Collaboration
Writing with other people — who can touch what, what happens when two of you are in at once, and how their version stays separate from yours.
Inviting someone #
Share opens from the top-right of the Write tab. Invite by email and they join whether or not they already have a Charc account; people who do see the invitation in their own project list.
The panel also shows your team against the plan's limits. On the free plan that is one coauthor, two editors and five alpha readers.
The three roles: coauthor, editor, alpha reader #
Coauthor — edits your manuscript directly, with full write access to scenes, acts and structure. A writing partner.
Editor — gets their own private copy to revise. Nothing they do lands in your draft until you adopt it. By default they cannot restructure acts or scenes unless you grant structural permissions.
Alpha reader — reads only. They can leave scene notes and overall feedback in the Feedback panel, and cannot change anything.
Writing at the same time #
You can see who else is in the project and which scene they are in, each in their own color — set yours per project in the share panel.
Whoever starts typing in a scene claims it — a scene lock. Everyone else sees that scene faded and read-only rather than the two of you overwriting each other, and the words appear as they are typed. The lock releases on its own after a minute of inactivity, so nobody is shut out by a forgotten tab.
Comments #
Highlight any passage and leave a note in the margin. Comments appear for collaborators immediately, work on an editor's separate copy as well as the main manuscript, and each person controls their own.
Their copy beside yours #
An editor's copy appears in the Drafting sidebar next to your working draft. Open it to read their version, compare it against yours line by line, and adopt it when it is the one you want.
If a collaborator leaves, their copy is kept for 30 days — re-inviting them picks up where it stopped.
Sharing a scene without an account #
Right-click a scene and choose Share scene to get a read-only link. Anyone with it can read that scene in a browser — no Charc account, no sign-in.
The link is a snapshot of the scene as it is now, not a live view, and you choose how long it lasts: seven days, thirty, ninety, or until you revoke it. Images can be included or left out.
The changes feed #
The clock icon in the top-right opens a feed of what has been edited and by whom, split between manuscript and structural changes. A badge shows unread ones.
It needs a signed-in, synced project, so it earns its place once someone else is in the book with you.