AI Edit-in-Place
How to use the floating toolbar to rewrite, polish, compress, or fix any passage without leaving the canvas.
AI Edit-in-Place is WritersRoom's inline revision tool. Select any passage in the Writing Canvas and a floating toolbar appears with targeted AI edits — no need to copy text into the cockpit or describe what you want changed. The AI reads the surrounding scene, your project memory, and your VitaeMe voice persona before it proposes a change, so every rewrite sounds like you.
All edits are non-destructive: the original text is preserved in a version snapshot, and you can reject, accept, or request another pass at any point.
Available AI Edit actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Rewrite in Project Voice | Re-renders the selection in your established tone, register, and vocabulary — the most context-aware edit available |
| Dialogue Pass | Sharpens dialogue for character voice distinctiveness, subtext, overlap, and rhythm |
| Compress | Tightens the passage, cutting flab while keeping meaning, beats, and emotional truth |
| Expand | Develops the moment with more texture, action, interiority, or visual detail |
| Fix Continuity | Reconciles the selection with established facts in your project memory — catches anachronisms, logic breaks, and character inconsistencies |
| Make More Cinematic | Pushes toward visual, screen-forward writing — stronger verbs, spatial clarity, active description |
| Custom Prompt | Apply any instruction you type to the selected text — the most flexible option for specific requests |
The edit workflow
Select and trigger
Highlight any passage in the Writing Canvas. The floating toolbar appears automatically above or below your selection. Choose an action, or type a Custom Prompt for anything not listed.
Review the proposal panel
A panel opens showing the AI's diagnosis of the selection, the proposed replacement text, a plain-language summary of what changed, any continuity risks it spotted relative to project memory, and a confidence level. Read all four before deciding.
Accept or reject
Accept to replace the selection in place — a version snapshot is saved automatically so you can revert if needed. Reject to discard and keep your original. You can also copy the proposal to use later, save it as a canvas note, or store it in project memory.
Iterate
If the proposal is directionally right but not quite there, accept it and immediately trigger another edit on the new text. Each pass builds on the previous one, and project context is re-read each time.
Best practice: be specific with Custom Prompt
"Make this feel more desperate" is good. "Cut the adverbs, raise the stakes in the final line, keep the hesitation beat" is great. The more precise the instruction, the more targeted the result.
Version snapshots
Every accepted edit creates a version snapshot of the document at that moment. You can view and restore any snapshot from the document's history panel. This means you can experiment freely — no edit is ever permanent.
Does AI Edit-in-Place use my project memory?
Yes. AI edits use the selected passage and the limited surrounding, memory and voice context supported by that action. Uploading a file does not mean its full text is included in an edit. Fix Continuity specifically cross-references your memory objects to catch contradictions.
Can I use it on the cockpit chat?
AI Edit-in-Place is specific to the Writing Canvas. In the cockpit, you can ask the AI to rewrite or polish any text by pasting it into a message — or save the cockpit response to a canvas document first and then use the toolbar.