Moving an existing book in

This page is about moving what you’ve already written (a world bible, notes, a timeline, a plot synopsis, chapters) into a Plot Device book. It’s done once. To learn the app itself, start with Your first book and the tour.

Your originals stay as they are. You make a new book, and copy into it.

What goes where

What you have	Where it goes
A character	A character page: one paragraph to describe them, then anything else you wrote
A place	A place page
Many things of one sort: factions, ships, spells, gods	A kind of page of their own, such as “Factions”, with a page for each
Magic, history, religion, a glossary, research	A note, one for each topic
Groups: a family, a faction, the main characters	Tags on the pages
“Bea is Ilka’s aunt”	A relationship, on Bea’s page or Ilka’s but not on both. The other page shows it by itself. See Characters, places and notes
A plot synopsis or beat sheet	An outline: each section a column, each point a card
Several storylines, or a timeline of events	One outline for each storyline, lined up on the timeline with the main one
A list of dates or eras, kept for reference	A note with a list
Chapters you’ve drafted	One chapter each, in order, in parts if you use them
Scenes you cut, or haven’t placed	Chapters kept On the side, outside the book’s order

Anything that doesn’t fit anywhere can go into a note called “To sort”, and you can sort it later.

Doing it yourself

It’s slower, and nothing can go wrong.

1. Choose New project and start a new book. Pick the template closest to what you have: a novel, a short story or a D&D campaign.
2. For each chapter, add a chapter in Write and paste in its text. If your chapters are in a Word file, bring them in from Word instead.
3. If you have many things of one sort, such as factions, add them as a kind of page first.
4. For each character, place or topic, add a page in Story, under World, and paste in what you wrote about it. Make sure the first paragraph is the one you want on its card.
5. Add relationships and tags as you go, or afterwards.

With an AI assistant

Plot Device has no AI in it, and sends nothing anywhere. If you already use an AI assistant that can make files on your computer, it can do the move for you, following a guide written for it:

https://plotdevice.app/for-assistants.md

That guide tells it the format of every file, where each kind of material goes, and its rules: keep your words exactly, invent nothing, leave nothing out, and never touch your original files. You could write to it:

Read https://plotdevice.app/for-assistants.md. Then make a new Plot Device book in a new folder called “The Glass Weir”, from my world bible and my draft chapters in this folder. Don’t change my files. Tell me what you weren’t sure about.

When it’s done:

1. Choose Open project… and open the new folder.
2. Look through it: the chapters in order, a few characters and places, the outline.
3. Read the assistant’s list of what it wasn’t sure about, and the “To sort” note.

Everything it made is ordinary text in the book’s folder. If something isn’t right, fix it in Plot Device, as you would anything else.

If something didn’t come across

• A chapter you expected is On the side. It isn’t in the book’s order yet. Move it into place: see Moving chapters.
• A chapter is Missing. The book’s contents lists a file that isn’t there. Plot Device offers a likely match if it finds one.
• A box says Kept as written. Part of a page or chapter is written in a way Plot Device doesn’t show, but it’s kept exactly as it is. You can leave it, or rewrite it.
• A page has no description on its card. Its first paragraph is empty, or is a heading. Write one at the top.
• A link goes nowhere. It points to a page that doesn’t exist, often by a slightly different name. Link it again from the page.

For how each file is written, see The book’s folder in the technical docs.