Help › Getting Started

Templates and Demo Projects

Start from one of 29 ready-made templates, explore complete sample projects, and save your own projects as templates.

You never have to start from a blank page. WriterMorph includes 29 project templates, plus complete sample projects you can explore.

Opening the template gallery

Choose File › New Project… (⇧⌘N) or File › New Project from Template…. The Project Templates window opens:

• Categories on the left: Getting Started, All, Blank, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Academic, Student, Scriptwriting, Miscellaneous, Sample Projects and My Templates.
• Thumbnails in the middle. Select one to read its description.
• A search field to find a template by name or description.
• Create… to make a new project from the selected template.

The Home screen also shows a few quick templates under Start Something New, with a link to Browse all templates & samples.

What a template gives you

A template is a complete, ready-to-use project:

• Folders and documents in the binder, in book order, such as acts and scenes or chapters and sections.
• Guidance in every card: what goes here, questions to answer and a checklist. Replace it with your own text.
• A synopsis on each card, so the corkboard and canvas make sense from the start.
• Word targets for academic and student sections, so progress bars work immediately.
• Story structure for fiction: every scene is tagged with a beat and a target tension, so the Plot Board, Writer Timeline and tension curve show your book's shape before you write a word.
• Reference folders such as Characters, Places, Research Notes or a Show Bible. These stay outside the manuscript and are never compiled.

The templates

Fiction

Non-Fiction

• Non-Fiction Book: front matter, introduction, seven chapters in three parts, conclusion and back matter
• Memoir: an opening, three parts and a present-day reflection, with a Memory Bank
• Book Proposal: everything an agent or editor asks for, section by section

Academic

• Research Paper (APA 7)
• Essay (MLA 9)
• Essay (Chicago): notes-bibliography style
• Thesis / Dissertation: the classic five-chapter structure
• Research Proposal
• Literature Review: with a synthesis matrix
• Lab Report

Student

• Five-Paragraph Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Book Report
• College Application Essay: a 650-word personal statement

Scriptwriting

• Screenplay: three acts, eight sequences, sixteen scenes
• Stage Play: two acts on Freytag's pyramid
• Podcast / Radio Script: a 25-minute episode with a running time per segment

Miscellaneous

• Getting Started: a ten-minute tour of WriterMorph
• Poetry Collection
• Journal / Daily Writing
• Blog / Newsletter
• Recipe Collection

Demo projects

Sample projects are finished examples you can open, explore and change freely. They show what a project looks like when every field is filled in: synopses, story dates, points of view, beats, tension, word targets and reference material. Open them from Help › Demo Projects or from the Sample Projects category in the gallery.

If you open a sample project you already have, WriterMorph asks whether to open the existing copy or replace it with a fresh copy. Replacing moves the old copy to the Trash.

Your own templates

Turn any project into a template:

1. Open the project, or right-click it on the Home screen.
2. Choose File › Save Project as Template… (or Save as Template… on the Home screen).
3. Name it. It appears under My Templates in the gallery.

The gallery's Options ▾ menu lets you set a default template, hide the Getting Started category, import and export templates, edit a template's info or contents, and delete templates you made.

Document templates

For single documents, set a Shared Templates folder in Settings › General. Any .md, .html or .txt file in that folder appears under Documents › New from Template.