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Create your first book

Last updated September 9, 2026 · 6 min read

First time opening Slima? Five minutes and you'll have a book. There is no "pick a studio" step in 4.0 — how the book starts is one form in the create wizard.

Slima's home screen in English, two cards — Writing Studio (Create and edit your written works) and AI Beta Readers (Get feedback from AI readers).

0 · Where you land

The first screen after signing in is a stack of cards. A new account sees two: Writing Studio and AI Beta Readers. (An account that still owns a Script Studio work — archived and trashed ones count — sees a third card, Script Studio, alongside them.) If you're here to write, go into the Writing Studio.

(On a brand-new account the slime shows up and walks you through it, pointing at what to click. Skip tutorial if you'd rather not.)

1 · The "My Works" shelf

You land on My Works. That's your shelf, and everything you make ends up here, with Archive and Trash as tabs alongside it.

Press ＋ Create New Work at the top left.

2 · Pick how you want to start

"Create New Work" opens with three cards:

Option When to use it
Create New Work From nothing. Name it and write
Import Existing Content You have Word, Markdown, PDF or similar — or a whole folder to drag in
Restore Backup You exported a .slima backup earlier

The small print underneath says you can always adjust later, and it means it. Nothing chosen here is locked in.

3 · One form, and you're done

Choose Create New Work and there is a single screen:

  • Give your content a name — required, and the only required field
  • Genre — seven buttons: Fiction, Screenplay, Biography, Business, Technical, Self-Help, General. Fiction is preselected
  • Advanced options (optional) — collapsed; open it and you get:
    • Core concept or outline — a sentence, a scene or a full outline; saved as Outline.md at the root of the book
    • Target word count / target date
    • Create a "Writing Guidelines" file — tick it and you get a file describing your tone, point of view and style preferences, which the AI reads

Then press Start Writing.

Genre is not just a label — it decides which folders you get. Picking the "wrong" one costs nothing; you can add folders whenever you like.

4 · Genre decides the starting structure

Genre Folders created First file
Fiction Chapters · Characters · World Building · Notes Chapters/Chapter 1.md
Screenplay Screenplay · Characters · Locations · World Building · Notes Screenplay/Episode 1.script
Biography Chapters · People · Timeline · Sources Chapters/Chapter 1.md
Business Introduction · Chapters · Case Studies · Appendix Chapters/Chapter 1.md
Technical Introduction · Concepts · Tutorials · Reference no file at all
Self-Help Introduction · Chapters · Exercises · Resources Chapters/Chapter 1.md
General Chapters · Notes Chapters/Chapter 1.md

Pick Screenplay and your first file is already a .script, one episode per file. No second place to go to start writing script.

Chapters, Screenplay and Introduction are manuscript folders: what you write in them counts toward the manuscript word count. The rest are reference — the AI reads them, but they don't count. See Manuscript vs Reference.

5 · Into the editor

The Slima Writing Studio editor in English: file tree on the left, manuscript in the middle, AI Coach on the right

Left to right: the narrow activity bar at the far edge, the file tree, the writing surface, and the AI Coach. Your first file is already open.

See Interface tour.

6 · Write fifty words

Don't overthink it. Put fifty words in. Slima will:

  • start a version history for that file, so a bad edit is reversible
  • register that you wrote today, which is what the streak counts
  • update today's word count in the tree footer and the status bar

That's it. You're a Slima user.

Adding other kinds of file later

Right-click any folder. The first level is New Manuscript, New Script, New Reference and New Folder. The relationship map, map, timeline and beat board are under More.

See The file tree.

Where to go next

Try it in Slima

Open the app and do this with your own book. Free to start, no credit card.

Open Slima
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