Your Story's
External Brain
Every writer builds one. We just have different names for it. ChapterWise is the tool that turns your creative chaos into an organized, living knowledge system.
What Writers Call It
Writers are all talking about the same thing: the external brain for a project. People just have different names for it.
Neil Gaiman
"The compost heap" / "compost heap of ideas"
Screenwriters & TV Writers
"Series bible" or "story bible"
Novelists & Worldbuilders
"Story bible," "world bible," "worldbuilding bible," "character bible"
J.R.R. Tolkien
His "legendarium" - all the notes and myths for Middle-earth
In Your Ecosystem
Codex - Your structured YAML/Markdown worldfile for ChapterWise
Different labels, same function: a single place where all the "stuff behind the story" lives.
The Four-Phase Process
Every writer's creative process follows this pattern, whether consciously or not:
Intake / Compost
Everything you read, see, overhear, dream, or sketch gets thrown into one pile: notebooks, loose files, Obsidian vaults, Scrivener notes, random docs.
You're not organizing yet. You're just shoveling material onto the heap so it can rot down and cross-pollinate (Gaiman's metaphor).
Sorting / Naming
At some point, you start pulling things out of the heap and naming them: Characters, factions, gods, tech, magic, planets, cities. Cultural rules, metaphysics, timelines.
This is where "story bible / worldbuilding bible / legendarium" becomes a real document instead of just vibes.
Structuring / Systematizing
You break the chaos into explicit buckets: Characters (bios, arcs, relationships), Places (maps, histories, factions), Time (chronology, ages, events), Theme/myth (symbols, prophecy, cosmology).
This is the architect side of the process. Gardener-style writers discovery-write, but backfill this structure as the draft grows.
Maintenance / Continuity
As you draft books 1, 2, 3, you keep updating this external brain: Fix contradictions. Track character growth and wounds. Remember what you already promised in book 1 so you don't break it in book 4.
This is why TV writers and novelists lean so hard on story bibles: they're continuity armor.
Where ChapterWise Fits
ChapterWise is basically a machine that turns your draft + your subconscious compost into an explicit Codex (your story bible) and keeps it consistent for large, complex projects.
1. Intake → Turn messy drafts into structured material
You throw existing work at it: PDF, Word / Scrivener, Final Draft (.fdx)
ChapterWise:
- Detects chapters / scenes
- Normalizes everything into Markdown + Codex (.codex.yaml / .codex.json)
- Gives every chapter, character, etc., stable IDs so they're addressable objects
It vacuums up your "notes, drafts, and compost" and gets them into one consistent format you can build on.
2. Structuring → Automatically builds the bones of your story bible
Using the analysis modules, ChapterWise pulls out the pieces you would normally have to hand-build in a world bible:
- Summary / meta-summary: Per-chapter summaries + rolling meta-summaries for arcs
- Characters: Who appears where, how often, archetype analysis (Jungian roles)
- Tags / world data: Locations, concepts, themes extracted into tag clouds
- Structure: Story beats, three-act / Freytag mapping, Hero's Journey stages
- Deep lore: Alchemical process mapping, dream-analysis style symbolism
That output IS your first-pass story bible: characters list, place list, theme list, structural map, alchemical/archetypal skeleton, all auto-generated.
3. Codex → Make that bible durable, recursive, and tool-friendly
The Codex format is positioned as:
- Human-readable YAML/Markdown
- Perfectly recursive spec: characters, plots, chapters as modular objects
- AI-parseable metadata for deeper future analysis
- Plain-text, Git-friendly, no lock-in
Your legendarium / story bible stops being a random collection of docs. It becomes a real data model with files like:
Work Your Way with AI
ChapterWise is a writing pipeline designed to handle the intake of ideas, structuring, sorting, organizing, sequencing, and building out details—so you can focus on writing the prose, not on the slavery of organization.
Use Cursor AI, Your Way
Make use of the best AI models built into Cursor AI to work on your own terms. Edit your Codex files with the most powerful AI coding assistant available.
Your IDE, your AI subscription, your workflow. ChapterWise just provides the open standard.
Free to Use
You don't need to pay anything to ChapterWise to use the service. Write, organize, and version control your entire manuscript for free.
Only pay for AI-powered analysis if you choose to use that optional feature.
The Writing Pipeline
Intake Ideas
Sort & Structure
Organize
Sequence
Write Prose
Focus on the writing. Let ChapterWise handle the structure.
Your Data, Your Terms
Your Data Lives on Git and Your Hard Drive
Most writing platforms lock your work in their cloud, their app, or their file format. ChapterWise is fundamentally different:
It's a living file system you can copy to a drive and keep for good
Git-native version control means every change is tracked, diffable, and reversible
Plain text files that will work with any editor, today and 50 years from now
Local-first - works on your machine, syncs when you want it to
This Isn't Just a Feature—It's a Philosophy
Where some platforms treat your work as their data. ChapterWise treats it as yours. If we disappeared tomorrow, you'd still have every word, every version, every commit. Your story bible doesn't live in the clouds—it lives on your hard drive, in a format you control.
Your data, your terms. That's what makes ChapterWise different.
Compile Your Book Like Code
ChapterWise is an open-source system for writers to implement. It's an open standard with human-readable, standard data formats and powerful editing tools that let you compile your book like code.
Open Standard
Anyone can implement it
Human Readable
YAML/Markdown format
Powerful Tools
IDE-level editing
The Complete Package
Open Source Standard
The Codex format is an open-source standard. Build your own tools, integrate into your existing workflow, or implement it directly into your own applications.
No Lock-In
Your files are plain YAML and Markdown. Open them in any text editor. Parse them with any language. They're yours, forever.
VS Code Extension
Write in the IDE you already know. Syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and analysis tools right in your editor.
Version Everything
Track every revision. Branch alternative plotlines. Diff changes to see exactly how your story evolves over time.
The Short Version
The "compost heap," "story bible," "world bible," "legendarium," and "Codex" are all names for the same thing: your story's external brain. It's the place where all your background notes, timelines, characters, cosmology, and themes live so the actual novel/series can stay coherent.
ChapterWise ingests your existing manuscript, analyzes it, and turns it into a structured Codex: an auto-generated, ever-evolving story bible you can actually work with instead of a pile of disconnected notes.
Ready to Build Your External Brain?
Start organizing your story's universe with ChapterWise. Your data, your way, forever.