Writing with AI — The Toolbar by node

The editor toolbar includes AI tools that work on text you've already written. Select text, choose a tool, and the AI processes your selection. ## The tools **Rewrite** Select a passage and ask the AI to rewrite it. Useful when you know a paragraph isn't working but can't see why. The rewrite preserves your meaning and changes the execution. You can accept it, reject it, or use it as a reference for your own revision. **Expand** Select a brief passage and the AI expands it — adds detail, develops the moment, fills in sensory information. Useful for scenes you've sketched but not fully written. "She walked into the room" becomes a paragraph with the room's light, temperature, and what she noticed first. **Coach** Select a passage and the AI gives you feedback on it. Not a rewrite — feedback. What's working, what's not, where the writing could be stronger. Think of it as a writing partner who reads your paragraph and tells you what they noticed. **Explain** Select a passage and the AI explains what it's doing technically. Narrative point of view, tense choices, pacing structure, rhetorical devices. Useful for understanding your own craft — sometimes you do something effective without knowing why, and the explanation helps you do it intentionally next time. ## How they differ from Exploration Mode The toolbar tools work on selected text. They modify or respond to what's already on the page. Exploration Mode (Plot or Draft) works on the whole document or a conversation. It thinks about the story at a higher level. Use toolbar tools for paragraph-level work. Use Exploration Mode for scene-level and story-level thinking. ## Tips - Don't accept every rewrite. The AI's version is different, not always better. Use it as a comparison. - Coach is the most underused tool. Getting feedback on a single paragraph takes seconds and often reveals the thing you couldn't see. - Expand works best on sparse writing. If the passage is already detailed, expansion tends to overwrite your choices. - All toolbar operations show in the AI status widget at the bottom of the screen.