For Authors

Everything platform-specific about writing and publishing on Reast. For the Rea language itself, see the Cheatsheet or the full specification; for how to structure and package a story file, see Story Design.

How to Write

Stories are written in Rea — a simple markup language designed for interactive narratives. If you can write a text message, you can write a Rea story. There are no programming concepts to learn upfront — just start typing.

Try it live Open the Editor and write alongside this guide. The live preview updates as you type, so you see exactly what readers experience. :::

A valid story is just text. No special syntax required:

Once upon a time, in a land far away,
a young traveler set out on a journey.

The road stretched endlessly before them.

Add structure with headings (#) and choices (*) to make it interactive:

# Chapter One

You stand at a crossroads.

* [Go left]
  The path winds into a dark forest.
* [Go right]
  A bright meadow stretches ahead.

- The wind whispers behind you.

For the full set of Rea syntax — variables, conditionals, dialogue, cards, media — see the Cheatsheet.

The built-in editor

The platform ships a browser-based editor with a live preview: write Rea on one side, see exactly what readers will experience on the other. It handles metadata (title, cover, tags, genre), media uploads, and packages the result as a .reast file for you — you never assemble the archive by hand. Prefer a plain text editor instead? See Story Design for authoring a story outside the platform editor and uploading the finished package.

Publishing and visibility

A story you're writing is only visible to you until you choose otherwise. Each story has a visibility setting:

• private — visible only to you. The default while a story is a work in progress.
• unlisted — reachable by anyone with the direct link, but not shown in the catalog or search. Useful for sharing a draft with beta readers.
• public — listed in the catalog and discoverable by other readers.

Pricing is independent of visibility: a published story can be free, premium (behind a platform subscription), or a one-time paid purchase — see the Glossary for the exact terms.

Your author page

Publishing a story adds it to your author page — a customisable profile showcasing your published works to readers, with basic analytics on how readers engage with each story.

Author pages, and writing under more than one name

An author page is an identity: a public face with its own name, address, picture and description. Your account holds up to three author pages. If you need more, ask the moderators and say why.

Reast will not connect one of your author pages to another. Nothing on a page names your other pages, your stories carry only the page they were published under, and your member page — the identity you use for quests, groups and reviews — never lists an author page at all. Which page a story goes out under is chosen when you publish it, and writing a story commits you to nothing: a draft has no page attached until you pick one.

Two things Reast cannot separate for you: the same picture on two pages, and the same biography pasted twice. Both are visible to anyone who looks, and both are yours to avoid.

If you publish as a company, your legal details are filled in once for the account, not per page. An author page may show that it belongs to a company and the trading name you chose; the registration number, country and website are never shown on it.

Writing a blog

A blogger page is another identity — the one your blog posts are signed with, meant to be a public name you can promote. It works the same way as an author page and is separate from every other identity you hold. It is not a privilege or a rank; it is simply a different kind of page.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
Ctrl+B	Bold text
Ctrl+I	Italic text
Ctrl+S	Save story
Ctrl+M	Toggle metadata panel

FAQ

Can readers tell that two author pages are mine?

Not from anything Reast publishes. What can give it away is what you do yourself: reusing the same picture, the same biography, or the same links. Moderation, payouts and lawful requests do connect your identities internally — see the privacy policy.

Can I write stories in my own language?

Absolutely. The Rea language is text-based and works with any script or language.

How do GPS and sensor features work?

You can embed location triggers and sensor conditions in your story. When a reader's device meets those conditions (e.g., arriving at a specific GPS coordinate), the story reacts. See the language spec's Real-World Interactions section.

What file format do stories use?

Stories are written in .rea files — plain text with the Rea markup language. The platform packages a story (plus media and metadata) as a .reast archive when you publish; see the engine's package format reference for exactly what's inside one.