Story Builder documentation

Work suggestions

Prompts about work that looks unfinished, generated from the project rather than from a checklist.

What they are

The project knows things about itself: that a character has no biography, that an event has no date, that two locations have almost the same name. A suggestion is one of those observations, offered when it might be useful.

They are prompts, never errors. A character with no biography is often fine — some characters are a name and a function, and the project has no way to know which yours are. Nothing is blocked and nothing is wrong.

What is looked for

Suggestion When
Carry on with a chapter A chapter that was started and left short
Chapter details missing A chapter with no location, characters or date set
A record with no description A character, location or entry that is a name and nothing else
A record nothing points at Created, never mentioned, never linked
A record with no relations Nothing connects it to the rest of the world
An event with no date Which means it cannot appear on the timeline
Two records that look like duplicates Near-identical names, usually a typo or a second attempt
A character absent for a while Someone who has not appeared in the last several chapters
A character after their death Someone appearing in a chapter dated after they died

Where they appear

On the dashboard, as a card, and as a toast that can appear once an hour at most while you work. Both read the same list.

Turning them down

Three levels, in project settings:

  • Mute one item. This character does not need a biography; stop saying so.
  • Turn off a type. You never want to be asked about dates.
  • Turn off the toast and keep the dashboard card, if you would rather ask than be told.

Suggestions also respect which modules are on. A project without a timeline is never asked about dates, and a project without relations is never told a record is isolated.