Canvas
Sometimes the shape of the idea matters.
For the parts of a book that will not sit in a list: who is tied to whom, which scene answers which, where a cluster of research belongs. A quiet surface for arranging things in space.
When linear notes stop being enough
Most thinking about a novel is linear enough for a Page. Some of it is not. The relationships among a cast, the way three plot threads cross in the middle of the book, a question with four possible answers and a note under each: these have a shape, and the shape is part of what you are working out.
A Canvas is an open plane inside the project. Put the book’s own pieces on it, a Scene, a Page, an Entry, a Chapter, alongside notes and images, and draw the lines between them. The pieces are the real objects, not copies; the card for a scene shows the scene’s opening and its length.
Arrange ideas spatially
Cards go where you put them. Gather some into a Section, a quietly tinted region with a title, and move them as one. Connect two cards with a line, and give the line a word if it needs one.
There is no diagram grammar to learn. No node types, no required layout, no arrows unless you want them.
Some ideas are easier to see than to list.
Keep the Canvas part of the same project
A Canvas lives in the Workspace, beside the Pages and Collections, and the things on it stay the same things. Open the card for a scene and you are in the scene. Rename a character in their Entry and the card on the Canvas changes with it.
Arranging the Canvas never touches the manuscript. Moving a scene’s card across the plane does not move the scene in the book; it only moves the card.
Use it only when the book asks for it
Many novels never need a Canvas, and nothing in Sutura suggests you should make one. It is there for the moment a problem turns out to be spatial, and it is as easy to leave as to open.
For thinking that is linear after all, a Page is enough. Pages