The Notes Panel sits beside the Manuscript Editor and keeps your outline, notes, worldbuilding and beta feedback in view while you write. Everything in it follows the section you're working on.
Opening the Notes Panel
The panel opens by default on desktop. To show or hide it, click the Notes Panel button in the toolbar. Drag the panel's left edge to make it wider or narrower; the editor remembers your choice.
On phones, the panel opens over the page. Use Close Notes Panel to get back to your writing.
One column or two
The panel has four tabs: Author Notes, Chapter Outline, Worldbuilding Elements and Beta Feedback. Switch between them with the icons at the top of the panel. Front and back matter have no outline, so their panel has no Chapter Outline tab.
On desktop, click the column button in the panel's top-right corner to show two tabs side by side, for example your outline next to your worldbuilding. You choose the tab for the Left Column and the Right Column separately. The panel needs to be wide enough for two columns, so widen it first if the button is greyed out.
The four tabs
Author Notes
Sticky notes for the current chapter. Click New note to add one; you can edit a note's title and text, change its colour, bring it to the front, or delete it.
Chapter Outline
The outline for the current chapter, in sections you can expand: Chapter Summary, Key Plot Points, Scenes, Character Development, Themes, Conflicts, Foreshadowing and Additional Notes. Click Edit Full Outline to edit the summary, key plot points and scenes without leaving the editor, then click Save Outline. The rest of the outline (themes, conflicts, foreshadowing and additional notes) is kept as it was. The Free plan includes outlines for up to five chapters.
Worldbuilding Elements
The characters, places and lore relevant to what you're writing. Elements appear here in two ways:
Automatically, when one of an element's tags, or every word of its title, appears in the chapter text.
Pinned by you. Click Pin, search by title or tag, tick the elements you want and click Save. Pinned elements stay in the panel from chapter to chapter.
Expand an element to see its cards, and expand a card to see its fields. The panel always shows each element as it is at the chapter you're writing: if there's no version for this chapter, it uses the most recent one before it, and later versions are ignored. Front and back matter sections show the world as it stands at the chapter before them. See Worldbuilding Versioning.
Pinned elements are remembered in your browser, so pins you set on one computer won't appear on another.
Beta Feedback
Feedback from your beta readers on the current chapter: average ratings with response counts, and answers to open-ended questions, grouped by question and expandable by reader. This tab is read-only. If nobody has answered yet you'll see No open-ended feedback yet.
Tips
Pair Chapter Outline with Author Notes while drafting.
Keep Worldbuilding Elements open for scenes heavy on lore or characters.
Review Beta Feedback alongside the text while revising.