Getting started

Your first book in Author: make a book, add parts and scenes, write, add an event for a character, ask for their state and run the continuity checks.

Updated 17 October 2026 · View as Markdown

This walk-through takes about thirty minutes. You will make a book, write a scene, add two events and run the checks.

Before you begin#

Author is invite-only in early access. You need an account, which you get by requesting access and signing in once your place is ready.

1. Make a book#

Open Books and create one. Give it a title and choose a form (short story, novella, novel, series book, screenplay or other), a language and a calendar: Gregorian if your story has real dates, relative if it does not ("Day 3, 14:05").

2. Add the shape#

A book is a tree of parts, chapters and scenes. Add a chapter and two scenes. Each node has a title, a synopsis and a status (idea, outline, draft, revised, final). For a scene you can also set when it happens, where, whose point of view it is told from, and who is present. A scene is present, a flashback, a dream or a memory.

3. Write a scene#

Open Write and write the scene in Markdown. The editor autosaves, and switching to another scene in the middle of a sentence keeps your text. Mention a character with @[Name](profile:id) once you have a cast.

4. Add your cast#

Open Bible. Make a character, place, object, weather or organisation in Author. Add two characters and two places for now.

5. Add two events#

Open Story. Add a strand (the main plot). Then add events on it that change people. For example: "Ilse travels to the island" with the effect location = the island, and "Ilse learns who wrote the letter" with the effect knows + who wrote it. Anchor each event to a scene or give it a time. Read Events and state.

6. Ask for a state#

Pick a character and a scene or a time. Author shows their state then: where they are, what they know, what has happened to them, and for each change the event that caused it.

7. Run the checks#

Run the continuity checks. If your two scenes put a character in different places at the same time, or an event has them learn something after a scene that uses it, you will see an issue with the rule and a scene to jump to. See Continuity checks.

8. Save a version#

Open Share and save a version. It is the whole book at this moment, and you can go back to it. See Versions and diffs.