Outline
The Outline view is where your story takes shape. Before any prose is written, you define the hierarchical structure of your novel: Acts → Chapters → Scenes. Each scene gets a "beat" — a plain-language description of what needs to happen — which guides both you and the AI.
Story Structure
Every Proseweave project follows the same hierarchy:
Project
└── Act 1
└── Chapter 1
├── Scene 1 (beat: "...")
└── Scene 2 (beat: "...")
└── Act 2
└── ...
Use the + buttons at each level to add acts, chapters, and scenes. Items can be reordered by dragging the handle on the left edge of each row.
Scene Beats
A beat is the most important field in a scene. Write it before you write any prose:
"Elena discovers the locked journal in the lighthouse attic. She recognizes her mother's handwriting on the cover and feels a surge of grief and curiosity."
A good beat answers: What happens, and why does it matter? Beats are used by the AI as the primary instruction when generating or continuing scene prose.
Scene Status
Every scene has a status that tracks its progress through your writing process:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Outline | Beat defined, no prose written yet |
| Draft | First pass of prose exists |
| Revision | Being refined and polished |
| Final | Complete, ready for export |
Click the status badge on any scene to cycle it forward. Use the status filter in Export to include only scenes at a given stage.
Drag & Drop Reordering
Grab the drag handle (⠿) on the left side of any act, chapter, or scene row and drop it into the desired position. Order updates are saved automatically.
AI Outline Features
The Outline view has several AI-powered planning tools:
Expand Outline
Select an act and click Expand Outline. The AI reads the act's summary and generates detailed scene beats for each chapter — turning a high-level plan into a scene-by-scene roadmap.
Suggest Act Summary
For an act with chapters and scenes already defined, click Suggest Summary. The AI reads the existing content and writes a concise act summary.
Suggest Scene Beats
Select a chapter and click Suggest Beats. The AI proposes beat descriptions for scenes in that chapter based on the chapter summary and surrounding context.
Batch Operations
Select multiple scenes using the checkboxes on the left, then use the batch action bar that appears at the bottom of the screen:
- Update Status — Move all selected scenes to a new status at once.
- Batch Rewrite — Trigger an AI rewrite across all selected scenes with a shared instruction.
Use batch status updates when you've finished a sprint of writing and want to advance several scenes from "draft" to "revision" in one action.