Short answer: Episodes are your story's chapters. Every project has at least one, and each episode is an ordered group of scenes - in Forge it appears as a bracket over its scenes in the bar under the Stage. You create, rename, reorder, and delete episodes right in that bar, move scenes between them by dragging, and control who can read each one (free, paid, or members) from its access panel. When a reader reaches the end of an episode, a card appears that continues into the next episode, offers it if it's locked, or ends the story - and you can tune that moment per episode.
The episode bar
Under the Stage, every scene in your project appears as a card in the scene strip, and each episode draws as a bracket spanning its scenes. Readers play episodes in the order they appear, left to right. The episode where new readers begin is marked with a START badge; use Set as start in an episode's menu to make readers begin at that episode's first scene.
Creating an episode
Every gap between two episodes (including before the first one) has a + control. Click it to create a new episode in that spot - it comes seeded with one scene so you can start writing immediately. To split a large episode in two, create an empty episode next to it and drag the boundary between them to hand over scenes.
Renaming, reordering, and deleting
Each bracket has a menu with the episode's controls:
- Rename the episode.
- Set as start - new readers begin here.
- Move left / Move right to reorder episodes.
- Delete - the episode's scenes are never deleted; they fold into the neighboring episode. The last remaining episode can't be deleted.
- Access - the same panel the $ opens (see below).
On narrow brackets these controls collapse into a small toolbar that appears on hover.
Moving scenes between episodes
Two ways:
- Drag the grip on the boundary between two brackets to shift where one episode ends and the next begins.
- Drag a scene card - by the grip rail along its left edge - across a bracket boundary to drop it into a different episode.
Access: free, paid, or members
The $ on a bracket opens that episode's access panel, where you choose whether the episode is free, paid, or for members only, and can optionally schedule a public release date. The bracket tints to match, so you can read your paywall structure at a glance: amber for paid, violet for members, and a faint neutral tone for free. Pricing rules and recommendations live in the monetization articles linked below.
What readers see at an episode's end
When a reader finishes an episode's last scene, a card appears. What it shows depends on what comes next:
- Continue into the next episode when it's free or already unlocked.
- An offer for the next episode when it's paid and not yet unlocked.
- A membership prompt when the next episode is members-only.
- A countdown when the next episode has a future release date.
- A story-end card when there's no next episode, with room for a closing note.
You can tune this per episode in the access panel's "At the episode's end" group: let the continue card advance automatically after a short cancelable countdown, rest on the final frame with no card at all (good for kinetic endings), or add a short closing note that prints on the card.