Reordering and Organizing Chapters
Stories rarely arrive in their final order. A chapter that was meant to be sixth turns out to belong third. The Chapter Outline lets you nudge chapters into place one step at a time using the right-click menu.
Note: Reordering chapters cannot be undone with Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on Mac). If you move a chapter to the wrong spot, you'll need to move it back manually using the same Move Earlier / Move Later commands.
Move Earlier and Move Later
Right-click (or Ctrl+click on Mac) any chapter and you'll see two options near the top of the menu:
- Move Earlier: shifts the chapter up by one position in the outline.
- Move Later: shifts the chapter down by one position.
These options are grayed out when the chapter is already at the top or bottom of the list. There's nowhere further to go. Numbered chapters renumber automatically after each move.
Dragging Instead
Stepping a chapter one slot at a time gets tedious when it needs to travel a long way. Switch the Chapters page over to The Corkboard and you can pick a chapter up and drop it wherever you want in one motion. The same renumbering rules apply, and the same warning above about Ctrl+Z still holds; but you can press Escape mid-drag to call the move off before you let go.
Inserting at a Specific Position
Sometimes you don't want to move an existing chapter: you want to slot a new one into a specific place. Right-click any chapter and choose:
- Insert Chapter Before: opens the New Chapter window aimed at the slot just before the chapter you clicked.
- Insert Chapter After: opens it aimed at the slot just after.
The full creation flow (including titles, subtitles, and the Numbered chapter setting) lives in Creating Chapters and Scenes.
How Auto-Renumbering Works
Numbered chapters keep themselves in order without you having to think about it. Whenever a chapter is moved, inserted, or deleted, every numbered chapter renumbers from the top of the book down. If you slip a new chapter between Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, the old Chapter 5 becomes Chapter 6, the old Chapter 6 becomes Chapter 7, and so on through the rest of the book.
Chapters that aren't numbered (a Prologue, an Epilogue, an Interlude) sit out of the count entirely. They keep their position in the outline but don't claim a number, so the chapters around them don't have to shuffle when one is added or removed. The Numbered chapter setting is covered in Creating Chapters and Scenes and Editing Chapter and Scene Details.
Tip: If you reference chapter numbers in your scene summaries or notes, those references won't auto-update when chapters renumber. After a big rearrangement, it's worth a quick scan to make sure nothing's pointing at the wrong chapter.