Scene Summaries
Scenes generally represent a single POV and a continuous stretch of time.
These go into the plan view.
You can also view scene summaries in the write interface. They are present as a reference only. Scene summaries prior to the scene you are currently working on are used as the context for the AI in the system prompt.
Chapter Summaries
If you only have one scene per chapter, then the scene summary doubles up as your chapter summary. If you have multiple scenes in a chapter, the individual scene summaries comprise the chapter's summary.
Why do we do this?
'Chapters' as containers are utilised by our users for more than simply novel writing. As a chapter can include changes of POV, or multiple shorter scenes, having one overarching summary is not always helpful.
Act Summaries
There is currently nowhere in the interface for an act summary. Should you wish to include one for your story (for example, to use as context instead of the summaries of every chapter), you can include one in the codex or as a snippet, and then use a function call in your prompts. To learn how to do this, see here.
You can also include codex entries by mentioning them in a scene beat, or at the scene level through the +codex feature under the scene summary.
Book Summary
There is currently (November 2024) no dedicated place to put the book summary. As AI models tend to foreshadow or suggest endings, it is advised not to put your book summary anywhere the AI can access. As such, we recommend using a dedicated snippet for your book/novel/project summary.
Scene Beats
Scene beats go into the write interface, by using the forward slash "/" shortcut.
Scene beats are not the same as summaries. A beat is a short set of instructions detailing what happens in a moment of a story - think of it as a summary of a smaller chunk of text. You are the director, telling your characters what to do. A beat will result in a small moment, roughly 500 words of prose.
A given scene (unless it's very short) will contain multiple beats, often six or more. What is in the individual beats can follow a natural flow, interjecting action and conflict into the overall scene. Here's an example of six individual beats:
Include the setting, time of day, and the characters that are present. Give one of the characters (probably the POV character) a goal.
Describe how the character's goal leads to a conflict.
Tell how the conflict leads to an outcome, it could be a disaster or a victory, large, small or simply in the imagination of the POV character.
The outcome causes a reaction in a character.
The reaction leads to a dilemma. (Delilah can either choose to let the dog find the earring, or distract it)
The dilemma leads to a decision. In a subsequent scene/chapter, this decision will result in a goal that starts the beat flow anew. (Delilah attempts distraction)
