Feature Tour #3 of 5: To-dos

In this five-part tour, we’ll give you a quick run-through of Fablehenge’s core features. Ready to learn how Fablehenge can help you finish your novel faster? Let’s go!

Using the Integrated To-do List

We designed Fablehenge’s to-do list to integrate directly with your manuscript text. When you’re writing along and think of something you need to look up or come back to later, it’s quick and easy to add a to-do. The item appears in your to-do list, and it’s linked to your cursor location in the text. This makes it easy to dash off a quick note to yourself, without interrupting your flow.

When you come back to your to-do later, you’ll see what you were writing when you thought of it, and can pick up your train of thought exactly where you left off.

To add a to-do, click the ‘Add To-do’ button in the manuscript toolbar, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-comma (Cmd-comma for Mac).

A to-do in the text

An empty red checkbox appears in the text (where your cursor is). A new to-do also appears in the to-do list in the sidebar:

A to-do in the sidebar

Enter your to-do and keep on writing. When you’re ready to come back to it, click on the to-do in the list, and the linked text will scroll back into view. It also briefly highlights in yellow, to help you find your spot again.

Incomplete to-do

Once you’ve resolved it, check it off in the list; it’s automatically checked off in the text, too.

Complete to-do

If you happen to delete the text that contained the linked checkbox, don’t worry, your to-do item won’t be deleted. It still appears in the sidebar, with a question mark inside the checkbox. (You can still check it off, as normal.)

To-do with deleted checkbox

See scenes with outstanding to-dos

To quickly get a read on how many to-dos you have left in your book, you can filter the outline to show only the scenes with outstanding to-dos.

Filter by outstanding to-dos

The outline will show just the scenes with to-dos to resolve, as indicated by the red badge next to the title. In this case, I have two scenes with two unresolved to-dos each:

Filtered outline

In Conclusion

To-dos are pretty straightforward in general, but we wanted to create an experience with less mental overhead than a standard to-do list. Our hope is that the integrated to-do list makes it easy to jot down whatever reminders you might want to send to future you, without interrupting your writing flow. And equally easy to pick up where you left off, later on when you’re in editing mode.

To try it out, head over to the app.

Finish your novel faster with Fablehenge.

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