Storiis Support
Example Workflow
Updated
Storiis can take you from a new idea to a Plan you are ready to write against. This walkthrough shows one practical route through the app using its manual tools.
It is not a required sequence. Start wherever your story has energy and provide only the information that helps your process. Some writers want every last field; others need three excellent scene cards and a deadline. There is no single right way.
1. Describe the Story
Begin in Story. The Story section is about the work as a whole rather than the individual things inside it.
Start with:
- A working title
- A short synopsis
- The central dramatic question
- A rough outline, if you have one
- Tone, point of view and other decisions you already know
Do not wait for perfect language. These details provide direction and can change as the Plan develops.
2. Create the Key Cast
Open Characters and create the people who drive the central conflict. For an early pass, focus on the protagonist, antagonist or opposing force and any character whose choice changes the ending.
Give each one:
- A clear role
- A short summary
- A motivation or goal
- A starting state
Return to Story → Key Cast and identify the central protagonists and antagonists. Record what each one consciously Wants and what they more deeply Need.
You can add supporting and background characters later as scenes demand them.
3. Build the Main Storyline
Go to Plan → Scenes and open the Storylines panel at the bottom. Create a main storyline with a dramatic question and a sequence of story beats.
Use a structure template if it gives you useful prompts, or choose no template and make your own. Rename, remove and reorder beats freely. The template works for you; it does not receive royalties.
Add one or two additional storylines only when you can describe how each develops. A relationship, mystery or character goal may deserve its own thread if it changes through several scenes.
See Storylines and Story Beats for the full set of tools.
4. Turn Beats into Scenes
Add scenes in Plan → Scenes. Begin with the moments you can already see clearly, then fill the gaps between them.
For each early scene, identify:
- What changes by the end
- Which story beat or beats it advances
- Who is present and whose point of view guides the audience
- Where it happens
- Any information the audience must learn
- When it happens and how long it lasts, when timing matters
Mark one beat as Primary when it is the scene’s main dramatic purpose. If a scene advances nothing and changes nothing, it may need a stronger function—or a very gracious farewell.
5. Shape Acts and Sequences or Chapters
Group scenes into acts, then choose sequences or chapters for the second structural level. Use whichever language supports your writing and export needs.
Review the Cards view. Its visual layout makes structural imbalance easier to see: crowded openings, empty middle stretches and chapters doing the work of small governments.
Reorder scenes in the Scenes view as needed.
6. Check Story-World Time
Set each scene’s timing relative to the start of the story or another scene. Then open Timeline.
Check that:
- Travel and recovery time are plausible
- Flashbacks appear where intended
- Simultaneous events align
- Characters do not use information before learning it
- Long gaps are intentional
Add non-scene events when a historical or off-page event helps explain the chronology.
7. Develop the World You Actually Need
As scenes expose gaps, add material to Reference Library and Locations.
Record canonical facts and constraints in Worldbuilding. Connect relevant facts to scenes as exposition so you can see when the audience learns them. Add locations from the Scene Wizard, then develop their descriptions and images in Locations.
This scene-led approach keeps worldbuilding focused. You may still invent seven centuries of royal succession for pleasure; Storiis simply declines to pretend it was mandatory.
8. Develop Character Journeys
Return to the central character profiles. Define their starting and ending states, dramatic questions and journey beats.
Connect journey developments to scenes, then review each character’s Usage and analysis section. Look for long disappearances, abrupt changes and important beats that exist in the profile but not in the Plan.
9. Read the Plan as a Story
Open Summary and read Scene Flow from beginning to end. Resist the urge to fix every sentence while reading.
Instead, note where you become:
- Confused about cause and effect
- Impatient for a storyline to return
- Uncertain about a character’s choice
- Overloaded with explanation
- Surprised in a way the story did not intend
Return to the Plan and revise the underlying scenes and connections.
10. Prepare for Drafting
When the Plan gives you enough confidence to write, choose an option from Export Options. You might export scenes to Word or Google Docs, create a Scrivener project or make a story bible for reference.
A finished Plan is not one with every field completed. It is one that helps you sit down, find the next scene and know what that scene must do.
As the draft changes, come back and update the Plan. It is a working model of the story, not a museum display guarded by stern little ropes.