Everything in Charc lives inside a project.
That’s the first thing worth knowing. Before you write a word, before you choose a theme or think about export formats, you’ll create a project. A project is your container — the thing that holds your manuscript, your outline, your characters, your notes, and everything else that belongs to one piece of work. One novel, one project. One screenplay, one project. One long essay or thesis, one project.
If you’re used to apps where you just open a blank document and start typing, this might feel like an extra step. It isn’t. Giving your work a home before you start writing turns out to be a useful habit. And in Charc, it takes about ten seconds.
Creating your account
Head to charc.app and click “Start writing free.” You’ll be asked for an email and a password — no credit card, no subscription prompt, nothing to dismiss. Signing up is free and the core writing tools stay that way. Some features — publishing tools, expanded storage, certain export formats — are part of the paid tiers, and we’ll note them when they come up. But getting started costs nothing.
You can also open the app without an account. Charc will save your work locally in your browser, and you can write as long as you like. The difference is sync: without an account, your work lives only on the device you’re using. Create an account and it follows you everywhere — any browser, any machine.
Once you’re in, you’ll land on the main app at charc.app/write.
The dashboard
The left sidebar is where your projects live. Right now it’s empty, with a single button at the bottom: “+ New Project.” Click it.
A setup panel opens asking for a few things: a project title, an optional series name and subtitle, a word count target, and a template. The templates — Blank, Three-Act, and a couple of others — give your outline a starting structure. You can ignore all of this except the title. Name your project, click Create, and you’re in.
Your project now appears in the left sidebar. You can create as many projects as you need and switch between them by clicking their names. Drag to reorder them. Right-click for options — share, delete, or leave a project someone else shared with you.
Inside a project — the tab bar
Across the top of the app is a row of tabs. These are the rooms of your project:
- Projects Your home base. Word counts, phases, milestones, and the overall shape of your progress. This is the tab Charc opens to by default, and it gives you a bird’s-eye view of how the work is going.
- Manuscript The writing environment. This is where your scenes live as editable blocks of prose. It’s the tab you’ll spend most of your time in once you start drafting.
- Outline The planning layer. Build acts, chapters, and scenes as a structured tree. Each node has a title, a POV tag, and space for synopsis notes. The Outline and Manuscript are connected: scenes you create in one appear in the other.
- Characters A dedicated space for character sketches. Each character gets their own page with sections for appearance, motivation, arc, and anything else you need. You can build from the default template or make your own.
- Setting The same thing for places. Each location has its own page with as much depth as you want to give it.
- Images Upload reference photos, maps, mood boards, character inspiration. Everything in one place, attached to the project.
- Charts For structural work: tables, diagrams, and other non-prose elements.
- Timeline A chronological view of your world events, useful for keeping track of when things happen across a complex story.
- Front Matter Title page, dedication, epigraph, copyright notice. You won’t need this on day one, but it’s there for when the draft is done.
- Scrap Pile Anything you delete from your outline or manuscript doesn’t disappear. It lands here. Writers keep good lines. Charc knows this.
The sidebar on the left changes depending on which tab you’re in. In Manuscript it shows your scene list. In Characters it shows your character list. Everything is contextual and stays in sync.
The guided tour
When you create your first project, Charc offers a brief guided tour. It uses a demo project — The Great Gatsby, fully populated with characters, outline, manuscript scenes, and front matter — to walk you through the main tabs in about two minutes. It’s worth taking. You can skip it, but going through it once with a project that already has content in it gives you a clearer picture of what your own project will look like when it’s further along.
Your actual project is safe while the tour runs. It’s a separate demo, not a replacement.
Your first scene
Ready to write something? Switch to the Outline tab. At the top you’ll see a button to add a node — start with a scene. Give it a title. Now switch to the Manuscript tab. Your scene is already there, with an empty editor waiting.
Click into the editor and start typing. That’s it.
Charc saves automatically every time you make a change. There’s no save button and no need to look for one. A small sync indicator in the corner shows you when your work has been written to the cloud. As long as you have an account and an internet connection, your work is safe.
If you’re writing without an account, your work is saved to your browser’s local storage. It’s there when you come back — as long as you’re on the same device and haven’t cleared your browser data. Creating an account is the safer option, and it’s free.