The Canvas View: A Whiteboard for Your Story

Not every kind of thinking fits a tree or a list. Sometimes you need open space to lay ideas out, move them around, and see how they relate before you commit to structure. The canvas view is Storynote's free form whiteboard for exactly that.

What the canvas is for

The canvas gives you an open surface where you can arrange your story's pieces spatially. It is the place for the messy, visual, early stage thinking that a structured outline does not capture well: plotting connections by sketching them, grouping ideas by where you put them, working out a structure by literally moving things around.

Where the folder tree is for organized structure, the canvas is for exploration. Many writers use it at the start of a project or a new arc, when the shape is still forming.

Working on the canvas

Place elements on the canvas and arrange them however your thinking demands. Cluster related ideas, line up a sequence, or spread everything out to see the whole field at once. The spatial layout itself becomes meaningful: closeness implies connection, position implies order.

Because it is open ended, there is no wrong way to use the canvas. Use it the way you would use a wall of index cards or a whiteboard covered in arrows.

Canvas as one view among many

Like the other views, the canvas is a way of working with your story rather than a separate document. When your free form planning firms up into real structure, carry it into your cards and folders, then switch to the dashboard, graph, timeline, or map as your needs change.