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Adding chapters to your novel

Once your novel is created you are presented with a rather bleak looking screen which has your novel name and notes but not much else.



What you should do now is add the chapters into the novel skeleton. This is not the same as adding submissions, which we will do later. For now we add the chapters which are placeholders where you will add your submissions (what are usually called 'stories').

The hierarchy of the novel is the following: Novel -> Chapter -> Submission


Click 'Add Chapter' to insert your first chapter.


Here you can (optionally) enter a chapter name, but you must enter a number for your chapter that has not been used before in this novel. Since this is your first chapter you can leave the '1' there.


Some novels have short chapters so you might want to submit two chapters into the queue at once to conserve credits etc. If you plan to add submissions which contain more than one chapter you can pick the number of chapters here as well. That will inform the system that submissions into this chapter entry are actually meant for the chapter number that you put in and the next chapters as well.


Chapter Synopsis is optional but a very good idea to fill in. Here you should write a short description of the chapter and explain (briefly) what happens, who is involved etc.

When people are reading your novel they will have the option of viewing the combined synopsis of all chapters preceding the one they are currently reading. This will give you a great way to get more readers. If you are submitting chapter 5 in a public queue you are much more likely to get people critting it if they don't have to read your other 4 chapters in order to crit this one. By then they'll love your novel so much you can't keep them away 


So we recommend putting in a chapter synopsis. Not only are you making your novel more accessible to people but you're making yourself write up text that you will have to write when you're submitting your novel to a publisher. A win-win situation.


If this chapter is a prologue or an epilogue that you are going to add submissions to (if you want these to be critted) check that option. There can be only one of those special-purpose prologue and epilogue chapters per novel.


Everything about the chapter can be changed later, so you can fill in what you want when you want it.


You can add all your chapters now, or the first ten or whatever, using the same method as above. You can also do that later, or just when you add your submissions.


Now your novel skeleton is set up. Let's add some meat. There are two ways to add submissions to a novel: You can either arrange stories you have already submitted into the novel or you can submit directly into the novel.

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