How to Use Manuscribe

To get started with Manuscribe, visit the Sign Up page. You will need to provide:

1. Your email address
2. A password (at least 8 characters)
3. Your author name or pen name

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Creating an account and completing the onboarding wizard

Click Create Account and you will be taken to the onboarding wizard where you can personalize your experience and set up your first project.

Visit the Log In page and enter your email and password. You can also sign in with Continue with Google for quick access. After successful authentication, you will be redirected to your Dashboard where you can see all your projects.

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The sign-in page — enter your credentials or use Google

After creating your account, you will walk through a five-step onboarding process:

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The complete onboarding flow — from genre selection to your first project

Your Dashboard displays all your projects as cards. Each card shows the project title, genre, premise, and key statistics:

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Your dashboard — view all projects, create new ones, or import manuscripts

Click any project card to open its Canvas.

Click the New Project button on your dashboard. In the modal that appears, fill in:

1. Project title (required)
2. Genre — select from Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Romance, Mystery, and more
3. Premise — a brief one-line description of your story

Click Create and your new project opens directly on the canvas with an empty book ready for chapters and scenes.

Pro and Studio subscribers can import existing manuscripts. Click the Import button on your dashboard.

1. Upload a .txt file (up to 5 MB)
2. Manuscribe AI analyzes the text using Claude
3. Chapters, scenes, characters, and places are automatically extracted
4. A progress bar shows each stage: splitting, structure analysis, scene analysis, saving
5. Once complete, everything appears on your canvas ready to explore

To delete a project, look for the delete option on the project card. A confirmation dialog will appear to prevent accidental deletion. This action cannot be undone.

The Canvas is the heart of Manuscribe — a visual, spatial workspace where you organize your entire story. Think of it as a storyboard where every scene, character, and place is a card you can move, connect, and arrange.

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The canvas workspace — add chapters, scenes, characters, and places to build your story

The canvas has three main areas:

The toolbox on the left side shows your story structure in a tree view. It includes a search bar to quickly find any element.

Manuscribe

Search...

Story+

The Midnight Garden2

Ch 1: Seeds of Change3

The Garden Awakens

First Contact

The Warning

Ch 2: Growing Shadows2

Characters3+

Elena Blackwood

Rafael Torres

Dr. Ivy Chen

Places2+

Midnight Garden

Elena's Apartment

Story Tree

Your story is organized as Books → Chapters → Scenes. Click the chevron arrows to expand or collapse each level. Hover over any item to reveal an edit pencil and a “+” button for adding children.

Adding Elements

1. Click the "+" button next to a section header or parent item
2. An inline text field appears — type a name and press Enter
3. The new element is instantly created and visible in the tree

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Watch how easy it is to add chapters, scenes, characters, and places from the sidebar

Drag to Canvas

Drag any scene, character, or place from the sidebar onto the canvas to make it visible as a card. You can also drag scenes between chapters to reparent them.

The canvas is an infinite workspace where your story elements appear as visual cards. Here is what a scene card looks like:

Each scene card displays:

Node Color Coding

Different element types are color-coded so you can identify them at a glance:

Canvas Controls

Connections are visual lines between scene cards that represent the narrative flow of your story.

Creating Connections

1. Hover over the edge of a scene card — small connection buttons appear on each side
2. Click and drag from a connection button toward another scene card
3. Release on the target scene to create the connection
4. A colored line appears linking the two scenes

Creating Scenes via Drag

If you drag a connection button to an empty area of the canvas (instead of another scene), a new scene is automatically created and connected to the source scene. This is the fastest way to build your story flow.

The right sidebar is your AI command center. It appears on the right side of the canvas when you have a book selected, and contains four powerful tabs that analyze your entire story using artificial intelligence. To open it, click any scene card on the canvas or use the sidebar toggle in the top-right toolbar.

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The right sidebar — four AI-powered tabs for analyzing and improving your story

At the top of the sidebar, you will see the book title and a count of chapters and scenes. Below that are the four tab buttons: Outline, Timeline, Issues, and Chat.

Outline Tab

The Outline tab generates a structured, chapter-by-chapter outline of your book by analyzing all of your scene content and AI summaries. Click the Generate Outline button and the AI reads through every scene to produce a narrative overview showing how your story progresses from beginning to end. This is especially useful for identifying pacing issues or gaps in your plot.

Timeline Tab

The Timeline tab visualizes your story's plot arc by identifying narrative phases and mapping them to your scenes. Click Analyze Story Structure and the AI categorizes each scene into phases like exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The result is a color-coded timeline with intensity bars that show pacing and dramatic tension across your story.

Issues Tab

The Issues tab is your story's quality checker. Click Scan for Inconsistencies and the AI performs a deep analysis of your entire manuscript looking for problems. Each issue is tagged with a severity level and links directly to the affected scene so you can fix it right away.

Chat Tab

The Chat tab gives you a book-level AI assistant that has full context about your entire story — every scene, character, place, and relationship. Type a question in the “Ask about your book...” input field and press Send. You can use it to brainstorm plot ideas, ask about character motivations, get feedback on story arcs, or discuss any aspect of your manuscript.

Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the canvas to open project settings. Here you can configure:

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Project settings — configure your book details and display preferences

Double-click any scene on the canvas (or click “Open in Editor” from the context menu) to open the Scene Editor. This is where you write your actual prose.

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The scene editor — write prose, toggle between Writing and Editing modes

The editor has a three-pane layout:

The top bar shows a Back to Canvas button, the scene title (editable), scene navigation arrows (previous/next scene in the chapter), a mode toggle, save status, and word count with estimated reading time.

The scene editor uses a full-featured rich text editor. Here is the formatting toolbar:

Available formatting options:

The scene editor has two modes you can toggle between:

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Switch between distraction-free Writing mode and full Editing mode

Toggle between modes using the button in the top bar or press Ctrl/Cmd + \

The left sidebar in the editor shows details about the current scene:

The right sidebar contains an AI writing assistant that is aware of your scene content, characters, and places. Use the quick action buttons or type your own questions.

AI Assistant

Check grammarWhat comes next?Describe settingCharacter voice

Check the grammar in my current scene

I found a few issues in your scene text. In paragraph 2, “their” should be “there”. In paragraph 5, the sentence starting with “Walking” is a fragment that could be connected to the previous sentence.

Ask about your scene...

Send

Enter to send · Shift+Enter for new line

Quick Actions

Your work is automatically saved as you type with a short delay. Look for the save status indicator in the top bar:

Click the + button next to “Characters” in the canvas toolbox. The character modal has three tabs:

Every character can be assigned one of four roles:

Roles appear as badges on character nodes on the canvas and help the AI understand your story structure.

In the Relationships tab of the character modal, you can define connections between characters. Available relationship types:

Each relationship includes a description field where you can detail the nature of the connection. When you import a manuscript, relationships are automatically detected.

In the character modal, click Generate AI Image to create a portrait based on the character's description and appearance details. The AI uses all the information you have provided (role, description, appearance, traits) to generate a fitting image.

There are two ways to assign characters to scenes:

1. Right-click a scene on the canvas → "Assign Character" → search and toggle characters
2. In the scene editor, click "+" in the Characters section of the left sidebar

Assigned characters appear as avatar circles on the scene card and influence AI suggestions in the chat assistant.

Click the + button next to “Places” in the canvas toolbox. Enter a name, description, and atmosphere for the location.

In the place modal, click Generate AI Image to create a visual representation of the location based on its name, description, and atmosphere.

Assign places to scenes the same way as characters: right-click a scene on the canvas and select “Assign Place”, or use the scene editor's left sidebar. Assigned places appear as green pill badges on the scene card.

Generate a concise AI summary of any scene with one click. Open a scene in the editor, then click Generate Summary in the left sidebar. The summary:

1. Analyzes your scene content, characters, and places
2. Produces a 2-3 sentence overview
3. Appears on the scene card on the canvas for quick reference
4. Can be regenerated anytime as you revise your scene

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The Outline tab — generate a structured overview of your entire book

In the canvas right sidebar, switch to the Outline tab and click Generate Outline. The AI reads all your scenes and produces a structured chapter-by-chapter outline of your book, showing the narrative progression and key events.

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The Timeline tab — visualize your story's dramatic arc and pacing

The Timeline tab visualizes your story's plot arc. Click Analyze Story Structure and the AI identifies narrative phases (inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution) and maps them to your scenes. The visualization uses color-coded bars to show intensity and pacing across your story.

The Inconsistencies tab scans your entire story for problems:

The AI chat assistant appears in two places: the canvas right sidebar (book-level) and the scene editor right sidebar (scene-level). In both cases, the AI has full context about your characters, places, and story content.

Use the quick action buttons for common tasks or type any question. The AI can help with brainstorming, grammar checking, dialogue review, setting descriptions, and more.

Manuscribe can generate AI images for any element in your story. Look for the Generate AI Image button in the edit modal for:

The manuscript import feature (Pro and Studio only) uses AI to analyze your uploaded .txt file and extract:

The import also creates AI summaries for each scene and canvas connections showing the narrative flow between sequential scenes.