How to use this site

A short guide to the field guide

This is a working tool, not a book. You bring one real story, write in it, and leave with something you can tell out loud. Here is the whole of it in eight steps.

1

Start a story

Everything you write is attached to one story. Open the story library and add a new one, giving it a name you will recognise later, the moment, the session, or the person it is about.

The bar across the top always shows which story you are working on. Switch stories there at any time; nothing you have written is lost.

Open the story library
2

Pick your starting point

If you already know what you need, the start page lists common situations, a story that falls flat, a session tomorrow, a point with no story yet, and sends you to the right tab.

If you are starting from scratch, work the tabs in order: Find, Intent, Map, Shape, Test, Facilitate, Perform, Save.

Go to the start page
3

Work the tab, not the whole guide

Each tab holds short guidance and a handful of field tools, real writing space, choices to tick, prompts to answer. Write badly and quickly; you can tidy later.

Your answers save on this device as you type. There is no save button and no account.

A progress bar at the top of each tab shows how much of it you have filled in.

4

Clear the field check before moving on

Every tab ends with a field check: a short list of things that should be true before the next tab is worth your time. Tick what is done; the check tells you how many are left and links you forward.

5

Score the story in Test

The Test tab scores your story on five parts, connection, change, relevance, entertainment and performance, from 0 to 3 each. The running total out of 15 appears above Story rescue, with a recommendation for what to do next.

6

Keep the reference tools close

The Reference group in the side menu holds the short, reusable pieces: field practice, the makeover lab, the quick toolkit, fast decisions, before you tell it, and the one-page summary. Use them mid-session when you have no time to read a whole tab.

Browse the reference
7

Print the paper workbook

Print the whole guide blank, with ruled writing space, to work on paper, or tick “Print with my answers” to print your current story filled in. “Print / save as PDF” gives you either as a file.

Print the workbook
8

Work offline and keep your stories safe

Once the site has loaded, it keeps working with no signal. Add it to your home screen or desktop and it opens like an app.

Because your writing lives on this device only, export your stories as a file from the story library to back them up or move them to another device, then import that file there.

Export or import stories

If you only have ten minutes

  1. Start a story and name it.
  2. Write the moment down in Find, however roughly.
  3. Say in one line what you want it to do, in Intent.
  4. Score it in Test and fix the lowest number.