Creating Characters
Build rich character profiles inside your project.
Last updated September 2026
Where Characters Live
Characters belong to a project. Each one is a Character node in the writer's left panel, sitting alongside your drafts, locations, and worldbuilding entries. Together those entries make up the project's Story Bible — the material the AI reads before it writes.
Characters belong to the project they were created in. A protagonist who appears in a second book gets their own character node in that project.
Adding a Character
Open a project, then use the left panel:
- Click + New Node at the top of the node tree.
- Choose Character.
- The new node opens in the center panel with the character editor.
- Give the character a name — everything else can wait.
The editor autosaves as you type. You'll see the save indicator in the header move from “Saving…” to “Saved” as changes land.
The Character Editor
The editor is a single scrolling page divided into sections. Nothing is required except the name, and you can work through the sections in any order.
Identity
The core facts about the character.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Name | Required. Max 50 characters. The character's primary name. |
| About | A longer description of who this character is. When the assistant pulls a character out of your prose, what it found lands here. |
| Pronouns | Optional. Helps the AI use correct pronouns in generated prose. |
| Species | Optional. Human by default, but useful for fantasy and sci-fi characters. |
| Age | Optional. Can be a number, a range, or a descriptor like “ancient.” |
| Role | Optional. Their function in the story (protagonist, mentor, antagonist, etc.). |
| Archetype | Optional. A literary archetype like “The Trickster” or “The Sage.” |
| Tagline | Optional. Max 120 characters. A one-line hook; the About field carries the fuller description. |
Identity also has a category selector — Contemporary, Fantasy, Historical, Horror, Literary, Mystery, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller, or Other. The category feeds the portrait generator so the artwork matches the character's genre.
Appearance
A free-form description of what the character looks like, up to 1,500 characters. Hair, eyes, build, clothing, distinguishing features. This text does double duty: the AI uses it when describing the character in prose, and the portrait generator uses it to decide what to draw.
Personality
- Personality (max 1,000 chars) — temperament, quirks, and how they treat other people.
- Motivations (max 500 chars) — what drives them? What do they want more than anything?
- Strengths & Skills (max 800 chars) — abilities, competences, and positive traits.
- Weaknesses (max 500 chars) — flaws, fears, and blind spots.
Voice & Dialogue
Three controls shape how the character sounds:
- Voice & Speech (max 500 chars) — verbal tics, speech patterns, catchphrases, accent cues, and mannerisms. For example: “Speaks in clipped, military sentences. Never uses contractions. Calls everyone by their last name.”
- Vocabulary — Simple, Moderate, Sophisticated, or Archaic. This affects the word choices the AI makes when writing dialogue for this character.
- Example Dialogue — actual lines the character might say, up to 200 characters each. A couple of representative lines are often worth more than a paragraph of description.
Relationships
Link this character to the other characters in the project. For each connection, pick a character (or type a name that isn't a node yet), describe the relationship type — brother, rival, mentor — and add a short detail the AI should know: the history, the dynamic, what's at stake between them.
Backstory
- Backstory (max 8,000 chars) — the full history that shaped who they are today.
- Author Notes (max 1,000 chars) — notes to yourself about the character.
Portrait
The portrait tile sits at the top of the editor. Click it to generate AI portraits in our Genesis Painted house style or in Cinematic, Painterly, Illustration, Anime or Comic — or to upload your own image.
Each generated portrait uses one AI image from your plan's monthly allowance (Free includes one a month). Uploading your own image is always free. The character needs a name before you can generate.
Story Bible Tags
Every character node has a tag control in the node tree. Tags are the activation keywords the Story Bible watches for — when one appears in the draft you're writing, the AI pulls that character's profile into context automatically. Add nicknames, titles, and aliases here so the character is recognized even when their full name isn't on the page.
The same control is where you set whether the entry is always included, never included, or matched automatically, and where you edit the short summary the AI sees. See Context Building & Story Bible for how matching works.
Letting the Assistant Help
You don't have to build every character by hand. Ask the writing assistant for a character and it will propose one as a card you can review and accept — the accepted card becomes a Character node with its fields filled in. It can also read a chapter you've already written and pull out the characters it finds there.
Anything the assistant creates is an ordinary character node. Open it and edit any field.
Next Steps
- Character Profiles & Biography — learn how character data feeds into AI generation.
- Character Portraits — explore the portrait styles.
- Context Building & Story Bible — understand how character context flows into AI prose generation.
- Project Structure & Nodes — see how character nodes fit into the rest of your project.