Stories and bundles

Everything in DunneWrite lives inside a story. A story holds your characters, places, props, events, chapters and notes, and keeps its own separate file on disk. Most people only ever need one.

Before your first story#

Until a story exists, the left-hand menu shows only Dashboard and Settings. The other pages have nothing to show yet, so they are not offered. The Dashboard shows Welcome to DunneWrite and two ways to begin:

• Create your first story starts from nothing.
• Import a bundle… opens a story someone has already built and sent you.

Under both buttons, a short Getting started list shows where you've got to. It ticks itself off as you go and disappears once you've been round the loop once. Nothing in it is a setting.

Two names: display name and book title#

When you create a story you are asked for:

• a Display name, which is what the app calls the story in the picker, and
• a Book title, the name of the work itself.

They are independent and either can be changed at any time with Rename beside the title on the Dashboard. The book title matters slightly more than it looks: when an AI reads your notes, it uses the title to judge what is relevant to this story.

Switching between stories#

The story's name at the top of the Dashboard is a picker. Click it to see every story on this computer, switch to another one, start a new one with + New Series, or import a bundle.

Bundles: a whole story in one file#

A bundle is a single file ending in .dunnebundle. It holds a whole story: everything in the Writer's Room, every save in each record's History, the pictures and the manuscripts, and the notes about where every fact came from.

A bundle does not carry anyone's AI key. Opening one is free, needs no key, and everything in it works. Only reading new material into it would need a key of your own.

Importing a bundle#

Importing never changes a story you already have. If a story with the same name is already there, the new one is filed under a slightly different name, and the preview tells you which.

Exporting a bundle#

There are two places to export from, and both write the same kind of file:

• The story picker. Click the story name, then the ⤓ button on that story's row. It works on the story you are currently looking at; you don't have to switch away first.
• Settings ▸ Take it with you. Press Export this series… to export the open story, or Import a series… to bring one in.

The file can be emailed, uploaded or copied to a memory stick, and imported on this computer or another. It arrives as a new story.

A bundle does not carry where your manuscripts were stored on disk. To hand your notes to another writer or another tool as readable text rather than as a DunneWrite story, use Export the notes… in the Writer's Room instead. See The chapter brief loop.

Opening an older story in a newer version#

The first time a newer version of DunneWrite opens a story made by an older one, it updates the shape of that story's file. This happens once and is one-way. Back up your data folder before upgrading; see Installing on Windows.

Related#

• Tutorial: Your first story
• Tutorial: Open a shared story