---
title: Books
category: Books
tags: books, series, structure, chapters, scenes
contextKey: books.overview
micro: Organise a project into novels, novellas or planned instalments.
quickTitle: What are Books?
quickSummary: Books sit inside a project or series, helping you separate major story structure while keeping continuity connected.
screenshot:
---

# Overview

Books are the major containers inside a PlotDirector project. A project may be a single novel, but it can also be a series, trilogy, collection of novellas, or long-running world with several planned instalments. Books give that larger structure somewhere practical to live.

Each book contains chapters, and each chapter contains scenes. This hierarchy keeps the writing plan readable while still allowing story details to connect across the whole project. A clue introduced in book one, a relationship shift in book two, or an asset that returns in book three can remain part of the same continuity system.

For single-book projects, the book layer still matters. It gives you a clear place to review chapter order, summaries and book-level direction without drowning in every scene at once.

# When Should I Use This?

Use books whenever you need a major story container. That might be the only novel in the project, the first instalment of a series, a prequel novella, or a later volume you are planning ahead of time.

Series writers can use books to keep long-range continuity visible. If a character disappears for one volume, a family secret waits for a later reveal, or an object changes meaning across instalments, keeping books inside one project helps the story world remain coherent.

# How To Use It

Start with a book title, book number and short description. The description should explain the book's function in the project: the central mystery, emotional promise, main conflict, or turning point in the wider series.

Add chapters in narrative order. As the structure changes, use the book page to review whether chapters still flow naturally. If a chapter belongs in another book or a book has grown too large, the chapter and scene structure will make that visible.

Use the Timeline from a book when you want to focus on one instalment rather than the whole project.

# Example

A project called "The Blue House" might contain:

- Book 1: The Locked Nursery
- Book 2: The Missing Sister
- Book 3: The House Beneath the Hill

Each book has its own chapter structure, but the same characters, assets, relationships and unresolved threads can continue across the project.

# Writer Tip

Give each book a promise. Even in a series, every instalment should offer the reader a satisfying movement: a question answered, a relationship changed, a threat defeated, or a new truth revealed.

# Common Mistakes

- Treating a series project as separate unrelated files and losing continuity between books.
- Using book descriptions as marketing blurbs instead of structural planning notes.
- Letting book boundaries hide unresolved plot threads that still need payoff.
- Planning later books without recording which earlier scenes set them up.

# Related Guides

- [Chapters](/Help/Article/chapters.overview)
- [Scenes](/Help/Article/scenes.overview)
- [Plot Lines](/Help/Article/timeline.plotLines)
