Saved Views, and the Reference Pane all keep supporting material beside the work. The rule that protects the draft: supporting material never silently becomes manuscript text, and a note never silently becomes a source.

Context on requestThe Context Inspector

The right rail opens into the Context Inspector: collapsible Summary, Notes, Links, Details, Goals, and History for whatever is selected. It is closed by default for small projects, remembers its state per project, and never becomes a permanent analytics panel — it answers when asked and folds away when you are writing.