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✍️ Writing Stories

A story is the main unit of Swift Axis: a title, a hook and a body that readers move through, usually as one step on a path. This page will guide you through the "Stories" list, the editor, the story settings panel, alt text and AI-generated writers.

The Stories list​

"Stories" lists everything you have written, newest first. The buttons across the top filter by "All", "Drafts", "Scheduled" and "Published", each with a count. You can also narrow the list with the "All topics" menu or by typing into "Filter by title…".

A button labelled "Needs a home" appears when published or scheduled stories are not in any topic. Those stories have no public page and are on no map, so the button helps you find and fix them. See Publishing and rebuilds.

Starting a story​

Press "New story" in the navigation, or "Write a story" on an empty list. The editor opens with a title area reading "Story title".

  • Title: up to 300 characters.
  • Hook: one line that makes someone want to read the story. If you leave it empty, it is taken from the start of the story.
  • Body: the writing area, which shows 'Start writing… type "/" for commands'.

Type "/" in the body to open a menu of blocks, and select text to see formatting options. Under the writing area a bar shows your word count, reading time and characters used out of 100,000.

Saving​

Press "Save", or "Create story" the first time, or press Ctrl+S. The bar at the top says "Unsaved changes" or "All changes saved". If you close the page with unsaved work, the Studio asks first, and it keeps a local backup in your browser while you type. There is no automatic save to the server, so save before you leave. "Discard" throws away unsaved changes.

"Focus" hides everything except the writing area, and Esc brings the panels back. "Hide story settings" collapses the right-hand panel.

The story settings panel​

The right-hand panel holds the story's settings:

  • Publishing: choose "Draft", "Scheduled" or "Published". See Publishing and rebuilds.
  • Covers date: the day the story reports on. The site shows it instead of the publish date.
  • Where this story sits: the story's place in its topic, including "Step 2 of 6" for the main path.
  • What comes next: the choices at the end of the story. See Topics, threads and series.
  • Writing as: the writer persona for the byline, or "No byline". Personas marked "AI" are AI-generated.
  • Tags: toggle the tags that apply.
  • Image: the featured image, its "Alt text", and "Feature on the home page".
  • Card preview: how the story card will look on the site.
  • Link and teaser: the "Web address" (made from the title) and the "Teaser" shown on "coming soon" cards.

Alt text​

When you add an image to the body, a caption field appears under it. That field is the image's alt text, and it is labelled "Alt text" with the hint "Alt text: describe the image for readers who cannot see it". Describe what the image shows, rather than saying it is a photo. The featured image has its own "Alt text" field in the panel, up to 1,000 characters. This ensures people using screen readers get the picture.

AI-generated stories​

Stories bylined by an AI writer persona carry an "AI-generated" label on the public site, and readers can hide them. The persona is set by an owner under "Writers" using the "AI-generated persona" option. See Writers and tags.

Bookmark cards​

Paste a link on a line by itself and the editor turns it into a bookmark card, with "Open link", "Refresh preview" and "Make plain link" buttons. The preview is fetched when you save, and the card says "Fetching preview…" until it arrives. If the preview still has not arrived after about a minute, the card says "Still fetching — reload the page to check". If "Refresh preview" fails (for example because the page is down for the moment), the card keeps its old preview and image. A link pasted inside a sentence stays a normal link.

Deleting a story​

Delete a story from its row in the list or from the "Publishing" section. If other stories link to it, the Studio lists the links and asks you to confirm, which unlinks it first.

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Deleting a story cannot be undone. If the story is published, it goes offline at the next site update.