Front matter
Every property the plugin reads or writes. All are optional.
Any note
| Key | Values | Effect |
|---|---|---|
creative-writer | true / false | Force the editor features on or off for this note, whatever the Notes mode says. false also keeps the note out of the story map, the plot grid, the threads and the manuscript page — the right line for memos, research and reviews. Written by Toggle for this note. |
story-order | number, e.g. 3 | Where this note falls in the manuscript. Notes with it come first, by number; the rest follow in path order. Used by the story map, the plot grid, the threads and the manuscript. |
manuscript | true / false | false keeps a note off the manuscript page: an outline, research, the project note itself. true puts a typed note (a character sheet, say) on it. Notes with no prose are never on it. |
Project note
The note whose front matter declares a project. Any note in the folder can be it.
| Key | Values | Effect |
|---|---|---|
writing-target | words, e.g. 80000 | Makes the note's folder a project with a word goal. |
story | true | Makes the note's folder a project with no goal — a book you are reading and mapping, or a map sketched before the draft. The story map, the plot grid and the threads see it; the writing desk does not. Either key is enough; writing-target adds the goal on top. |
writing-deadline | YYYY-MM-DD | Pace and verdict against a date. |
writing-daily | words, e.g. 500 | A per-project daily goal with its own streak. |
writing-name | text | Display name instead of the folder name. |
writing-scope | note | Count only this note, not the folder. |
story-ignore | list or comma string | Capitalised words the story map must not turn into candidates. Written by the map's Not a name; edit freely. |
plot-order | list or comma string, e.g. Time, POV, arcs, Plot point, themes, subplots, threads | The grid's blocks left to right: a job column's heading, or a kind group's word. Written by a drag or Move left / right; blocks it leaves out follow in the default order. |
plot-pov, plot-time, plot-theme, plot-beats | a heading from Story threads.md, e.g. Theme: What we owe the dead | Which thread the plot grid draws as its POV, Time, main theme and plot point columns. Written by a column's Use as… or a template's apply; edit freely. |
%% Name %% right before a sentence of speech | a cast name, or not speech | Not front matter but the same kind of thing: the speaker box's pin, a hidden comment naming who speaks the sentence after it. Written by the box; edit or delete it freely. |
bad-words | [[Bad words]] or a path | The project's own word list for the words lens: notes inside the project use it instead of the vault-wide note. |
dialogue | double, single, dash, none | How speech is written in this project, for the dialogue lens; quotes and travessão are read too. Absent, the vault-wide setting. |
thoughts | italic-paragraph, italic-any, single-quotes, none, or a regular expression | How thought is written in this project. Anything that is not a preset is taken as a pattern: every match in a paragraph is a thought. |
speakers | list or comma string, e.g. [Mara, Tomas #c8773a] | The cast the dialogue lens attributes speech to, in this order; a name with no note is a speaker too; #hex pins a colour. Absent, every character note inside the project. |
Entity notes
Notes that are people, places and things in the story.
| Key | Values | Effect |
|---|---|---|
type (or kind, entity) | character, person, location, place, setting, item, object, artifact, faction, organisation, house, event… | The node's kind. A folder named Characters/, Places/, Items/, Factions/, Events/ (and synonyms) types its notes without this key; the key wins over the folder. |
aliases | list or string (Obsidian's own property) | Other names the prose uses: [Marti, M.]. Written by the map's Alias of…. |
name | text | Treated as an extra alias. |
colour (or color) | "#c8773a" | A character's speaker colour under the dialogue lens. Absent, one from the palette in cast order. |
accent | list or comma string | Words and phrases this character's speech uses, marked green inside their lines under the accents lens. |
accent-never | list or comma string | Words this character never says, marked red inside their lines under the accents lens. |
Created by the map's Character · Place · Item · Faction · Event exits as:
---
type: item
aliases: []
---Writing log note
Creative Writer/Writing log.md (or the path in Settings → Stories and goals) carries creative-writer: false and creative-writer-log: 1, a line of explanation and one JSON block. Safe to edit; deleting it starts the log afresh.
Story map data note
Story map.md in the project folder is written by the plugin and carries:
---
creative-writer: false
creative-writer-storymap: 4
---followed by a short explanation and one ```json block: relation readings and fact readings per scene, the model's verdict per contradiction, sentence pairs the embedding model found alike, contradictions you dismissed, pinned node positions, and under a grid key the plot grid's readings, one per cell the model read, each with its state (open, dismissed, or none). The flag keeps the plugin from reading its own note as a chapter; a note from an earlier version (before facts, intents and echoes, or the grid existed) loads as is. Safe to delete — you would re-run the readings.
Plot grid snapshot
| Key | Value | Effect |
|---|---|---|
creative-writer-grid-snapshot | 1 | Written by Snapshot the grid, with creative-writer: false, so the table is never read back as a chapter. |
Manuscript export note
<Name> (manuscript).md in the project folder is written by Export on the manuscript page and carries creative-writer: false and creative-writer-manuscript: 1, so it is never counted or read as a chapter. A snapshot; export again to refresh it.
Outline note
Outline.md in the project folder is the plot grid's plan before the chapters exist, created on the first New scene with
---
creative-writer: false
creative-writer-outline: 1
---and written as # act, ## chapter, ### scene, with an HTML comment under a scene as its logline. The flag keeps it out of the map, the threads and the manuscript page; the grid reads it for rows. Build the manuscript adds creative-writer-outline-built: YYYY-MM-DD, after which the grid reads it no more and the rows come from the chapter notes. Edit freely; delete it and the plan is gone, the built notes stay.
A comment, <!-- … --> or %% … %%, on one line or several, is never prose anywhere in the plugin: not a word counted, not a sentence read, not a heading if a heading is inside it.
Template note
A note carrying creative-writer-template: 1 in the templates folder (Settings → Stories and goals) is a grid template: ## headings under # Columns are columns, the rest is the outline's grammar, and plot-time, plot-pov, plot-theme and plot-beats name the columns that get a job when it is applied; with plot-beats, the template's beat: tags fill that column with one stop per scene. writing-name gives it a display name. Written by Save as template…; edit freely.
Story threads note
Story threads.md in the project folder is yours: the threads you draw by hand. The plugin creates it on the first Add to a thread with
---
creative-writer: false
creative-writer-threads: 1
---and adds one ## heading per thread and one - [[Note#Heading]] — note line per scene. A heading may carry a kind as its prefix, ## Arc: [[Anna]], ## Theme: … or ## Subplot: …; without one it is a free thread (plot grid). A line may start with plant:, touch:, payoff: or reversal: and, under an arc, want:, lie:, turn: or truth:, and carry one "quoted sentence" as its anchor (directed threads). The plot grid writes the same lines from its cells. Edit it freely, or write it from scratch without the front matter — a note named Story threads is never read as a chapter either way.
Writer
The writer board reads tags, not keys, to know which notes are on it: tags: [writer/theme, writer/quote] (or inline #writer/theme). A note may carry several. On a project note it reads, all optional:
| Key | Values | Effect |
|---|---|---|
writing-stage | development, drafting, revising, finished, shelved | Where the story is on the board. Without it, drafting is inferred once prose exists and finished once the target is met. |
writing-premise | one sentence | The story question on the story card. |
writing-idea | "[[Idea note]]" | The premise card the story grew from. Written by promotion. |
writing-voice | "[[Voice note]]" | The narrator persona the story adopts. |
On an idea note (a writer/premise card): writer-story: "[[Project note]]", written by promotion. On a writer/reading card: reading: to-read, reading or read. The board view and these keys arrive in the releases after the protocol; nothing else in the plugin reads them.