Help & Tutorials

New here, or just want a refresher? Take the guided tour for a quick walkthrough of the whole app, or browse the topics below.

Getting started

From a blank page to a structured draft.

Open Projects and click “+ New project.” Quill asks what you're writing (a screenplay or a novel) and whether to start from a blank page or import something you already have - then you pick a structure: Save the Cat, the Hero's Journey, Three-Act, and 20+ more.
Each framework gives you a beat sheet to fill in. Work top to bottom, or jump around.
Quill is your editor, not a ghostwriter: it gives notes, asks questions, and coaches - it never writes your prose for you.
Make the whole app bigger or smaller with the A− / A+ control floating at the bottom-right - handy if the default text feels small (it remembers your choice). The same cluster jumps you back to the top of long pages.
Writing a script or manuscript? Hit “Full screen” in the editor toolbar to hide the menus and side panels for a wider, distraction-free writing area; press Esc to come back.
Prefer to learn by doing? Use “Take the guided tour” above for a one-minute walkthrough.

Your projects

Every story you're writing, in one place.

Each project is one story - its screenplay or manuscript, plus the cast, world, and beats that go with it.
Start fresh with “+ New project,” or upload a novel or short story you've already written.
Uploaded files - finished scripts, references, renders - live in a project's Documents tab; submit them to the Workshop, order Greenlight coverage, or Ask Quill from there.
A screenplay or upload that isn't in a project yet shows on its own row (or under “Unfiled uploads”) so nothing gets lost - open it and link it to a project anytime.
Two sample projects come pinned to your list - a short screenplay and a novel opening, both fully built out with cast and storyboard so you can see how a finished project fits together. They're read-only. Hit “Remove” on either to clear it, and “Re-add sample projects” to bring them back. (Anyone can read them without an account at /sample.)
Open any project to keep working - your latest edits autosave.

Write offline - the desktop app

The same editors on your desktop, synced to your account.

OMD has a native desktop app for Windows - write your novel or screenplay offline, anywhere, in the exact same editors you use on the web. A Mac version is coming soon; your membership covers it at no extra charge.
Your work saves to local files on your computer and syncs to your account: open a story on the web, keep writing on the desktop, and pick up right where you left off. If the same document changed in two places, OMD asks how you'd like to resolve it - your words are never overwritten without you choosing.
Writing on the desktop is a membership benefit; you can always open and export your local files even without an active membership.
Get it from the Download page (onemoredraft.com/download); the Mac card there turns into a download the day that build ships.

Stories & beats

Plan your structure beat by beat.

Start on the Story setup tab - genre, tone, and your protagonist's want / need / flaw. It's optional, but Quill grounds every note on it, so a few minutes here sharpens its feedback everywhere.
The Story Health panel on that same tab shows what's still empty - logline, spine, beats, cast, world, themes - ranked by how much it matters, each with a link to the tab where you fix it. It's free, instant, and pure counting: no coins, and nothing is sent anywhere.
The Beats tab lays out your framework's beats. Fill each with what happens; a per-beat page or word range shows the suggested pacing.
Set a target length and the beat ranges scale to it.
The Timeline tab next to Beats is the other axis: when things happen in your story's world, in the order they actually occur. That can differ from the order you tell them in, so a flashback or a death from twenty years ago sits where it belongs chronologically. Write the “when” however your story counts time (“Two winters earlier”, “Y.T. 402”) and order events with the ↑ ↓ arrows. Tag who's involved AND where it happens - locations come from your World tab - then filter the whole timeline to one person or one place to check the movements line up.
Writing a novel? Hit “Extract from manuscript” and Quill reads what you’ve written and proposes the events for you, in the order they happen - you tick which to keep. It’s a coin-priced shortcut; your hand-entered events are never touched.
Ask Quill for notes on a beat, or “How to dramatize” it into a scene - guidance, never a rewrite.
Insert a beat straight into your linked screenplay, then “Sync beats” to refresh untouched scenes without clobbering your own edits.

Characters, world & themes

Build the people and the place.

Every story has Characters, World, and Themes tabs.
Give a character a role, their want / need / flaw, a Physical appearance (this is the field that drives the portrait), a bio, age, personality, notes - and a portrait.
No photo? Hit Generate (the Quill button) and Quill draws a headshot from the character + your world (1 coin) - or upload your own. Accept it, ask Quill how to improve it (free), or re-roll (1 coin); every image you generate stays in that shot's history to reuse later. The fuller the character + world - especially the Appearance - the better the likeness.
Once you have a headshot, flip the portrait's ◀ ▶ arrows (or the dots) to add a half-body and full-body shot too (1 coin each) - Quill draws them from your headshot so the face stays consistent across all three. The half- and full-body slots stay locked until a headshot exists. Click any portrait to enlarge it. Only the headshot becomes the character's avatar everywhere; the body shots give the storyboard the wardrobe and full figure to keep characters on-model.
The World tab has two parts: World Lore - your named locations, rules, cultures, and history - and the World Style dials at the top (era, technology, magic, climate, clothing, and the look images render in). Portraits, the map builder, and Quill's checks all follow the dials; a character's own details always win a conflict.
Pick dials from preset chips or type your own; “Use typical settings” starts you from your genre, and “Suggest from my pages” has Quill propose dials backed by quotes from your own writing (1 coin) - you confirm each one.
Stuck? “Roll the bones” suggests traits, looks, and quirks - a spark, never written for you.
Hit “Interview” on any character for 31 questions built to produce things you can put on the page - a behaviour, a contradiction, a line only they would say - rather than favourite-colour trivia. Answer the ones that spark something, skip the rest; each one saves as you leave the field. It's free and there's no order to follow.
Blank on a question? “Ask Quill” has your character answer every question you've left empty, in their own first-person voice, drawn from their profile, your story, and whatever they've already said. Those come back marked as Quill's draft - react to them, rewrite them, or clear them. Your own answers are never touched, and editing one of Quill's makes it yours.
The Character Map shows how everyone connects; flip between the list and the map with the tab bar.
The map also draws suggested connections as faint dashed lines - characters who share a group or turn up in the same timeline event. They’re inferred from your groups and timeline, not drawn by you, and there’s a toggle to hide them.

Writers Room - your project's team space

Collaborate, chat, and (optionally) write together live.

Every project has a Writers Room - in the “More ▾” menu on the project's workspace - where you invite collaborators (editors and readers), see who's on the project, and talk it through.
When someone shares work with YOU - a project or a screenplay - you get a bell notification and an email, and the invite waits on your Invites page. Accept it and the work appears in Projects under “Shared with you”; decline and nothing changes. Nobody can add you to anything without your say-so.
The chat is freeform and persisted - @mention a collaborator to send them a notification. It's free and always on for everyone on the project.
Three different things, three homes: the Writers Room chat is for team discussion; inline Comments (in the editor) are line-specific notes; the History tab is the read-only log of who changed what.
When live editing is enabled, the Writers Room is also where you open the shared editor to write together in real time.

Screenplay editor

Write and format in industry-standard layout.

Type naturally - it flows like Final Draft. Enter starts the next element (Character → Dialogue); Tab advances the shot flow (Character → Parenthetical, Parenthetical → Dialogue, Action → Character). On a blank line Tab picks the type, and Shift-Tab changes the current line's type.
The Scenes navigator jumps you around and Find searches and replaces; both stay pinned at the top as you scroll.
Export to Fountain, Final Draft (.fdx), or PDF any time - your work is always portable.
Click Extract Cast & World in the top bar to pull every character (with a physical description) and your settings out of the script in one pass - the foundation for portraits, Table Read casting, and the Storyboard. See “From script to storyboard” below for the full walkthrough.
Hear it read aloud with Table Read, save versions to roll back to, and send straight to the Workshop for feedback.

From script to storyboard - the screenwriting power-flow

Upload a screenplay and turn it into a cast, portraits, an audio table read, and a storyboard - one pass at a time.

Prefer a guided click-through? Use “From script to storyboard - walk the pipeline” at the top of this page, or “Walk the pipeline” in any open screenplay's top bar - it walks you through these steps live, page by page. The written version follows.
1. Start the project. On Projects, click “+ New project,” choose “Screenplay or TV script,” then “Import a script I already have,” and pick your file. Quill reads it and suggests the closest structure (free) - confirm the title, then “Create project.” .fountain and .fdx import exactly; PDF is best-effort, up to 2 MB, and must be real text (a scanned, image-only PDF won't read). Your original file is kept in the project's Documents tab.
2. Pull the cast and world. Open the screenplay, then click “Extract Cast & World” in the top bar. The page shows the exact cost before you run anything - extraction is charged per scene-batch (about 2 coins for a short film, a little more for a feature). Click the run button (the Quill button with the gold coin total) and Quill reads the whole script, proposing every character with a physical Appearance, the world's locations and rules, and how everyone connects. Nothing is saved yet.
3. Review and save. Edit anyone - the Appearance field is the one that drives the portrait, so give it a look - uncheck anyone you don't want, then save to the linked story (Quill creates and links one if the script didn't have a story yet). The cast and world land on the project's Characters and World tabs. Coins are spent on the extract, not the save.
4. Build the headshots. On the Characters tab, each character has a portrait carousel. On the Headshot slot click “Generate” (the Quill button) - Quill draws a headshot from the character + your world style for 1 coin; “Use this portrait” to accept it. Ask Quill to improve it (free advice), then re-roll to apply it - or re-roll fresh (1 coin each). Every render stays in that shot's history to reuse for free. The headshot becomes the character's avatar everywhere.
5. Add half- and full-body framings. The Half-body and Full-body slots stay locked until a headshot exists - Quill draws each from the one before it (1 coin each) so the face carries across all three. These aren't just for show: the storyboard prefers the full-body, then half, then headshot as each character's on-model reference, so generating them makes your panels far more consistent. (A “Generate all portraits” button can batch the whole cast at once - it appears when that tool is turned on.)
6. Hear it performed - Table Read. Back in the screenplay, click “Table Read.” Choose One narrator or Full cast, pick a performance tone (Neutral, Calm, Dramatic, Sincere, Serene), choose voices (preview each with ▶), and for a full cast assign a voice per character. “Generate table read” shows the cost on the button - 15 coins solo, 25 for a full cast. Quill records it in the background and sends a “table read ready” notification; the player plays it scene by scene and downloads an MP3.

Table Read

Hear your screenplay performed aloud.

From a screenplay, click Table Read. Choose One narrator or a Full cast (a full cast needs characters with dialogue), and pick a performance tone.
Choose voices and preview each with ▶; for a full cast, assign a voice per character - Quill auto-casts a sensible match to start.
“Generate table read” shows the cost on the button - 15 coins for one narrator, 25 for a full cast. It records in the background and sends a “table read ready” notification when it's done.
Play it scene by scene or download the MP3. Coins are free during the beta; a membership keeps the tools flowing.

Storyboard

Turn a scene into image panels - when the tool is turned on.

Storyboard rolls out gradually, so it appears only once it's turned on for your account. It works best after Extract Cast & World and a round of portraits, since panels use your characters' portraits for continuity.
Set plates keep a place looking like itself: build one for a location and every scene there uses it as the establishing reference. If you haven't built one but the matching location on your World tab has a picture, that picture is used instead - so you never have to upload the same room twice. A set plate you built always wins over the World picture.
Pick the Look first (top of the board): Illustrated or Photoreal. Illustrated - a hand-drawn or painted storyboard - renders every scene reliably (including sensitive ones like children, medical, or violence) and is faster and cheaper; it's what storyboards traditionally look like. Photoreal is cinematic film-still realism, great for pitches, but the image content filter blocks some sensitive scenes, so a few panels may fail. The look defaults from your story's World Style and drives your portraits too; you can override it per board. Changing it affects only new renders, so regenerate to match.
If a board has mature or artistic scenes the default renderer keeps refusing - they come back empty - open Board settings and turn on “Mature / artistic scenes.” It switches that board to a more permissive renderer so those shots generate, and works with either Look.
Open Storyboard, pick a scene, and build the establishing shot first - an image of the empty location (priced like a panel, by the board's Quality tier) that keeps every panel consistent; reuse it across same-location scenes for free. Leave the prompt blank and Quill reads the whole scene to build the set - its layout, furniture, and props - so the space holds together shot to shot, or click “Suggest the set” (free) to see and tweak it first. You can also upload your own establishing shot instead - free.
“Suggest panels” is free - Quill proposes a staging plan and shot list. Suggested shots appear as empty “draft” cards until you render them: refine a shot, then click Generate (priced per panel by the board's Quality tier), or “Generate all” to render a scene's drafts at once. A card with no image just means it hasn't been generated yet.
Board settings has a Quality tier that sets the renderer and the price per panel: Draft is fast and cheap for blocking out a board, Standard is the everyday tier, and Best uses Quill's strongest renderer for character and set consistency - worth it for the final pass. Each option shows its coin price right in the menu, and every render button re-prices when you change the tier.
Run “Suggest panels” again any time - it’s additive and gap-aware: Quill looks at the shots you already have (generated panels and drafts) and proposes only the missing ones to fill the gaps, never duplicating or wiping your work. If your shot list already covers the scene, it adds nothing and tells you so.

Virtual beta read - a first reader, chapter by chapter

Where a reader was hooked, bored, confused, or done.

Start it from the 💜 Beta reader pane in the manuscript editor, or from your story page - either works, and both show the same run. A virtual reader reads your manuscript front to back, one chapter at a time, carrying real reading memory - what it remembers, expects, and cares about - just like a person would.
You get an engagement line across the book, per-chapter reactions anchored to your exact sentences (hooked, moved, confused, bored, skimmed, didn't buy it), and a closing verdict: favorite character, the closest put-it-down moment, and whether the ending paid off.
The 💜 Beta reader pane is where you live while writing: start the read, watch it progress chapter by chapter, then read the reactions pinned to your text with a Find button. If you've edited a passage since the read, the quote stays in the report but the pin falls back to the paragraph.
It runs in the background and takes a few minutes on a long book - you can close the tab. If it fails partway, your coins come back automatically.
Reactions, never advice: it reports the reading experience and hands the pen back. What to do about any of it stays yours.
Once the read finishes you can export the whole thing as HTML, plain text, or Markdown - the engagement curve, every reaction, and the closing verdict - to keep alongside your revision notes or share with a writing group.

Marketability - where your book sits in its market

Genre fit, tropes, audience, and comps read from your chapters.

On your story's Beats page, the Marketability panel reads your actual chapters (via compact digests, not your metadata alone) and reports genre-convention fit, the tropes you deliver or subvert, who the audience really is, a one-line shelf position, and comparable published books.
The wordcount check is free and exact: your length against the debut convention for your genre - conventions, not rules, but agents will ask.
Comps carry a confidence tag and a verify-first caveat - Quill's knowledge has a cutoff, so treat them as research starting points for your query, never facts.
Quill analyzes and positions; it never writes your query letter or your prose.
Export the report as HTML, plain text, or Markdown from the panel once it has run - handy for pasting comps into a query or keeping the positioning line next to your submission notes.

Style report - instant prose counts

Free, on-the-spot numbers on your writing habits.

In the manuscript editor, hit 📊 Style to open the Style report - readability, sentence rhythm, dialogue share, adverbs, filter words (saw, felt, realized), overused words, repeated phrases, sentence-starter runs, and a cliche watch list.
It's pure counting - instant, free, and no Quill involved - so run it as often as you like, on one chapter or the whole manuscript.
Counts are signals, not verdicts: rhythm and repetition can be choices. When you want judgment on a chapter, that's the Proofreader's job.

Publishing your book

Turn a finished manuscript into a book you can sell.

Your .docx and .epub exports are submission format - double-spaced, what you send an agent. The Publish panel under your manuscript makes the other thing: a typeset book interior (and its print-ready PDF) readers buy.
Pick a theme, a trim size (5×8, 5.5×8.5, 6×9, or e-book) and a serif font; turn on drop caps and choose the mark between scenes.
Add front and back matter - title page, copyright (auto-dated), dedication, epigraph, also-by, about-the-author, and acknowledgments.
Download a publish-ready EPUB (reflowable, for e-readers) and a print-ready interior PDF at your trim size, then upload either to KDP or IngramSpark. Cover design is separate - pair it with a Marketplace pro.

Logline & Quill's coaching

Sharpen the one line your story rests on.

On a story, click “Ask Quill for notes” under the logline for an honest read - what's working, what to aim for, what's missing.
In the Logline Arena, post your logline, vote on others, and get that same coaching.
Quill never rewrites your logline - loglines are part of the no-ghostwriting promise.

Workshop

Trade feedback with other writers.

Submit your pages and review others' - feedback flows both ways.
Reviews are structured so the notes are genuinely useful, not just “I liked it.”

Greenlight

Professional-style coverage - scripts and novels.

Order coverage on your script - notes, structure, and marketability, the kind of read a development exec gives.
Novel Coverage reads your whole manuscript - every chapter feeds the analysis via compact digests, plus verbatim prose samples for voice - and returns full coverage: structure, character arcs, prose notes, market position, and a prioritized revision list.
Coverage on a screenplay that's linked to a project sends your development notes along with the script - logline, cast bios, world, and themes - so the reader works with the same briefing a story-source run gets.
Before you order, a quick Story Health check flags anything important that's still empty (logline, cast, beats) so you know what the reader won't see. It's advice, never a gate - you can always run the report anyway.
Reports are shareable by link, exportable, and you can discuss any report with Quill afterward.

Package - your Producer Packet

One shareable professional page for your project.

Open a project's Package tab - or the Package button in a screenplay's top bar, right after Storyboard - to assemble a Producer Packet: your logline, synopsis, writer's statement, cast gallery (with the portraits you've made), locations, and a storyboard contact sheet.
The packet is assembled live from your project - update a character or add a panel and the packet reflects it. Nothing to re-export.
Choose which sections show with the checkboxes; a section without content simply drops out.
The story owner can turn on a public share link - anyone with the link can view the packet, no account needed. Turning sharing off kills the link immediately; turning it back on issues a fresh one.
Write the synopsis and statement yourself - this page speaks for you to producers, managers, and contests.
For screenplays, the Package tab also shows Producibility - a production breakdown counted from your script: scenes, locations, night exteriors, cast burden, and cost drivers. The facts are free; coin-priced Suggestions add Quill's ideas for making a draft cheaper to shoot.
Producer members can export the breakdown as spreadsheets - a scene stripboard, cast list, and locations - ready to import into a scheduling tool like Movie Magic or StudioBinder.
For Producer members, packet PDFs and Greenlight report exports are white-labeled - your own letterhead name and logo (set them under Settings → Profile) replace the One More Draft credit, so you can hand a client a clean, branded document. Greenlight coverage also exports as a real PDF.
Producer members get share-link analytics on the Package tab - how many times your public packet has been viewed, how often the table read was played, and when it was last opened. Anonymous counts only; a public link has no one to identify.
Run Producibility on two drafts and Impact Analysis shows what your rewrite did to the shoot - a night exterior added, a location dropped, a role merged - computed from the two snapshots, free, plus a rough estimate of the budget impact.

Challenges

Write-a-thons and daily goals.

Join a Write-a-thon and hit a daily word-count goal alongside the community.
Your manuscript word counts feed the challenge automatically.

Forums

Talk craft with other writers.

Swap advice, ask questions, and connect with the community in the forums.

Marketplace

Hire vetted pros when you're ready.

Find editors, readers, and coaches for your project, with clear up-front pricing.

Analysis - the shape of your draft

A free structural breakdown of your manuscript, counted from your own pages.

The Analysis tab compares your chapters against each other, which is where structural problems tend to show up. Chapter lengths with the odd ones out flagged, how many scenes each holds, and how much of each is dialogue.
Outliers are measured against your median chapter, not the average - one runaway chapter drags the average toward itself and then stops looking unusual.
Viewpoint: it reads whether each chapter is first, second, or third person and flags any that differ from the rest of the book. Pronouns inside dialogue are ignored, so your characters can say “I” all they like without confusing it.
Who's on the page: a grid of where each cast member is mentioned, chapter by chapter, plus anyone who appears, disappears for a stretch, then comes back. Sometimes that's the plot; sometimes they got lost.
It's free, instant, and nothing is sent anywhere - it's counting, not judgment. For judgment, the Style Report inside the manuscript editor goes deeper on a single chapter, and Quill's paid reports read the whole book.

Goals & progress

Give a project a finish line, and see whether you'll make it.

Every project has a Progress tab on the Format row. Set a total target, a deadline, a daily target, or any combination - a novel measured in words, a screenplay in pages.
Once there's a total and a deadline you get the number that actually matters: how much to write per day to finish on time. It recalculates every day, so a slow week raises it and a good week lowers it.
Progress counts from the day you set the goal, not from the size your draft already was. Set an 80,000-word target on a 40,000-word draft and you start at zero with 80,000 to go, which is the honest way to measure the work still ahead.
The last-14-days chart shows what you actually wrote each day, including days you cut more than you added - a revision day shows as a bar the other way rather than being hidden.
This is separate from the daily writing goal in your account preferences, which drives your personal streak across everything you write. One is a habit, the other is a deadline.
On a shared project, everyone's writing counts toward the goal - it belongs to the project, not to one person.

Keyboard shortcuts

Work faster with the keys - press Ctrl/Cmd + / in any editor for the full cheat sheet.

Open the in-app cheat sheet any time with Ctrl/Cmd + / (or the ⌨ button in the editor toolbar) - it lists every shortcut for the editor you're in.
Everywhere: Bold Ctrl/Cmd+B, Italic Ctrl/Cmd+I, Underline Ctrl/Cmd+U, Undo Ctrl/Cmd+Z, Redo Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Z, Select all Ctrl/Cmd+A.
Find & replace: Ctrl/Cmd+F opens Find, Ctrl/Cmd+H jumps to Replace, Enter / Shift+Enter step through matches. Ctrl/Cmd+S saves now (your work also autosaves).
Ctrl/Cmd+P exports a PDF (instead of the browser print dialog), and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+V pastes without formatting.
Screenplay: set the current line's element instantly - Ctrl/Cmd+1 Scene heading, 2 Action, 3 Character, 4 Parenthetical, 5 Dialogue, 6 Transition, 7 Shot. Enter starts the next line, Tab advances the element flow, Shift-Tab changes the type.
Manuscript: Strikethrough Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+X, insert or edit a link Ctrl/Cmd+K, and Tab / Shift-Tab indent and outdent list items.
On a Mac, ⌘ replaces Ctrl throughout.

Modes - focus the app on one stage

Develop, Write, Revise, or Pitch - trim the menus to where you are.

The Mode pill in the header (and in the mobile menu) narrows the app to one stage of the workflow: Develop (beats, characters, world, themes), Write (your editors, progress, goals), Revise (analysis, workshop, coverage), or Pitch (pitch materials, storyboard, marketplace).
A mode only trims the navigation - nothing is locked away. Any link, notification, or bookmark still opens the page it always did, and community surfaces (prompts, sprints, forums) never change.
The pill stays visible and tinted while a mode is on, so you always know why a tab is hidden - and 'All' is one click away.
No mode is the default. If you never touch the pill, nothing changes.

Account & preferences

Tune the app to how you work.

Set your writing focus (screenwriting, novelist, or both) to tailor the nav and tools.
Switch the editor between Classic (paginated) and Stream (continuous) views from the toolbar.
Control your email from Settings → Preferences: per-event notifications, an optional daily digest, and Product updates (occasional what's-new announcements - every one has a one-click unsubscribe).
Replay any guided tour any time here in Help & tutorials, or watch Quill build a sample from your account menu → “Watch Quill in action.”