Comments and Annotations: Leaving Notes in Your Draft

Sometimes you need to leave a note rather than change the text: a reminder to check a fact, a question about a character's motivation, a flag that a paragraph needs work. Storynote's comments let you attach notes to specific passages without altering your prose. They are also how you and a collaborator talk about the work in place.

Adding a comment

Select the passage you want to annotate and add a comment to it. The comment attaches to that exact text, so your note stays anchored to the words it is about even as the surrounding draft changes. The prose itself is untouched, so commenting never risks your actual writing.

Comments are ideal for the thoughts that would otherwise clutter your draft: "verify this date," "does she really know this yet," "tighten this," "great line, keep." Capturing them in place means you do not lose them and you do not have to interrupt your flow to act on them now.

Working through comments

Treat comments as a to do list layered over your draft. During a revision pass, move through them one at a time. Resolve the ones you have handled and act on the rest. This keeps a long editing session organized and makes sure nothing you flagged slips through.

Comments in collaboration

In a shared story, comments become a conversation. You can leave a note on a collaborator's passage and they can respond, all anchored to the exact text in question. It is a far clearer way to give feedback than describing a location in a separate message. For how shared stories work, see co-writing in real time.

For the rest of the writing surface, see editor basics.