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This is the path for a book that doesn’t exist yet: no draft, no outline, just a blank page and Quarkle thinking alongside you as it fills.

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Overview

A new, empty Quarkle manuscript with an Untitled title

A fresh manuscript. Name it, then start writing where it says 'Let your ideas flow.'

The shape of it: start blank, brainstorm before you commit words, lean on Chat and the Highlight Bar for lines that need a second pass, and jot notes for beats you haven’t written yet.

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Start with a blank page

1

Open the Studio and click new manuscript

A blank editor opens straight away. See Create & open a manuscript.
2

Name it

Click the title field at the top (it starts as “Untitled”).
3

Just start writing

Autosave means there’s nothing to remember to save. Write your first lines like you would in any editor.

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Brainstorm before you commit

Staring at a blank page is the hardest part. Before you write a scene, talk it through. Open the Chat tab and ask something like “help me brainstorm how Elias and Mara first met” or “what’s the central tension in this opening?”. Quarkle reads what you’ve written so far and thinks with you, not for you.
A Quarkle Chat exchange with a tool trail showing Notes and Search

A chat answer drawn from the manuscript so far.

Early on, there’s little manuscript for Chat to search, so be specific in what you tell it. As you write more, it has more of your actual pages to ground answers in.

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Get inline suggestions as you write

Turn on Suggestions in the Chat Toolkit (click Toolkit or type @), then ask for a change directly: “add a sentence here describing the smell of the room” or “tighten this paragraph”. Quarkle marks the proposed edit inline as a diff, right where it would land. Nothing changes in your manuscript until you accept it.
A chat-proposed sentence shown as an inline diff addition in the manuscript, with a diff view card offering accept and reject

A suggested addition, shown inline as a diff, with accept and reject in the chat card.

Click the checkmark to accept, the cross to reject.

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Keep the draft moving with Ghostwriter

When you know the next beat but do not want to draft it through Chat, use Ghostwriter. Type a direction such as Bring Mira to the door or leave the steering field empty, then press the pink quill. Quarkle continues from the chapter’s final line and streams the new prose onto the page.
Ghostwriter prose streaming in pink at the end of a chapter

Ghostwriter writes forward in a distinct tint while you stay in control.

You can stop at any moment and keep what has arrived. For a more deliberate scene, plan the beats in Chat, save them to your Atlas, and point Ghostwriter to that scene document.

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Rework a single line without leaving the page

For quick, local rewrites, you don’t need Chat at all. Highlight any passage and the Highlight Bar appears with one-click actions: Expand, Embellish, Concise, Restructure. Pick one, preview the diff, accept or reject.
The Highlight Bar over a highlighted sentence

Select a passage and the Highlight Bar appears with one-click rewrites.

A preview card showing a rewrite as an inline diff with accept, reject, retry, and copy controls

A rewrite previewed as a diff before you accept it.

Full walkthrough: The Highlight Bar.

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Leave yourself notes for what’s coming

Know Chapter 4 needs a confrontation but you’re not there yet? Open the Story Atlas, add a Chapter Note, and write your working instructions: the beat to hit, a character’s mindset, a tone reminder.
A Chapter Notes entry with working instructions for a character's mindset and tone in a chapter

A Chapter Note: working instructions for one chapter, cleared once they land in the prose.

Chat reads that chapter’s notes automatically once you’re working in it, so by the time you get there, Quarkle already knows the plan. See Mastering the Story Atlas for the full picture of what goes where.

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Keep moving forward

Add chapters as you go from the Chapters panel in the left rail, no need to plan the whole structure up front. See Chapters.
Want to spitball a wild alternate direction without it becoming canon? Turn on Memory Lock in the Toolkit first. See Memory.

Next: Reviewing a Manuscript

Bring Chat, the Review Room, and Reports together to work through a draft.