Novel: From a Brief to a Finished Manuscript
A walkthrough of the Novel app: start a book from a brief, draft scenes, revise and critique, plan with the plot grid and cast, and export to Word or PDF.
Yantra Team3 min read
On this page
A book is planned in outlines, written in scenes and fixed in revisions. Novel keeps all three in one studio, with an agent that drafts only when you ask.
Start a book
Pick Novel in the apps launcher, or say "Outline a mystery novel set in 1920s Lisbon with three point-of-view characters." Novel owns the chat while it is open, so the conversation moves inside the studio. Everything saves as you type and follows your account.
New novel asks for a Title, an Author pen name, a Genre and a cover colour, with a live cover preview. Then choose:
- Blank book for an empty manuscript.
- Outline & create after writing a few sentences under Start from a brief. The AI outlines the book: chapters, scenes, cast and plot lines.
Already writing elsewhere? Import a manuscript takes a Word file (.docx), Markdown or plain text. Headings become chapters, and scene breaks such as * * * or # start new scenes.
Work in scenes
The left rail lists chapters and their scenes. Add a chapter and Add a scene grow the book, and each chapter has a brief for what it has to accomplish as a whole. Each scene has an optional title, a Scene brief, and a status you click to advance: idea, draft, revised, done.
Write in the editor yourself, or let the AI write a scene from its brief. Draft this scene writes one. When earlier scenes are still empty, the studio offers to draft them in order up to this one, or Draft just this one. Drafts carry the story so far, so a scene does not resolve more of the arc than it is due.
Dictate puts your spoken words at the cursor. Dictation needs Chrome or Edge.
Revise and get notes
The Editor's desk sits beside the scene. Under Revise this scene, say what to change, for example "Tighten the dialogue and cut the last paragraph", and press Revise. The AI keeps your voice. Critique returns Editor's notes on the scene, starting with what works.
Find & replace (Cmd+Shift+F) searches the prose of every scene, with Match case and Whole words only. Matches are grouped by scene, and Replace all covers every one.
Keep the story straight
Under Story, the Plot grid holds your plot lines and plot points, and Cast holds character cards: who they are, what they want, what is in their way. Name a character in a scene's cast and the AI writes them from their card. Notes are free pages for places, rules, timelines and research.
Goals shows words written Today, words in the Book, and Scenes drafted out of the total. Set a Daily goal and a Book target in words, and Today and Book are measured against them.
Ask the agent
The Novel agent works on the book you have open. Its starters are Plot outline, Character arcs, Continue chapter and Review chapter. You can also type, for example:
- "Draft chapter one from the outline in a close third person."
- "Tighten this chapter and cut the exposition in the first scene."
- "Punch up this scene."
The Writing coach gives craft advice about the open scene, by typing or in Voice mode. Quick asks include What happens next?, Unstick me and Title ideas. Under Craft moves are templates such as Opening hook, Raise the stakes, Dialogue polish, Sensory pass, Show, don't tell, Chapter-ending hook, Back-cover blurb and Name a character.
Export
Export manuscript offers Word (.docx), Print or PDF, Markdown (.md) and Plain text (.txt). You can start chapters on a new page, and turn scene titles off for a submission copy.
From the book list, Publish to studio shares a book to the Characters studio, so its cast can be chatted with.
What it is not
Research notebooks, sources and study material belong in Study. A single character to roleplay with, without a book around them, is Characters. Short pieces and quick edits are answered in chat.