Outlining is free — top-down in Outline, bottom-up in Beat Cards
There are two ways to build your structure under Structure in the sidebar, and they suit different working styles. Outline is one editable tree — parts, chapters, scenes, and beats — that you shape from the top down; it's the natural home for plotters who plan the shape before drafting. Beat Cards is the bottom-up companion: capture loose beats first and spin them up into scenes, the way pantsers tend to work. Both are on every plan — outlining your manuscript never requires a subscription.
Open Outline from the Structure section to add parts, chapters, scenes, and beats and drag them into the order you want, with each level collapsible so a long manuscript stays scannable. Reach for Beat Cards when you're working from the beats up — drop a loose beat into an existing scene, or create a new scene (or a whole new chapter and scene) right from the beat card. Whichever you start in, the same structure shows up in both.
- Add parts, chapters, scenes, and beats, and give each a synopsis
- Drag to reorder and to move items between parents — across every level
- Split, merge, and delete — with snapshots so nothing is lost
Let the analysis read your structure back: Beat Gaps
Once you've run analysis, Beat Gaps (under Analyze) lists the beats the analysis detected in your scenes that aren't yet in your Structure area, chapter by chapter. It's a Pro feature. Nothing moves on its own: Add brings one beat into Structure as your own, and Add all brings across a chapter's pending beats at once.
Each chapter's own summary lives on the chapter itself — expand a chapter in Outline to read it. Re-run analysis after revising and Beat Gaps refreshes to match.
Build and rearrange in Outline or Beat Cards (every plan); use Beat Gaps (Pro) to adopt what the analysis finds. To change your structure, work in Outline.
Which one should I use?
- Planning or reshaping your story top-down → Outline. The whole manuscript as one editable tree, and it's free.
- Composing from loose beats up → Beat Cards. Capture beats and spin them into scenes; also free.
- Checking whether your structure holds up after a draft or revision → Beat Gaps, alongside the Shape facets in Analyze.