Chapters & structure
In a word processor, a chapter is just a heading. In Galley, each chapter is separate, so you can rename, reorder and group chapters, and mark how finished each one is.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.
He waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
* * *
“Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
Chapter stages
Draft → Revised → Final
Every chapter carries its stage, so the sidebar tells you where the book actually is at a glance.
The sidebar
The sidebar on the left lists everything in the book in reading order. It has three sections, which appear when you need them:
- Front matter
- Title page, copyright, dedication, and the like. Collapsible.
- Chapters
- Your parts and chapters. Drag them to reorder.
- Back matter
- About the author, acknowledgements, glossary, references. Collapsible.
Each chapter row shows its title, its word count, and its stage chip. Hover over a row to see its controls: a drag handle, a pencil to rename (or just click the title), and a menu for the rest.
Adding and arranging chapters
At the bottom of the sidebar:
- Add a chapter with Add chapter . It's added after your last chapter, named "Chapter N", and you can rename it.
- Reorder by dragging the handle. The chapter numbers update.
- Rename by clicking the title or the pencil.
- Delete from the menu. It goes to the bin, so you can get it back (see below).
When you export, each chapter starts on a new page with the title a third of the way down, like in a printed novel. In the print PDF, chapter one, every part and the chapter after a part open on a right-hand page, with a blank page before them if they need one. You choose how the chapter openings look in Book design.
Prologues, epilogues and interludes
Use Add prologue or epilogue at the bottom of the sidebar. They don't get a chapter number. A prologue keeps the word "Prologue" wherever a chapter title would print, including in the contents, and your first chapter stays Chapter One. An interlude works the same way, anywhere in the book.
They count as part of the manuscript, so the consistency sweep, overused words, the pacing map and your word count include them. If you put an epilogue in the back matter instead, it isn't in the table of contents or any of the checks.
Delivery readiness tells you if the prologue isn't first or the epilogue isn't last, but it doesn't stop you exporting.
Parts
If your book is divided into larger sections, add a Part to group the chapters under it. Drag chapters into a part to add them to it, and collapse the part in the sidebar to hide its chapters while you work on something else. Parts get their own pages when the book prints and appear in the table of contents. Chapter numbers carry on through parts, so Part Two doesn't start again at Chapter One.
Synopses: a one-line reminder per chapter
You can add one line to any chapter as a note about what happens in it ("Elizabeth reads Darcy's letter"). It's only for you and doesn't appear in the book. It lets you see what happens in each chapter without opening them all. Add or edit it from the chapter's menu.
Point of view
Under the synopsis of the chapter you have open, pick whose eyes the chapter is told through. It's one character or none, so a chapter that moves between heads can stay blank, or name the one who leads. Loose threads uses it to show how many chapters each narrator gets and how long they go without one.
Stages: how finished a chapter is
Every chapter has a stage. Click it to move it to the next one as you work:
DraftRevisedFinal
Your dashboard uses these to show a progress bar for the whole book, so you can see how close it is to finished. When every chapter is Final, the book is ready to export.
Front & back matter
Every book has a few pages that aren't part of the story: the title and copyright pages at the front, the "about the author" and acknowledgements at the back. Galley calls these front and back matter. You manage them under Metadata → Front & back matter. You can add or remove them at any time, and Galley puts each one where it usually goes in a book. Some of them are filled in automatically:
- The table of contents is made from your chapters and parts, and in the print PDF it lists the page each one starts on.
- The copyright page can be filled in with standard wording from the book's details. See Publishing.
- The glossary and references pages are made from the terms you mark as you write. See the story bible.
The bin
When you delete a chapter, it goes to the bin at the bottom of the sidebar and stays there for 30 days, so it's easy to undo a mistake. You can restore it with Restore during that time, and after 30 days it's deleted permanently. A deleted book goes to the bin at the bottom of the dashboard and stays there, with no 30-day limit, until you restore it or choose Delete forever.