A story structure is an organizational framework that helps shape a narrative arc: setup, rising tension, turning points, climax, and resolution. It does not replace creativity, but gives you a map to manage pacing and progression.

If you want background reading, start with Narrative structure (Wikipedia).

A story is your main planning workspace. Every story uses one narrative structure (for example Hero's Journey, Story Circle, or a custom structure) and renders each phase as a column.

You can think of a story as a visual planning canvas: you place notes inside phases, reorder phases when needed, and refine the story over time. A story also stores its own phase order, notes, and update history used for merge operations during import.

Series let you organize multiple stories into a sequence. This is useful for multi-arc projects, series planning, or alternate structure explorations of the same story.

Use Create series in the dashboard to name a series and pick stories with checkboxes. To add an existing story to a series later, open that story’s actions and choose Add story to series (available once you have at least one series), then pick the series from the list. Manage order and membership from group actions on the dashboard.

Yes. Feel free to edit and experiment with demo stories (move notes, change phases, and tweak everything you want).

If you ever want to restore the demos, go to the dashboard and run Reset demos. Your personal stories and settings will be kept.

Structurer currently includes these pre-built structures:

• Hero's Journey
• Hero with a Thousand Faces
• Three-Act Structure
• Save the Cat
• Story Circle
• 7-Point Story Structure
• Romancing the Beat
• MICE Quotient

Phases are the structure steps (columns). Notes are cards inside those columns. Notes can represent plot points, themes, characters, or custom note types.

Drag notes with the handle (⋮⋮) to reorder them inside a phase or move them across phases. You can collapse notes for compact reading and open them in edit mode when needed.

In the story editor, click + in the phase header. Then select the note type from the menu. Character notes open from the character submenu so you can choose an archetype immediately.

New notes are saved locally and can be moved, collapsed, edited, and resized at any time.

Yes. Double-click the note header. The card collapses to a one-line preview so you can scan the story quickly; double-click again to expand.

Use the phase + menu:

• Define custom note type... to create a new note category and choose its color.
• Define custom archetype... inside the character submenu to add a new archetype.

These custom definitions are saved in your browser and become reusable across stories.

Go to dashboard and open Add a structure not listed. Add one phase per row, save, and the new structure will appear in the story creation selector.

For example, if you want to follow a structure like Freytag's Pyramid (which is not included by default), you can add its phases manually and save it as your own reusable structure.

You can also import ready-made custom structure packs from dashboard actions using Import custom structure.

The built-in structure presets in Structurer are in English. For frameworks labeled in other languages (or regional narrative patterns), use community extensions: they are custom structure packs you import into the app so they appear when you create a new story.

For what extensions are, where to download JSON, and how to import (file or paste), see the next question: What are extensions and how do I use them?

Extensions are curated custom structure packs distributed as JSON files. They let you add new narrative frameworks (including non-English variants) without changing the built-in defaults.

To use one: download a JSON file from the extensions catalog, open dashboard ... Actions, click Import custom structure and select the file, or use Import custom structure (paste JSON) to paste JSON directly.

See the catalog in EXTENSIONS.md and contribution rules in CONTRIBUTING_EXTENSIONS.md.

Export a story from dashboard story actions. Import from Import/merge a saved story in dashboard.

• If the imported story UID is new, Structurer creates a new story.
• If the imported story UID already exists, Structurer merges notes by note UID.
• When both sides changed, the most recent update wins.

Recommended multi-device workflow: do one initial export/import to align IDs between the two copies. After that, repeat export/import for incremental merges.

If phase order differs between the two versions, merge is blocked and Structurer shows a side-by-side conflict modal so you can align the story manually and retry.

Open a story, then click the magnifier icon on a phase header. Structurer opens a dedicated phase details page where you can keep writing comments without overcrowding the main board.

On desktop, notes for that phase are shown on the left (read-only for context) while comments are on the right. This keeps your story board clean while preserving all deeper notes.

You can add, edit, and delete as many comments as you need. Back in the story board, the phase shows a comment counter so you always know where extra context exists.

You can delete your stories and series one by one from the dashboard (use story/series actions).

If you want to do everything quickly, go to the dashboard and use Factory reset app data. Be absolutely sure before confirming: this permanently deletes all your local data from the browser storage (stories, series, custom structures/archetypes/note types, and app settings). There is no way to recover it.

If you only want to restore the demo stories, use Reset demos instead. And if you want to keep your current work, export stories first.