Chapters, scenes and scene settings

Top down: chapter → scene → scene setting → content block. Chapters divide the long stretches, a scene is the anchor of one dramatic unit, scene setting marks the switches inside it, and content blocks carry the words. All four are real structure, not something inferred from heading text or indentation.

Press Tab and pick Scene (key 9); the line becomes four fields, each with its own rule:

• The number is never stored. It is derived from the order of scene nodes in the script, so deleting one renumbers the rest.
• Location is chosen from the location library or typed fresh: on commit, a name with no match creates a location card. Interior / exterior is gone as a field.
• Time is free text—“afternoon”, “the third dusk”.
• A short title belongs to the scene itself and is stored apart from its summary: one feeds the outline and the heading, the other feeds details and creative context.

A scene node also switches on scene belonging: later lines attach to it until you press Enter on an empty line or start the next scene. Rendered, it is a single bold line, so the edge of a scene is visible at a glance.

Scene setting (key 8) is the smaller unit inside a scene with two optional fields:

• Empty means “still the scene’s location”, inherited—but the parent value is never back-filled into the field, and the rendered line shows only what you wrote.
• Its location is confined to the scene’s own location subtree: “rear hall” reuses the unique match there; a name absent from the subtree creates a direct child of the scene’s location. A same-named place elsewhere is never bound by mistake. With no scene location the field is disabled and asks you to fill it first.
• Scene setting has no character field. Who is present follows from the blocks under it.
• Re-pointing a scene setting rebinds or creates; it never renames the old card, and clearing or deleting a scene setting only drops the reference—the location record stays. Renaming happens in the location itself.

The chapter bar above the script shows the current chapter, page left / right, and project-wide counts of scenes, characters, locations and props. A chapter carries a title (blank ones show the derived number with a placeholder), its intent, and a colour. Chapter numbers are derived too, never written into the title.

Chapter intent is the note “what this chapter must move or plant”. It stays out of dialogue, shows under the chapter heading, and is the target information when you ask the agent to continue. Auto-maintained summaries never overwrite what you typed.

Not by deleting text in the draft—the companion panel on the right (the same chapter workbench as the Beats page) is where structure moves: drag to reorder, right-click to create a chapter, scene or scene setting, double-click a title for its details, and use “history versions” on a scene card to revisit that scene’s earlier draft. These write straight through: no draft layer, no second “save changes”.

Dragging a scene near another chapter changes its belonging. Details in Chapter companion.

Headings follow one grammar: “# Chapter N Title”, “## 12. Location · Time · Short title”, and “### Location · Time” for scene settings—both parts optional, so “### Scene setting” or “### Scene setting · Afternoon” are valid. Continuation, beat expansion and the opening delivery all use it.

Numbers only locate: the parser strips a positive integer scene number first, then maps the three business fields, so a wrong number never reorders anything. Malformed structure rejects the whole write—no half-created characters, no partially applied text.

• The editor will not turn an ordinary heading into a scene. Want structure? Shape it with Tab.
• When structure and text disagree, check belonging in the companion first, then adjust the lines—both read the same structure, so there are no two truths.
• Scenes created manually and scenes derived from the script mixed together number by the script order; that is a known rough edge, so prefer producing scenes from the draft.
• Moving a scene setting into another chapter requires that chapter’s scene to have a location first; otherwise the move is refused whole and both nodes stay put.