Glossary

Arc: A single plotline, tracked on its own curve in the Shape Workspace, between two named Poles.

Beat: A span of time in your story. See Beat Cards.

Card: Anything that sits on the board: a Beat, a Character, a Setting, or a Structure Card.

Character: Someone in your story, cast into Beats and mapped in the Constellation. See Characters.

Charge: Where a Beat sits between its Arc’s two Poles. Its emotional position, dragged into place.

Chip: A Character or Setting’s small draggable representation, dropped onto a Beat to cast it.

Constellation: The Shape Workspace’s map of your cast and how they relate to one another.

Dual Dialogue: Two speeches printed side by side, for characters talking over each other. See Formatting & Elements.

License Key: The key from your purchase that activates Throughline on a device, once, over the internet. See License Keys.

Pole: One of two ends of an Arc’s emotional range. You name both yourself, e.g. “hope” and “despair”.

Setting: A location in your story. See Settings.

Spark: A quick-capture idea in the project inbox, not yet promoted into a card. See Sparks Inbox.

Stack: Beats piled onto another Beat or a Structure Card. Beat Cards and Setting Cards can both form stacks in the Draft Workspace.

Structure Card: A card from a Structure Deck, placed on the Throughline to organize Beat Cards..

Throughline: The main row of Beats, your story’s spine, in order.

Workspace: One of Throughline’s four rooms: Draft, Shape, Write, and Deliver.

.thrl: Throughline’s own project file format. See The .thrl File Format.