Grouping Entries with Codex Categories

In the last lesson, we structured information inside each Codex entry with custom details. But as your Codex grows to dozens of characters and locations, even well-structured entries need grouping.

That’s where Codex categories come in. While an entry can only have one Type (it is either a Character or a Location), it can belong to as many categories as you like.

In this lesson, we’ll create a custom category and learn how to bundle our entries together.

Why Use Categories?

Categories help your Codex stay organized as it grows. Instead of scrolling through dozens of entries, you can collapse or expand groups based on what’s relevant to your current scene.

Author’s note

In my Cozy Mystery, I have a lot of village residents. When I’m writing a scene at the bakery, I don’t need to see the entries for the Rivers family cluttering up my sidebar. Categories let me minimize the entries until they’re needed.

If you use AI features, categories can be added to the message context, saving you from adding each entry manually. This is helpful for when you want to include the context of all of a group of entries. You might create Codex categories for:

• Family groups (“The Rivers Family”)
• Factions or organizations (“The Town Council,” “The Thieves’ Guild”)
• Location clusters (“Glenford Village,” “The Capital City”)
• Story arcs (“Murder Investigation,” “Romance Subplot”)
• Magic systems or technology (“Alchemy,” “Starship Components”)

Creating a Custom Category

Let’s create a category for the Rivers family. This group will include several characters, the family home, and some important backstory.

Adding Entries to a Category

You’ve created your category, now let’s populate it. There are two ways to add entries: Tags and Codex Details.

Method 1: Using Tags

This is the most straightforward approach. If, for example, you tag a character as “suspect,” Novelcrafter will automatically add them to a “Suspects” category set up to use that associated tag. To set this up:

Repeat this for each entry you want to include.

Remember, entries can have multiple tags, so a single character could appear in both “Rivers Family” and “Town Council” categories.

Method 2: Using Codex Details

If you’ve set up Codex Details with dropdown options (as covered in the Structuring the Codex lesson), you can use these to automatically sort entries into categories.

Say we have a Codex detail called “status”, which includes whether a person is a suspect, victim, or witness. We can set up a category for “Suspects” that automatically includes any entry with the “status” detail set to “suspect.”

Using Categories with AI

Beyond organization, Categories are useful when working with AI.

In previous lessons, we discussed Context (the information the AI “knows” when you talk to it). If you want to ask the AI a question about who might have committed the crime, you need to give it information about the suspects.

Without categories, you would have to manually select each suspect, one by one.

With categories, you can simply select Category: Suspects.

This sends all the information regarding those entries to the AI at once. If you add another relevant Codex entry later, you just tag them, and they are automatically included in your next chat.

Recap

You’ve now learned how to create custom categories, add entries using both Tags and Codex Details, and manage your categories as your story evolves.