This page covers writing in MechaSquid: Write mode, where the whole book is one text, its tools for links, comments, words and finding, the history of every scene, how your writing is saved, and the wiki's pages, which edit the same way.
Write mode: the whole book as one text
Choose Write in the menu, or Continue writing on the Overview. Write mode shows the open book as one long text, chapter after chapter, and opens where you left off.
Just write. There is no Save button: MechaSquid saves a few seconds after you stop typing, when you move to another scene, and when you leave or switch tabs. Only a scene you changed is saved. The header says when the text was last saved, how long the scene and the book are, and what you wrote in this session.
Esc only closes things that cover the text, such as Find or a popover. It never leaves Write mode; use ← Manuscript at the top left, or Go to (⌘P on a Mac, Ctrl+P on Windows and Linux), for that.
Scenes and chapters
A book is made of chapters, and chapters of scenes. You make them by typing:
- To end a scene and start the next, type *** or --- on a line of its own and press Enter, or choose End scene in the toolbar, or press ⌘↩ on a Mac (Ctrl+Enter on Windows and Linux).
- To start a chapter, type ## and the chapter's title on a line of its own. End chapter in the toolbar, or ⇧⌘↩ on a Mac (Ctrl+Shift+Enter on Windows and Linux), puts in a heading "Chapter" with the next number and selects its title so you can type over it.
- To merge a scene into the one above it, delete the boundary between them.
When several boundaries or a chapter heading disappear at once, for example because you selected text across scenes and deleted it, a card asks first. Put them back undoes exactly that and keeps everything you typed since; Save it this way merges them. The rest of your writing keeps saving meanwhile.
Get around with Contents
Contents, on the left, lists every chapter and scene as the text has them, saved or not, and marks the one on screen as you scroll. Click a chapter or a scene to go there.
- Fold it with the button at the top of Contents, or ⌥⌘O on a Mac (Ctrl+Alt+O on Windows and Linux). Folded, it is a narrow strip of numbers: 3.2 is the second scene of chapter 3.
- On a wide screen, drag a scene or a chapter in Contents to move it, and double-click one to rename it. A move is an ordinary edit, so Undo takes it back.
- On a narrow screen, ☰ Contents at the top left opens it over the text, with a box to type a scene's name.
From the keyboard, ⌥⌘↓ and ⌥⌘↑ on a Mac (Ctrl+Alt+↓ and Ctrl+Alt+↑ on Windows and Linux) go to the next or previous scene; add Shift for the next or previous chapter. Go to (⌘P, Ctrl+P) with ⌘↩ (Ctrl+Enter) opens any scene in Write mode, even while Write mode is open.
The toolbar
The toolbar above the text holds only what acts on the text: B and I (⌘B and ⌘I on a Mac, Ctrl+B and Ctrl+I on Windows and Linux), End scene and End chapter, Word, Link and Comment (select words first), the picture icon and, in Write mode, Find and replace.
The picture icon puts one of your pictures in the text, on its own line, the width of the text; you can also paste or drop a picture file where it should go. It goes into the EPUB, Markdown and vault exports and every shared copy; a Word file shows it as [Picture: caption].
To hide buttons you never use, untick them on your Account page (Help's "Choose the toolbar's buttons" leads there). Their shortcuts keep working.
Link words to wiki pages
A link joins words in your text to a page of the wiki: a character, a place, a thing. Select the words, then choose Link or press ⌘K on a Mac (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux). A box lists the pages that could match, each with its kind and first line so two pages with the same name can be told apart. Choose one, or + New page at the end of the list to make it. The link keeps the words you selected.
Click a link to see a small bubble with its page's title and three icons: open the page, point the link at another page, and remove the link while keeping the words.
Let names become links
A few minutes after you save, MechaSquid links the first mention of each wiki page's name in your text. No word you see changes, and each change is kept in the history.
What it is less sure of (a lowercase other name, a name two pages share) waits as a suggestion: on a page in a box above the text, in Write mode in the right panel's Suggestions tab. ✓ accepts one, ✕ says no, and Accept all takes them all (⌥⌘↩ on a Mac, Ctrl+Alt+Enter on Windows and Linux). How sure MechaSquid must be before it links by itself is set in Settings, under "Link names and add relationships by themselves"; choose Never: only suggest to keep MechaSquid from linking by itself.
Comment on your text
Select words and choose Comment, or press ⌥⌘M on a Mac (Ctrl+Alt+M on Windows and Linux). Write your note, pick a colour, and choose Comment or press ⌘↩ (Ctrl+Enter) to post it.
Commented words are painted in their comment's colour: yellow, green, blue, pink, purple or orange, to sort your notes however you like. In Write mode, point at painted words to read the note; on a page, click them to open the thread beside the text.
The right panel lists the comments of the scene or page you are in, where you Reply, Resolve or change the colour. Show on the text takes the colours off the words and puts them back. A comment whose words have since changed says so and is kept, never lost. The Comments page lists every open comment in the order the book reads, with filters by colour and by who wrote it.
Look things up while you write
The right panel's Look up tab shows a wiki page beside the text, so you never lose your place. Hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows and Linux) and click a link, or click a link and then its open icon, or press ⌥⌘L on a Mac (Ctrl+Alt+L on Windows and Linux).
The page shows its picture, how the character speaks, its text, its relationships to hop along (with Back), and the scenes it appears in. The box at the top finds any page by name. With nothing open, it lists "In this scene": the pages the scene you are writing links to, and ideas about them.
The panel follows the scene the caret is in. Its other tabs are Comments, History, and, when the scene has any, Suggestions and Flags (what may not hold together). Fold it to a strip of icons when you want the room.
Find the right word
Choose Word, or press ⌥⌘T on a Mac (Ctrl+Alt+T on Windows and Linux). It works on the word the caret is in or the word you selected, and has tabs: Synonyms (grouped by meaning, with more specific and opposite words), Definition, More words and Rhymes.
Click a word to put it in place of yours. MechaSquid gives it your word's ending and capital: choose "stroll" for "walked" and you get "strolled". Alt-click a word to look that word up instead. Tab and Shift+Tab move between the tabs.
Find a word works the other way round: describe what you mean ("a fear of open spaces") and it offers words that match. Select several words and choose Word to find one word for them; with no word under the caret, the word you choose is put in at the caret.
The word tools work in the language your world is written in (Settings): English fully, Spanish with synonyms, more words and rhymes. For other languages the popover says it does not speak them yet.
Find and replace
Press ⌘F on a Mac (Ctrl+F on Windows and Linux), or choose the magnifying glass. Find searches the whole book. Enter and Shift+Enter go to the next and previous match; Aa matches capital letters and Whole word finds "art" but not "start". List shows every match by scene with the words around it.
Replace changes one match or all of them. Words shown by a link are found too, and replacing them keeps the link. Replacing all is one step, so one Undo takes it back.
Find and replace across the book
Find everywhere searches every scene of every book, every wiki page and every idea at once. Press ⇧⌘F on a Mac (Ctrl+Shift+F on Windows and Linux), or choose Search the whole book… under Find. Choose where to look: everything, this book, world pages or ideas.
Click a result to open it with the words selected. To replace, type in Replace with, untick the results to keep, and choose Change n places. A published book is left as it is. The whole replacement is one change: Undo in the message that follows, or under "Changes across the book" on the Revisions page, puts the old text back on every page that has not changed since. To rename a character or a place everywhere, see The story bible.
The scene's plan beside the text
A scene's plan is your note of what should happen in it (see Planning). In Write mode the plan of the scene you are in sits beside the text in the left margin when there is room, or else as one line under the toolbar: click it to read or change it. The small icon on it moves it between the two. A scene with no text yet also shows its plan in the text itself, so you see what to write.
Read your text aloud
The speaker in Write mode's header reads from the caret to the end of the book, a sentence at a time, tinting the sentence it reads and keeping it in view. Select words first to hear only those. Press ⌥⌘P on a Mac (Ctrl+Alt+P on Windows and Linux) to start or stop.
Typing, a click in the text, the speaker again or Esc stops it. The small arrow beside the speaker pauses, sets the speed and chooses the voice.
The voices are your device's and your browser's, in your world's language. A voice marked "online" sends the text it reads to the company behind it (your browser's maker) to be spoken; the others speak on your device. MechaSquid never uses an online voice until you have chosen it in that popover.
Writing sprints
A sprint is a short run of writing against the clock. Choose Sprint in Write mode's header, or press ⌥⌘S on a Mac (Ctrl+Alt+S on Windows and Linux), and pick 15, 25 or 45 minutes. The timer counts the words you type, and says how many when it ends or you stop it. Nothing is stored. Go to's "Start a writing sprint" opens Write mode with one running.
History and putting text back
Every scene and page keeps its earlier versions: one for each writing session, and one for every change made by your AI assistant, a reader's suggestion you took, or a change across the book.
In Write mode, open the right panel's History tab for the scene you are in; on a page, it is in the right panel. Choose Show history to list the latest versions by date and who made them. Open one to see it Compared with now (green is what would come back, red what was written since) or as The text as it was.
Put this back asks you to confirm, then saves the old text as a new version, so today's text stays in the history and putting back can be undone the same way.
Offline, and writing kept on this device
When you are offline, Write mode's header says so, and every other page shows a note at the bottom. Keep writing: MechaSquid tries again and saves once the connection is back.
While anything is unsaved, Write mode and every page keep a copy of your writing on this device. If the browser closes or the battery dies before a save arrives, the next time you open the book a card, "Writing that never reached the server", offers each scene that differs: Compare, Put back (an ordinary edit you can undo), or discard it.
When the same scene changes in two places
If a scene changes somewhere else while you have it open (on another device, in another tab, or by your AI assistant), the change comes in by itself and your caret stays where it was. If you were typing in other paragraphs, both changes are kept. Only when both changed the same paragraphs does a card ask which to keep: Compare, Use the other version or Keep this one. The one you do not keep stays in the history.
Change how Write mode looks
Aa, at the top right of Write mode, holds the view settings. They are remembered on this browser.
- Text size and Line width.
- Keep my line in view: the page scrolls as you type, so you never write at the bottom edge.
- Focus: everything but the paragraph you are in is dimmed.
- Indent paragraphs: first lines indented with no gaps, as in a printed novel. It changes only how the text looks.
- Curly quotes and dashes: straight quotes, -- and ... become curly quotes, a dash and an ellipsis as you type, in your world's language's style. Untick it to keep them straight.
Which words count
MechaSquid counts the words you type yourself, and dictation, for your goals, your sprints and the writing record on your Account page (six months, a square a day). Pasted text, text your AI assistant writes, undo and redo, and replacing across the book do not count. Goals are explained in Planning.
Single pages edit the same way
Every page outside Write mode, a scene's own page, a character, a place or an idea, has the same editor, the same toolbar and the same shortcuts. Its text is always editable and saves by itself; there is no Edit button. Details opens the page's title, kind, importance and other names, with its own Save. A chapter's or a book's page shows its contents instead of a text, since the book's text is its scenes.