The Highlight Bar

Highlight any passage in your manuscript and the Highlight Bar appears above it, with a set of one-click AI rewrites. Pick an action and Quarkle rewrites the passage, streaming the result into a preview card. Nothing changes in your text until you accept it.

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Overview

Select some text and the Highlight Bar pops up with a set of one-click rewrites and a settings gear. The flow is always the same: highlight, pick an action, preview, accept or reject. The rewrite never touches your manuscript until the moment you accept, so you can try as many versions as you like with nothing to undo.

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The actions

• Ask Quarkle sends the passage to Quarkle Chat so you can talk it through instead of rewriting it. Shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + L.
• Expand lengthens the passage using the surrounding chapter for context.
• Embellish adds descriptive, sensory detail.
• Concise tightens it.
• Restructure reorders it for better flow.

Expand, Embellish, Concise, and Restructure all run the same preview-then-accept flow below. Ask Quarkle is the odd one out: it hands the passage to chat rather than rewriting it.

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Preview, then accept

When you pick a rewrite, the result streams into a card at the bottom of the passage. When it finishes, you see the change as a diff right in your text: added words are highlighted, removed words are struck through. It is only a preview. Your saved manuscript has not changed yet. The card gives you everything you need to decide:

• diff / after / before tabs switch how the preview reads: the marked-up change, the clean rewritten version, or your untouched original.
• Accept (the check) replaces your text with the rewrite. It is a single step you can undo with Cmd/Ctrl + Z.
• Reject (the cross, or Esc) discards the rewrite and leaves your text exactly as it was.
• Retry runs the same action again for a fresh version.
• Copy copies the rewrite to your clipboard without touching the manuscript.

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Steer it like a pro

The settings gear on the Highlight Bar is where these rewrites go from handy to precise. Click it to open a small panel with three controls.

• Guide is a free-form instruction that steers the rewrite. Type something like keep it under two lines, make it colder, or stay in Mara's voice, then run the action. A dot appears on the gear whenever a guide is set, so you always know it is active.
• Context decides how much of your chapter Quarkle reads before rewriting. Above sends only what comes before your selection. Around sends the chapter on both sides, which matters when a line depends on something later in the scene.
• Context size is how much of that chapter text to send: S is a few pages around your selection, M (the default) is roughly chapter-scale, and L sends as much of the chapter as the model can take. Larger means the rewrite is more aware of the surrounding chapter, at the cost of a little speed. Your book notes and the chapter summary are always sent in full, whatever you pick here.

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What Quarkle reads as context

A rewrite is never done on the selected sentence alone. Quarkle sends the model three things so the result fits your book, not just the line:

• Your book notes. The Author’s Book Notes file (book-notes.md) from your Story Atlas, in full. Standing facts about your story live here, so this is the surest way to make a rewrite honor your canon. It is always included, whatever your context size.
• This chapter’s summary. The running summary Quarkle keeps for the chapter you are editing.
• The chapter around your selection. The current chapter’s text, as much as your Context and Context size settings allow, with your selected passage marked so the model knows exactly what to replace.