Getting started
What Manuscript is
Good writing comes from trying things. You try a different word. You rewrite a paragraph, or move a section to see if the argument reads better. Manuscript is a text editor built for that.
In most editors each attempt is a pasted copy and a note to yourself about which one you meant. In Manuscript you write the attempts in place.
Takes
Select a word, a sentence or a paragraph and add a take. A take is another way of writing the same passage. Write as many as you like.
One take reads in the draft at a time. That is the live take. The others wait in the same place until you choose one.
Morning
The frost came overnight, without ceremonyin the night, quiet as a debt being collected. By morning the beds were silveredstiff and shininggone grey, and the last of the tomatoes had surrendered on the vine.
Mara walked the rows with her coffee going cold, counting what the cold had takenspared — less than she fearedmore than she hoped, if she was honest. The kale, of course, looked delighted.
She went in for her gloves.
She stood a while longer, breath and coffee steaming together.
The garden could wait; the frost could not.
Reading them
Step through the takes in place, stack them beside the text, or read the whole piece twice, side by side, with a different take in each copy.
History
Every step you take is kept, with checkpoints along the way. Go back to any checkpoint and carry on from there on a new branch.
When you’re done
Copy the manuscript as Markdown, as it reads now, and paste it wherever it goes next.
Writing is rewriting.