Lens

Lens reads the chapters of one book and shows them back to you as reports, so you can find continuity errors in a novel, see where and when the story happens, and check how the prose reads.

How do I open Lens for one book? #

Open Lens from the sidebar. The reports are laid out in four groups — Checks, Where and when, Who and The text — and each card shows a small picture of what the report produces. Above them, the book at a glance: chapters, words, reading time, characters and places.

Inside a report:

The report's name in the header is a menu that jumps straight to any other report.
The question mark opens the report's help.
The back link returns you to the list.

When the Books module is on, every report reads the book chosen in the book selector, and once the project has more than one book the same selector sits in each report's header.

Lens needs the Chapters module. Each report appears only when the modules it reads are switched on, so a project without maps has no story map card. A link to a report you cannot use returns you to the list.

How do I find continuity errors in my novel? #

Open Story checks. It lists the contradictions an editor would circle, grouped by how serious they are. The three tiles at the top count Problems, Warnings and Notes; click one to show only that kind.

What the checks find #

In two places at once — a character listed in chapters set in different places on the same day.
After their death and Before their birth — a chapter dated outside a character's life.
Journeys too fast to make — two stops further apart than the character could travel in the days between them, at the travel pace set on the story map. This check needs a map with a scale and a calendar that knows the length of a day.
Named, but not in the cast — the prose names a character the chapter does not list.
In the cast, but never named — the reverse, for chapters long enough to expect a name.
Long absences — a main character who is gone for a long stretch of the book.
Empty chapters, Chapters without a date, Chapters without a location, Chapters without characters and Chapters that move no thread.

Each check appears only when the modules it relies on are on: dates need Timeline, places need Locations or Maps, casts need Characters, and threads need Plotlines.

Acting on a finding #

Click the chapter named in a finding to open it.
Add to chapter puts a named character into the chapter's cast. Remove from chapter takes a listed character out.
A finding tied to a place on a map has Show on the story map.
Copy as a checklist copies everything still open as a list you can hand to an editor or a beta reader.

How do I stop a check from flagging something I meant? #

Mark the finding with Mark as intended, and it leaves the list. Show intended brings those findings back, and Show as a problem again returns one to the list.

To silence a whole check, hide its section with the eye icon. The list icon in the header, under Sections, shows every section with a switch, so you can bring a hidden one back. Hidden sections are remembered for the project. This suits a check that does not fit how you write — for example the name checks, when the prose is in a different language from your character names. Every section also has an info icon that explains what it looks for.

Where and when #

Story map #

Story map shows where the story happens. Each character's journey is drawn across the map from the locations of their chapters and storyline events, with arrows for the direction of travel. Every place carries a label and the number of chapters set there.

Follow a journey. The panel on the right lists the journeys. Click one to follow it stop by stop, with the distance and days between stops.
Hide journeys. The eye icons hide a journey; Show all journeys and Hide all journeys at the top of the list do it for every one.
See a place. Click a place to see its chapters and who is there.
Replay the story. Drag the bar along the bottom or press play, and every character stands where they are at that moment, with that date's chapters named beside the bar. With a map scale and a calendar that knows the length of a day, legs faster than the travel pace are marked in red.
Settings. Map settings sets the Travel pace. Show every place on the map adds the map's other places, which are hidden by default so the story's own places stand out.
Several maps. When chapters are set on more than one map, a picker chooses the map.
Draw by plotlines. With the Plotlines module on, a picker next to the map picker switches the map from chapters to plotlines. Each plotline becomes one journey, drawn through the places and dates of its own beats, so the map shows what the plot plans even for chapters you have not written yet. Beats without a place are left out; a beat with a place but no date stays off the map, and the panel counts those. The panel lists plotlines the way it lists characters: follow one, hide it or show it. The choice is remembered for you in each project.

The story map needs the Maps module and a screen at least 1200 pixels wide.

Story timeline #

Story timeline shows when the story happens. Chapters are laid out as cards by their timeline date, with a coloured thread for each character running between their chapters.

Time scale. By default the scale is Compressed: only dates that hold a chapter get a column, and a marker shows how much time the skipped stretch covers, so a book with a flashback twenty years back stays readable. To scale spaces the columns by real time.
Characters. The character picker narrows the board to the characters you choose; left empty, it shows All characters.
Filters. Filters limits the board to a range of dates, and Dim instead of hiding decides what happens to chapters without the chosen characters.
Threads. Rest the pointer on a card to trace every thread through it.
Dates. Chapters without a date wait along the bottom with Set a date. Drag a card to another date to change the chapter's timeline date.

It needs the Timeline module.

Chronology #

Chronology plots reading order against story time: one point per chapter, left to right as the reader meets them, high or low by when they happen. Flashbacks show as dashed dips. The list below names every step back, every return to the present, the biggest jumps forward, and runs of chapters set on the same day.

Calendar #

Calendar lays out the months the story touches as month grids, with each chapter on its day and a marker where months or years pass unseen. In the Gregorian calendar these are real months with weekdays; in a custom calendar a month is the unit just above your smallest one, named from your calendar's labels, with its days in rows of seven. Show world events adds the project's events beside the chapters, and a repeating event on every day it comes round in the months shown. The report is offered when the calendar has months and days: the Gregorian calendar, or a custom one with at least two units and no more than 100 days to a month.

Scene locations #

Scene locations shows where the chapters are set, one row per place, busiest first. Each row has a strip across the book with a mark for every chapter set there, the chapter that first takes the reader there, who goes there, and how many chapters it holds. The tiles above name the place the book spends most time in and count the chapters with no location yet. Hover the strip to see a chapter; click a mark to open it.

Who #

Cast #

Cast puts every character across every chapter in one table: a dot where the chapter lists them, a line joining their appearances, and a shaded stretch where a main character is gone for a long time.

Hover a dot for the character's age in that chapter, when the timeline allows it; click it to open the chapter.
The last column shows how much of the book each character is in, and the bottom row how many characters each chapter holds.
Sort by First seen, Most present or Name.

On a long book the columns narrow to fit and the table scrolls sideways. Cast needs a screen at least 1200 pixels wide.

Which characters never meet? #

Open Encounters. It shows which characters share chapters, and how often, as a grid: the darker a cell, the more chapters the two share, and a dashed cell means they never meet. The row and column under the pointer are highlighted.

Click a cell to open the pair in the side panel, with the chapters they share and, below, the main characters who never meet. Characters shown hides anyone who appears in fewer chapters than you choose, which keeps a large cast readable. Close the panel to give the grid the whole page.

Relationships #

Relationships takes every relationship defined between two characters and draws a strip across the book: a dark block where they share a chapter, a half block where only one of them is there. It says when they are first together and the longest stretch they spend apart, and lists first the related pairs who are both in the book but never meet.

Below, Often together, not related lists pairs who share three chapters or more with no relationship defined. Define takes you to the character's page to add one. See relations.

The text #

Manuscript #

Manuscript shows the whole book as continuous prose, with a contents rail, find, echoes, read aloud, notes and export. The manuscript page covers it in full.

Outline #

Outline shows every chapter as an index card: its synopsis (or its opening lines when it has none), date, place, cast, word count and the plotline beats it tells. Read the cards In order, By place or By thread.

Pacing #

Pacing sets chapter lengths side by side against the average and the usual range, with two smaller charts: how much of each chapter is dialogue, and how many characters each chapter introduces for the first time. A paragraph that opens with a dash counts as speech, and so do words inside quotation marks.

Rhythm notes point out runs of long chapters, chapters much shorter or longer than the rest, and chapters with almost no dialogue or almost nothing else.

Prose #

Prose shows how the writing reads, chapter by chapter:

Readability by chapter and Average sentence length, with the book's own averages.
Style signals: Filter words (saw, heard, felt), Crutch words (just, really, suddenly), Adverbs in -ly, Passive voice, and Repeated openings — three sentences in a row that start with the same word. Each row shows how often it happens per thousand words, a strip of where in the book it gathers, and the words used most. Click a word to open the manuscript with it already found.
Sentence rhythm: how much sentence length varies in each chapter. Low bars are chapters where most sentences run the same length.
Words you lean on, and the book's Longest sentences.

Filter and crutch words are recognised in English and Ukrainian. Adverbs and the passive voice are checked in English only, and the passive voice is a rough count of the pattern, not a grammar check.

Can Lens check a single record? #

Yes. With Lens switched on, every character, creature, organization, location, place, entry and event page shows a Consistency check card. It reads only that record and what it links to, and lists what does not add up. World entities says what it looks for.

Tips #

Run Story checks after each draft, and hide the sections that do not fit your book rather than scrolling past them every time.
Give chapters a date, a location and a cast. Most reports read those three, and chapters without them drop out of the map, the timeline and the chronology.
Use Copy as a checklist to hand a list of open findings to an editor or beta reader.
On a long book, raise Characters shown in Encounters to see only the characters who carry the story.
Click a word in Style signals to jump to every place you used it in the manuscript.

Manuscript — read the whole book, listen to it, and export it.
Chapters — give chapters the dates, places and casts the reports read.
Timeline — set up the calendar that dates your chapters.
Maps — give a map a scale so journeys can be checked.
Plotlines — track the threads that Chapters that move no thread looks for.