# Chat with the Dramaturg

> Ask questions of an assistant that has read your whole script, tell it what to change, point it at a scene or a character with @, and run the skills it suggests. On a Plot screenplay it can look up who speaks and where.

[Try it in Plot](https://app.inkwell.software/projects)

Jump to a section on the website

- [Retry a conversation that did not load](https://www.inkwell.software/help/ai/chat-with-the-dramaturg#section-retry-a-conversation-that-did-not-load)

The Dramaturg is the Chat tab's assistant. It has the whole script in front of it — the current draft line, as it is now — so a question like "where did we last see the locket?" gets an answer with the scene, not a guess. Tell it what to change instead and the changes arrive on your page to accept or reject.

![The Chat tab: the message box (1), and beneath it the mode selector (2) — Auto decides between answering and editing; Ask, Plan, and Agent pin the choice.](https://www.inkwell.software/help/chat-tab.light.webp)

_The Chat tab: the message box (1), and beneath it the mode selector (2) — Auto decides between answering and editing; Ask, Plan, and Agent pin the choice._

![The mode selector, open: the chip carries the active mode's glyph (1), and the menu (2) sets the four out as a rising ramp of authority — Ask answers without changing the script, Plan proposes and waits for your go-ahead, Auto decides for itself, Agent works and brings its changes back to review.](https://www.inkwell.software/help/chat-mode-menu.light.webp)

_The mode selector, open: the chip carries the active mode's glyph (1), and the menu (2) sets the four out as a rising ramp of authority — Ask answers without changing the script, Plan proposes and waits for your go-ahead, Auto decides for itself, Agent works and brings its changes back to review\._

1. **Open the Chat tab**

   In the right sidebar, choose **Chat**. Each project keeps its own conversations; start a new one or continue the last.

2. **Ask, or tell it what to change**

   Type and press `Enter`. The composer starts on **Auto**: a question — "what does act two want?", "how many scenes is Mara in?" — gets an answer here; an instruction — "tighten the dialogue in this scene" — gets changes on your page to accept or reject. On a Plot screenplay it can also look up what someone says or which scenes are at a place — those answers come from the draft, so you do not have to paste the scene in. How-do-I questions about Plot itself are answered from these help articles, with the article named. To keep it to answers, switch the selector to **Ask**; **Plan** and **Agent** are for the bigger jobs — see [Agent Mode](https://www.inkwell.software/help/ai/agent-mode).

3. **Point it at something with @**

   Type `@` to mention a scene, a character, or a save point. "Compare @Scene 12 with how it read in @table-read draft" pulls both into the conversation so the answer is about those, not the script in general.

4. **Run what it suggests**

   When the Dramaturg thinks a skill would do the job, its reply carries the skill as a card — run it from there, scoped to the scenes you were discussing. When it proposes an edit of its own, the card writes it into your script as changes to accept or reject.

5. **Follow a citation**

   Choose a passage citation to jump to it in the current draft. A save-point citation opens History; a skill-result citation opens that result. If a citation cannot be opened, its note explains why. Help and web citations open their linked pages.

You can also set how much of the script rides with a message. The context chip beside the mode selector scopes it to the current selection, the scene you are in, the act, or the whole script.

![The context chip (1) sets how much of the script rides with your message; its menu (2) offers the current selection, the scene, the act, or the full script, each with its own glyph.](https://www.inkwell.software/help/chat-scope-menu.light.webp)

_The context chip (1) sets how much of the script rides with your message; its menu (2) offers the current selection, the scene, the act, or the full script, each with its own glyph._

> **Note: What the Dramaturg reads**
>
> The current draft line and the conversation, plus whatever you mention with @. On a Plot screenplay it can look up who speaks, which scenes are at a location, and who speaks in a scene. Which model answers depends on your plan or your own key — see [Models and plans](https://www.inkwell.software/help/ai/models-and-plans).

## Retry a conversation that did not load

If the Chat tab cannot load your conversations or messages, choose **Retry** beside the warning. Keep writing in the editor while it tries again.

## What next

- [Use Agent Mode for a bigger revision](https://www.inkwell.software/help/ai/agent-mode): Hand the Dramaturg a goal that spans scenes, answer its questions when a choice is yours, and review what it changed on your page.
- [The skills library](https://www.inkwell.software/help/ai/the-skills-library): What a skill is, what each of the built-in skills does, where their results live, and how to add skills of your own.
- [What each AI feature reads](https://www.inkwell.software/help/ai/what-inkwell-sends-to-ai): The part of your script a skill, the Dramaturg, Agent Mode, inline edit, and ghost text each read, and which provider runs the model.

---

Canonical page: <https://www.inkwell.software/help/ai/chat-with-the-dramaturg>
