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Seven genres and the folders each one builds

Last updated September 9, 2026 · 7 min read

Genre is the one choice in the create wizard that changes what actually gets built. Here is what each of the seven lays out for you — and what none of them lock.

Work Settings: under the name field sit seven genre chips with Fiction selected and Screenplay second, and below them the collapsed advanced options

What genre actually decides

Three things, all of them at the moment of creation:

  1. Which folders the new book starts with.
  2. Which of those count toward your manuscript word count (the rest are reference: the AI reads them, they don't count).
  3. Whether your first file is a .md chapter or a .script episode.

And that is the whole list. Genre does not gate a feature, does not change the editor, and does not limit what you can add later — every file type is available in every book from the file tree's right-click menu, whatever you picked here.

The seven

Fiction

Chapters/
  Chapter 1.md
Characters/
World Building/
Notes/

The default, and the one the sample book Ink Tide uses. Chapters is where the novel lives; Shen Yan and Pei Zhao get a .md each under Characters; Linze Harbor and the drowned city go in World Building.

Screenplay

Screenplay/
  Episode 1.script
Characters/
Locations/
World Building/
Notes/

The only genre whose first file is not a chapter. You get Episode 1.script, already in screenplay format, ready to type into — one episode per file. Locations shows up here and nowhere else, because a screenplay's scene headings live off a location list.

Biography

Chapters/
  Chapter 1.md
People/
Timeline/
Sources/

People rather than Characters, and two folders fiction doesn't get: Timeline for the sequence you're reconstructing, Sources for where each claim came from. Worth pairing with a real .timeline file once the dates start fighting each other.

Business

Introduction/
Chapters/
  Chapter 1.md
Case Studies/
Appendix/

Two manuscript folders — Introduction and Chapters both count toward the word count. Case Studies and Appendix are reference, so you can pile up raw material without it inflating your progress.

Technical

Introduction/
Concepts/
Tutorials/
Reference/

The only genre that starts with no file at all. Technical has no Chapters folder, so there is nothing to put a first chapter in — you get four empty folders and the editor opens on the blank state. Right-click Introduction → New Manuscript and you're going.

Concepts / Tutorials / Reference is the shape of a manual: the idea, the walkthrough, the lookup. Only Introduction counts toward the word count.

Self-Help

Introduction/
Chapters/
  Chapter 1.md
Exercises/
Resources/

Same two-manuscript-folder shape as Business, with Exercises in place of Case Studies — the things you ask the reader to do kept apart from the things you tell them.

General

Chapters/
  Chapter 1.md
Notes/

Two folders, nothing assumed. Pick it when the book isn't any of the above, or when you'd rather build the structure yourself. It's also what an imported book gets — see Create a book.

Manuscript or reference

Counts toward the word count Doesn't count
Chapters · Introduction · Screenplay Characters · Locations · World Building · Notes · People · Timeline · Sources · Case Studies · Appendix · Concepts · Tutorials · Reference · Exercises · Resources

This is a property of the folder, inherited by files created inside it, and you can flip it on any file afterwards. Details: Manuscript vs reference.

Screenplay is a genre, not a book type

There is no separate kind of book for screenwriting any more. A screenplay is a .script file living in an ordinary book, one episode per file, alongside your character and location notes.

Picking the Screenplay genre is simply the shortcut: it gives you the folders and the first .script without you building them. You can get to exactly the same place from any book — right-click a folder → New Script. And a novel that turns into an adaptation doesn't need a new book: add a Screenplay folder next to Chapters and keep both.

More on writing one: Start a screenplay.

Picked the wrong one?

Nothing is lost, because nothing was locked.

  • Want a folder you didn't get — right-click in the file tree → New Folder, then mark it manuscript or reference.
  • Want the label to match — change the genre in Edit Work. It updates the label only; folders are built once, at creation, and are never retro-fitted.
  • Want a different first file — delete the one you were given, or just rename it.

The one thing you can't undo by editing the genre is the starting layout. If you're two minutes in and the shape is badly wrong, it's faster to create the book again than to reorganise.

Related

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