Chapters

A Chapter is a small group of writers who keep each other going. Each one starts with room for 20 writers, so it stays a room you recognize, not a crowd, and the owner can raise that when they set the Chapter up. The point is shared accountability: an optional word goal, scheduled sprints, and a feed where you can see each other show up.

The dashboard itself is about showing up, not chatting. When the group wants to talk, that happens in the Chapter’s own chat and forum, covered below.

Finding a Chapter

Browse open Chapters at /chapters. Filter by interest, by whether a Chapter has open spots, or by whether a sprint is running right now. Sort by recently active, newest, or most members.

The directory is Chapters you could actually join, so it leaves two things out. Chapters you are already in do not appear, because you have nowhere to go from there. Neither do invite-only Chapters: a private room is not a listing. You can still find one through an invite, a link, or a member’s profile.

• An open Chapter lets you join right away.
• An invite only Chapter is reached by invitation, or by asking, when its owner has opted in to receiving requests.

When you ask to join an invite-only Chapter you can say something about your writing. That note is optional.

An invite-only Chapter can still be visible without being listed. Its settings decide whether members may show it on their profile, so a writer can say what groups they belong to without putting the group in a public directory. Turn it off and the Chapter is not shown anywhere outside itself.

Starting a Chapter

Creating a Chapter is free, like joining one. Every plan can start and run a Chapter.

Use Start a Chapter to make your own. Give it a name, an optional description, and decide who can join. You can set a shared word goal with a deadline, set how many writers the Chapter holds (up to 20), and add a few interests so writers can find it.

There is a November challenge template built in: it fills in a 50,000 word goal, a November 30 deadline, and the right tag in one tap. Nothing special happens behind the scenes; it is just a starting point you can edit.

Inviting writers

Beyond letting people find you in the directory, an owner or moderator can bring writers in directly:

• Invite by username. Send a single-use invite straight to a writer. They get a notification and can accept from it.
• Share an invite link. Create a link that anyone can use to join, up to the Chapter’s member limit. Hand it out wherever your group already talks.

Either way, an invite stops working once the Chapter is full, and a link invite stays good for a couple of weeks. You can revoke a pending invite at any time.

Showing up together

Inside a Chapter you get a few views:

• Overview is the dashboard. It leads with the group’s momentum (the shared word goal, the day’s streak, or the critique count, depending on how the Chapter is set up), then announcements, then a feed of what members have been doing: finished exercises, published pieces, kept streaks, earned trophies, and posted announcements. It never shows anyone’s drafts or private work, only deliberate moments from the last 30 days.
• Members lists who is in, with their progress.
• Sprints lists upcoming and recent writing sprints. Owners and moderators schedule them, everyone gets a heads-up about ten minutes before one starts, and any member can join, on any plan. You write in your own piece; the room shares the countdown, the leaderboard, and a chat for cheering each other on.
• Shared work holds work members have shared into the Chapter. A piece can be public and also shared here, or shared with the Chapter only, in which case just the members can read it. See Publishing your work.
• Stats appears when the Chapter tracks words, and charts the group’s totals over time.
• Trophies is the Chapter’s own case. These are collective milestones the group earned together, separate from the trophies on your personal profile.
• Polls, Competitions, and Reading list are covered in their own sections below.

Depending on how it is set up, a Chapter may also have a Critique swap board or a Revision checklist. See Chapter critique.

Everything from Polls down is members only. A Chapter’s contests, its poll results, and what it is reading are the group’s business, and none of it shows to someone who is not in the room.

Polls

An owner or moderator can put a question to the Chapter: which prompt to run next, what to read, when to sprint. Add the options, decide whether members may pick more than one, and optionally set a closing time. A leader can also close a poll early.

Every member can vote, and the running tally is visible while the poll is open. One vote per option per person, so a double tap never counts twice. Creating a poll notifies the Chapter, which is why it is a leader’s action rather than anyone’s.

The Chapter’s own competitions

A Chapter can run competitions just for its members. An owner or moderator sets the prompt, the word range, and the dates, and the Chapter votes on the entries the same way the platform’s competitions work. See Competitions for how entering and judging go.

Two things are different from a platform competition, and both are worth knowing before you run one:

• A Chapter competition is private. It never appears on /competitions, and the Chapter’s Competitions tab is the only place it exists.
• XP has conditions, and the form tells you them up front. At least three different writers have to enter before a Chapter competition awards any XP, and each writer can earn XP from one Chapter competition per calendar month across every Chapter they are in. Run more than that and they are still real competitions with real results, they just stop paying XP. The rules exist so a private room cannot mint leaderboard points.

A Chapter can attach its own prize, something the Chapter itself provides, like a zine or a print. It cannot award months of Inkbreaker Pro. That prize comes out of Inkbreaker’s own subscription revenue, so it belongs to competitions Inkbreaker runs.

Reading together

A Chapter can keep a shared reading list, which turns it into a book club without leaving the room. Turn it on in the Chapter’s settings and a Reading list tab appears.

A list is filled one of two ways:

• Curated. A leader writes out what the group is reading.
• Nominated. Members put titles forward, then the Chapter votes, and the winners become the list. A nomination round moves through collecting, then voting, then reading, so it is always clear whether you can still add a title or should be casting a vote. The vote itself is a Chapter poll.

Books on the list can come from the Inkbreaker Library or from anywhere else. Your own progress through a book is yours; the list only says what the group is reading. See Reading and the Library.

Announcements live on the Overview: a one-directional channel where the owner and moderators post notes and everyone can react. A new announcement also lands in every member’s home Following feed, so it reaches the whole Chapter without anyone going looking. And when a brand-new Chapter opens its doors, a card announces it in the site-wide Latest feed so writers can find it and join.

Every Chapter also has a member Chapter Chat and its own members-only forum. The chat is for quick back-and-forth; the forum is for longer threads. See Messages and Forum.

Collections the whole Chapter can add to

A Chapter can keep collections: an anthology, a themed set, a shared issue, anything the group wants to build a piece at a time. They appear on the Shared work tab, listed as collections rather than as a pile of loose pieces, because a collection is something you add to rather than something the Chapter has been handed.

Anyone in the Chapter can start one. Open the Shared work tab, choose Start a collection, and give it a name. If an owner would rather keep that to the people running the room, there is a switch in the Chapter’s settings: Only admins can start collections. It is off to begin with, so members can start one unless you say otherwise.

Once a collection exists, everyone in the Chapter can add their own pieces to it. You do not need an invitation and nobody has to approve you.

A few things that stay true, because they are the ones people ask about:

• The person who started it owns it. A Chapter never owns a collection. If they leave the Chapter, the collection goes with them, and nothing of yours goes with it.
• Your piece stays yours. Adding to a collection never hands anyone else the ability to edit your writing.
• You can open one of your existing collections to a Chapter too. In the collection’s own settings, turn on Let anyone add to this collection, then choose Just one of my chapters and pick it. You can only choose a Chapter you are actually in.
• Choosing “Anyone on Inkbreaker” is a bigger room than it sounds. It means every signed-in writer, not only people you know. See Series and collections.

The shared word goal

A word goal is optional, and it works with any kind of Chapter. A daily check-in group, a critique circle, or a revision room can each carry a shared goal alongside its own rhythm. Owners and moderators set or change it (and its deadline) in the Chapter’s settings.

You log your words right from the Chapter’s Overview: type a number and add it. Reporting is additive, so logging 500 adds 500 to both your running total and the group’s shared meter. No one ever sees your writing, only the number you choose to report.

When a goal is finished and you want a new one, use Start a new goal in settings. It sets the new target and starts a fresh cycle, so the new meter begins at zero instead of arriving half full. Your check-in streak, your lifetime word count, the day by day chart and the Chapter’s trophies all carry straight over. Starting a new goal never throws away history.

Roles

• The owner created the Chapter and has the final say. They can archive or delete it, and they decide who is a moderator.
• A moderator helps run things: posting announcements, approving join requests, and scheduling sprints.
• A member takes part: joining sprints, reporting progress, and reacting.

Handing a Chapter on

An owner can pass the Chapter to someone else. From the Members tab, choose Make owner on a member and confirm. They become the owner, and you stay on as an admin. The Chapter keeps running without a gap.

When an owner goes quiet

A Chapter should outlast any one person drifting away. If an owner has not been active in their Chapter for 30 days, the rest of the group can vote a new owner in so the room keeps going:

• The Chapter’s admins vote. If it has no admins, every other member votes.
• When a candidate reaches a majority of those who can vote, they become the owner.
• If the original owner comes back and gets active again within the 30 days, the clock resets and any pending votes clear.

This only ever moves a Chapter forward. It cannot be used to push out an owner who is showing up.

Leaving, archiving, and starting over

You can leave a Chapter at any time from its page, and you can ask to rejoin later.

An owner has three ways to wind a Chapter down or start it fresh, and they are deliberately different sizes:

• Archive it. The Chapter stays visible to its members, but no one new can join and no new content can be posted. Nothing is lost, and you can reopen it later.
• Clear its data. The Chapter and everyone in it stay exactly as they are. What goes is everything the group built up while it was running: announcements, polls, sprints and the recurring sprint schedule, the activity feed, goal progress, and the day by day word ledger. What stays is everyone’s own pieces, the member list, check-in streaks and lifetime word counts, every trophy the Chapter has won, the forum, and your critique swaps. This is the one to reach for when the same group wants a clean slate for a new season. It cannot be undone, so you are asked to type the Chapter’s address to confirm.
• Delete it. This removes the Chapter for everyone, the forum, the member list and the trophies included.

Clearing and deleting never touch anyone’s writing. Your pieces belong to you and live in your own library, whatever happens to a Chapter you were in.

Chapters are free end to end. Creating one, joining, sprints, word wars, the chat, polls, the Chapter’s own competitions, the shared reading list, the shared word goal, and the Chapter’s collections all work on every plan.