Writing modes

Sprint mode is for the day you sit down and the only goal is words on the page. Click the timer chip in the workspace header and pick how long you want to go (15, 25, 45, or 60 minutes). The right-side panel collapses so the page is yours. The number in the header is words written today, ticking up as you type.

If you stall for 90 seconds while a sprint is running, a small option to ask Penny for a nudge appears at the edge of the page. Click it and the assistant suggests what might come next. Ignore it and it goes away. The point is to keep the keys moving.

When the timer hits zero the sprint ends quietly. Your work is saved. You can start another or go take a walk.

Standard mode is the safe pick. Acts, chapters, scenes, and beats are all available. The Plan panel sits open in the right rail. The header shows words today, with a small chip for any open story threads (setups you have promised but not yet paid off).

Pick this when you want everything available without picking sides. It is the default for new projects until you set otherwise.

Discovery mode is for writers who do not outline. You write to find out what happens, and you trust that the story will reveal itself.

Here is the trick that makes this mode worth it: while you are writing, the app reads your prose and builds a feed of patterns it noticed. The feed lives in the right-side panel under Noticed. After a session, glance at it and see things like:

• Capitalized phrases used three times across your manuscript that are not in your Story Index. Probably characters or places worth marking.
• Words you have used a lot in the recent chapters. Useful for catching crutch words before they become a habit.
• Pairs of characters who keep showing up in the same scenes together. Often a sign there is a relationship worth marking.
• Sentences that sound like a rule of your world ("X cannot Y"). Promote the ones that are canon. Dismiss the rest.

Each item has a green checkmark to promote it into a real Story Index entry, or a red X to dismiss. Anything you dismiss stays dismissed across future scans.

Click Refresh whenever you want a fresh pass. The scan is fast and it is yours alone (no one else sees what the app noticed about your draft).

Outliner mode is for writers working from a beat sheet (Save the Cat, story grid, or one of your own). Every scene shows its assigned beat in the header. The Beat Map panel sits open in the rail.

The number in the workspace header is no longer words today. It is beats hit out of the total beats in your outline. The point is the structure you are filling in, not the prose accumulating around it. Words still count; they are just the secondary metric.

When you ask Penny for help, the first move is not to write a paragraph. It is to suggest the next beat in the outline you have not yet placed. You can refuse and write whatever you like. Outliner mode is just leaning in the direction your outline points.