In a long manuscript, "which chapters still need work" is a question you end up asking constantly during revision. Status turns that from a mental tally into something you can actually see and filter.
What You'll Need
- A rough sense of the revision stages that matter to your process. Deckle's five starting statuses (To Do, In Progress, First Draft, Revised, Final) work as-is for most people, but you can rename them to match your own workflow.
Step-by-Step
- Decide on your stages before you start assigning them. If Deckle's defaults don't match how you actually revise, say, you want "Beta Read" or "Line Edit" as distinct stages, rename or add statuses in the Metadata Manager first, so you're not renaming mid-pass.
- Give each status a distinct, meaningful color. All five starting statuses share the same neutral color out of the box. Recoloring them (say, red for "To Do," green for "Final") makes the Binder's status dots useful as an at-a-glance progress map down the whole tree.
- Set each chapter or scene's status as you finish a pass over it, from the Inspector's Status dropdown, updating it in the moment, right after you finish revising a chapter, rather than trying to reconstruct progress later.
- Use the Outliner's status filter to find what's left. Filter down to "First Draft" to see exactly what still needs your next revision pass, without scrolling past chapters you've already finished.
- Sort the Outliner's List view by the Status column for a full-manuscript overview, useful right before a revision sprint, to plan which chapters to tackle in what order.
Common Mistakes
- Letting status go stale. A status field is only useful if it's updated as you actually finish work. If you only set it once at the start, it stops reflecting reality within a few writing sessions.
- Using Status for something Label already covers better. If you're tracking something that isn't a linear progression, like POV character or subplot, Label fits that better, since it's a separate, independent field you can use alongside Status rather than in place of it.
- Expecting the starting statuses to be color-coded for you. They're not. All five ship the same neutral color, and choosing which color means "further along" is left entirely to you.
FAQ
Can I reorder my custom statuses, like putting "Beta Read" between "Revised" and "Final"?
Statuses are managed as a list you create and color yourself, so you'd set this up by choosing names that sort the way you want, or simply keeping track of your own stage order as you assign them. There's no drag-to-reorder step required to filter or sort by status either way.
If I delete a status, do I lose track of which chapters had it?
The Metadata Manager warns you how many documents use a status before you delete it, and deleting just clears that status from those documents rather than deleting the documents themselves, so it's safe, but that tracking is gone once confirmed.
Should I use Status or Label for tracking POV character?
Label. It's the more natural fit for a non-progression attribute like POV. Save Status for anything that represents a stage or phase, like revision progress.