A novel with a canon

A novel needs two things from an AI: that it leaves your prose alone unless asked, and that it remembers what chapter three said by chapter thirty. This guide sets up both. The Lighthouse example workspace is set up this way, if you want to look first.

1. Bring the book in

1. Create a workspace for the book.
2. In Writing, Import your manuscript as .docx or .pdf, or start with New chapter. Organise chapters in folders and drag to reorder.
3. Set Page setup and a Word goal if you work to one.

2. Register the canon

In Worldbuild, create a sheet for each character, place and important item. Give each the other names the book uses: “the old man”, “Captain”, a nickname. Back in the manuscript, select an ambiguous name and press Link to world to tie it to the right sheet.

Put what is not an entity in Memory: the outline and research as searchable, your style rules in a few lines as always on.

3. Build your team of profiles

Three profiles cover most of the work. Full settings are in the recipes.

Profile	Job	Key settings
Line editor	Tightens a selected passage. Used with Replace.	Temperature 0.3, smart search off, strict rules about what to keep.
Brainstorm partner	Talks through plot and character in the chat.	Temperature 0.8, smart search on.
Continuity checker	Reads a chapter against the canon and lists contradictions. Used with Analyze.	Temperature 0.2, smart search on with 3 rounds.

Put shared rules in variables: {{house_style}} for spelling and punctuation, {{point_of_view}} for the narration. Every profile follows when you change them.

4. Write

• Revise a passage. Select it, press Invoke AI, pick the Line editor and Replace. The suggestion appears in the chapter: your text struck through, the new one in green. Accept or Reject.
• Keep going. Insert after continues from the selection with the profile you pick.
• Get a reading. Analyze keeps the reading in the Analyses panel. Keep the useful ones in Notes.
• Set rules for a chapter. Directives apply to every request in that chapter: a flashback’s tense, a character’s dialect.

See Suggestions and diffs.

5. Keep the whole book in mind

When a chapter is ready, choose Update the AI’s memory. From then on every profile can draw on it, and the chapter list shows when a chapter is out of date. Updating again reads only what changed. See Chapter memory.

Check continuity chapter by chapter

After each chapter goes into memory, select it whole and run the Continuity checker with Analyze. It searches the canon and earlier chapters for each name and date in the text and lists anything that does not match.

6. Let the canon grow

As you write, Update entities in Worldbuild reads the latest chapters and suggests new sheets and changes for review. Sheets you do not want touched can be Locked.

7. Journals and letters

A chapter can be a page written inside the story: a journal, a letter, a notice, kept inside an item. The AI reads it only when the item is within reach of the scene. See Texts inside the story.

8. Finish

Export a chapter or the whole book as DOCX or a paginated PDF.