Import & Merge

Import helps you turn existing writing and project material into a working Wonderthrough project faster. It’s best when you already have scenes, notes, or a manuscript draft and want Wonderthrough to build structure around them instead of starting from a blank page.

What import is good for

bringing an existing draft into Wonderthrough
turning source material into scenes and worldbuilding entries
adding more material to a project you already started
giving the World Agent and other AI tools real project context earlier

Import is an accelerator, not a magic cleanup pass. It can save a lot of setup time, but you should still expect to review the results and make edits afterward.

What you can import

Wonderthrough supports text-first import paths such as Markdown, plain text, and .docx, plus Scrivener import where that surface is available. The exact options vary a little by platform, but the main idea is the same: bring in the source material you already have, then let Wonderthrough turn it into project structure.

If you’re deciding between import and copy-paste, import is usually the better choice when you want Wonderthrough to preserve headings, scene boundaries, hierarchy, or source-linked context.

Fresh import vs merge into an existing project

There are two common ways to use import:

Fresh import — best when you’re bringing a draft or source set into a new project for the first time.
Import into an existing project — best when the project already exists in Wonderthrough and you want to add more material or continue migrating into it.

If you’re not sure which one to choose, use a fresh import when the imported material is the center of the project. Use merge when the Wonderthrough project already has structure you want to keep.

What Wonderthrough creates automatically

Import can create or enrich several kinds of project structure for you:

scenes and manuscript structure
books or folders where the source implies hierarchy
worldbuilding entities pulled from the material
source-linked notes and follow-up opportunities

The goal is to give you a usable project quickly, not to make every editorial decision for you.

What happens to my Scrivener Research folder and metadata?

Scrivener projects usually carry more than a manuscript — Research folders, character and setting sketches, clippings, PDFs, and per-scene metadata like a “POV Character” field. Wonderthrough imports the manuscript first, then walks you through the rest instead of guessing:

You sort your folders. After the manuscript comes in, Wonderthrough shows every folder it found and its best guess: Story Bible (this is worldbuilding — turn it into entities), Reference (keep it as background material), or Don’t import. You can change any of these before anything is created.
Story Bible folders become entity suggestions. Each document surfaces as a suggested character, place, or other entity. You confirm, decline, or re-type each one — nothing is created without your say-so. Confirmed entities keep their source text attached so their details can fill in from it.
Reference folders become sources. Their documents land in your book’s Sources panel, labeled as background for the AI — visible and searchable, but never turned into entities behind your back.
Research files come along too. PDFs and images in your Research folder are imported as file sources (up to 10 MB each). Anything that couldn’t be brought in is listed on the Import Summary rather than silently skipped.
Your scene metadata becomes scene connections. If your scenes carry fields like “POV Character” or keywords naming your characters and places, Wonderthrough connects the entities you confirmed to those scenes automatically. Only clear matches connect — if a name could mean two different entities, Wonderthrough leaves it for you rather than guessing.

Canceling the sorting step is safe: your manuscript stays imported, and you can re-import later to set up entities.

What “merge” means

Merge is Wonderthrough’s attempt to connect newly imported material with entities and structure that already exist in the project. In simple cases, that means matching obvious duplicates. In messier cases, it means giving you candidates to review rather than guessing too aggressively.

Merge works best when names are consistent and the existing project structure is already fairly clean. If your project has many near-duplicates or inconsistent naming, expect to do a little cleanup after importing.

What still needs manual review after import

After import, the most useful first pass is usually:

scan for duplicate or split entities
check whether scene boundaries landed where you expect
review major characters, places, and important source material
look at any follow-up prompts or opportunities the app surfaces

This is normal. Import is meant to get you most of the way there, not to remove your judgment from the process.

Common import issues

What happens if I import with a name I already use?

Wonderthrough asks instead of guessing: you’ll see the existing project’s details and can import as a new copy (the new project gets a numbered name like “Wintermoor (2)”), replace the existing project after an extra confirmation, or cancel. Replacing is permanent, so the prompt always shows you exactly which project you’re replacing — and if several projects share the name, you pick the specific one first. Your project is always named what you typed; the document’s own title becomes the book title inside it.

Why did I get duplicate characters or places?

Usually because the source material referred to the same thing in more than one way, or because the existing project already had a version Wonderthrough couldn’t safely auto-merge. Review the candidates and merge or delete what you don’t need.

Why are my scene boundaries imperfect?

Imports are only as clean as the structure in the source. If headings, separators, or scene breaks are inconsistent, Wonderthrough may create boundaries you want to adjust manually.

Why does imported material feel incomplete?

Some details are easier for the app to infer than others. Import is strongest when the source has clear structure and repeated signals. Thin notes or loosely formatted material usually need more human cleanup afterward.

Why is a character already listed on my scenes?

If your Scrivener scenes carried metadata naming that character (like a “POV Character” field or a keyword), the import connected them for you. The connection is real but conservative — see the next question.

Why doesn’t an imported character show up in generated scene images?

Characters connected during import are marked as referenced in the scene, not confirmed as physically present — a metadata field says the scene is about them, but not whether they’re on stage. Image generation only draws characters who are actually present, so imported characters won’t appear in scene art until either you adjust their presence in the scene’s details, or you run scene analysis, which reads the prose and upgrades characters it finds genuinely present. This is deliberate: guessing wrong would put characters in art for scenes they never appear in.

Re-import vs manual cleanup

Re-import is usually worth it when:

you imported the wrong source or the wrong version
the original source got significantly cleaner
you are still early enough that starting fresh is cheaper than tidying

Manual cleanup is usually better when:

the project is already mostly correct
the remaining work is about judgment, naming, or organization
you don’t want to risk introducing a second round of duplicate structures

For project export and restore formats, see Export & Backup.
For privacy implications of full-project archives, see Privacy & Data.