How to Write a Story on DreamGen

This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to write AI-powered stories on DreamGen—from choosing or creating a scenario to using the writing interface effectively. Whether you're writing your first story or looking to master advanced features, you'll find what you need here.

What is a Story Scenario?

Story scenario, sometimes also called the story bible or (story) world, represents the context for your story. It is used by the AI to generate the story in a way that matches your vision. Here are the common scenario elements:

  • Plot — What happens in your story, from a brief premise to detailed outlines.
  • Setting — The world, time period, and atmosphere where your story unfolds.
  • Style — How the story is written: perspective, tone, pacing, and language choices.
  • Characters — The people (or creatures) in your story, with their personalities, motivations, and voices.
  • Locations — Specific places important to your narrative.
  • Objects — Important items with special properties or significance.
  • Opening — The initial scene that kicks off your story and demonstrates your writing style.
  • Examples — Sample interactions that stay in the AI's memory to maintain consistency.

If this looks like a lot, don't worry! Most of these elements are optional and even simple scenarios can be very effective.

For example, a scenario might describe a detective investigating corporate conspiracy in cyberpunk Neo-Tokyo 2099, define the detective protagonist and other key characters, set the style as neo-noir inspired by Raymond Chandler and open with a rain-soaked crime scene.

Learn how to make effective scenarios in our guide on scenarios.

Pick a Scenario

Before you start writing, you need a scenario. Here are your options, from simplest to most involved:

Use an Existing Scenario

Best for: Getting started quickly or finding something that matches your vision.

Browse our public story scenarios to find one that interests you. Checkout also role-play scenarios, which can work great too (you'll just need to switch to Story Mode during setup).

Click "Write" or "Play" on any scenario to start using it immediately.

Use the Scenario Wizard

Best for: Creating something new with guided AI assistance.

The scenario wizard walks you through creating a scenario step-by-step. It can help you brainstorm ideas and generate characters, settings, and plot outlines.

Checkout the scenario wizard guide for more details.

Customize an Existing Scenario

Best for: When you find a scenario that's almost perfect but needs tweaks.

  1. Open the (...) dropdown menu on the scenario
  2. Select "Clone"
  3. Edit your copy to match your needs

The cloned scenario is yours to edit in any way you like. Checkout the scenario editor guide to learn how.

Create from Scratch

Best for: Complete control over every detail.

Use the scenario editor to build a new scenario from the ground up. While this takes more time upfront, it gives you total creative control.

Story Setup

Before you start writing, you'll go through a quick setup process. For most story scenarios, this is simple and straightforward.

The Basic Setup

For most story scenarios, just click the "Write" button on the scenario page / card. This will open the session setup screen where you can click "Start Writing" to enter the writing interface.

Choosing Your Protagonist

Some scenarios will ask you to define the protagonist of your story. You can:

  • Pick from a list of "protagonist personas" that the scenario author created
  • Use one of your own "persona templates"
  • Create a new protagonist from scratch (or edit an existing one)

Choosing an Opening

Some scenarios offer multiple opening scenes to choose from. Pick the one that interests you most—it will set the starting point for your story.

Using Role-Play Scenarios for Story Writing

If you're using a role-play scenario to write a story, you'll need to switch to "Story Mode" at the top of the setup screen. Most role-play scenarios will also require you to define your protagonist.

Once you've completed setup, click "Start Writing" to enter the writing interface.

Writing a Story

Once you have setup your story, you're ready to start writing. The writing interface is designed to be simple and intuitive. Your story appears as text blocks written by you and the AI, with optional instruction blocks where you can guide the AI's next output.

The Basics

The writing interface consists of text blocks and instruction blocks. Text blocks contain the actual story content—both what you write and what the AI generates. Instruction blocks let you direct the AI (more on those below).

To generate the next part of your story, click the "Continue" button in the bottom right corner. The AI will generate the next section, taking into account the scenario and the story so far (including any instructions you've added).

To edit any text, simply click into any text block and start typing. You can edit both your own writing and AI-generated text. This is your story—shape it however you like.

If you want to adjust what the AI generated, you have several options:

  • Edit manually: Click into the text block and modify it directly—this is your story, so feel free to rewrite or tweak anything
  • Rewind: Click the "Rewind" button next to "Continue" to regenerate the text with different results
  • Undo: Click the "Undo" button to remove the last generation entirely
  • Use the Writing Assistant: Ask the Writing Assistant to rewrite or improve specific parts

Your story auto-saves as you write, so you don't need to worry about losing your progress. You can find all your stories in Your Stories.

Instructions

While writing, you can give the AI additional instructions beyond the scenario. Think of instructions as your director's notes—they let you control how the story develops. Whether you want to guide the plot, adjust pacing, control character actions, or change the narrative style, instructions make it easy.

Simply click the "+ Instruction" button in the bottom left corner. This will insert a new instruction block at the end of the story. Type your instructions there and then hit "Continue" to generate the next part of the story.

Here are some example instructions:

Control what happens next:

The next scene is a flashback to Julie's childhood. Show how she first discovered her ability to read minds.

Samantha reaches for the mysterious box on the shelf. She opens it and finds...

The next scene is a dream sequence. Make it surreal and disorienting.

Control pacing and length:

Write the next scene. Make it 200 words long. Ethan uses Google to find some cryptozoologists. He goes over several candidates and decides to call one of them.

In the next 100 words, describe the bustling city market where our heroes first meet.

Control character behavior and reactions:

Harry tries to kiss Sally, but she pulls away. Show how Harry reacts.

In the next paragraph, describe Anna's internal conflict as she decides whether to trust Mark.

Scenario Editor

Each story "session" gets its own copy of the scenario that you're free to edit while writing. This can be useful to update the plot outline, character descriptions, or other elements as the story progresses.

On desktop, you'll find the editor in the sidebar, while on mobile you can access it by clicking the "Book" icon in the top toolbar.

For example, if a character undergoes a major transformation, you might update their description to reflect their new state. Or if the plot takes an unexpected turn, you can modify the plot outline to keep the AI aligned with the new direction.

Settings

You can tweak the model and interface settings to better suit your needs.

On desktop, you'll find the settings in the sidebar, while on mobile you can access them by clicking the "Sliders" icon in the top toolbar.

Model Settings

Here you can select the model you want to use and tweak its parameters. When in doubt, use the defaults.

Model selection matters. Different models have different capabilities, context window sizes, and credit costs. Our Lucid Base model is affordable option suitable for simpler stories, while Lucid Max is smarter and more creative model.

You can read the model settings guide to learn more about the different model parameters like temperature.

Interface Settings

Here you can tweak the appearance of the writing interface, including the font, background, and scroll behavior.

Font settings let you choose the font family (serif, sans-serif, comic sans, dyslexic) and size (small, medium, large).

Background settings allow you to pick a background image for the writing area. You can choose from a selection of built-in images, or use one of the images from the scenario. You can upload more images at the bottom of the scenario editor.

Use the "blur" and "brightness" sliders to improve the readability of the text.

Auto-scroll controls whether the writing area should automatically scroll to the end of the story when new text is being generated.

Example Interfaces

Writing Assistant

The writing assistant is a tool that can help you with your story. You can use it to brainstorm the plot of the next scene, come up with new characters, get help with rewriting or editing, and more.

On desktop, you can find the writing assistant in the sidebar, while on mobile you can access it by clicking the "Sparkles" icon in the top toolbar.

The Writing Assistant is a chat-like interface. The Assistant can see the whole story scenario and the most recent part of the story.

Here are some example prompts you can try with the Writing Assistant:

  • "What should happen next?"
  • "Suggest a new character given the story so far."
  • "Rewrite the last paragraph. Add more detail about <X>."
  • "Is the pacing of this scene too fast?"
  • "Help me brainstorm three possible endings."

Clearing the chat can be useful when asking a completely new question, or when the story has moved on from the past conversation. You'll also need to clear the chat when the conversation with the Writing Assistant gets too long, as it can run into the model context window limit.

Example Assistant Interactions

Common Errors

Insufficient Credits

You'll see this pop-up if you don't have enough credits to generate the next part of the story. You have a few options:

  • Subscribe or upgrade your subscription: Subscriptions give you more recurring credits, and Advanced and Pro users get to use some or all models without using credits at all (i.e. unlimited).
  • Purchase extra credits: If you're already subscribed, you can buy extra credits to top up your balance.
  • Switch to a model that uses fewer or no credits: Some models use fewer or even no credits at all (depending on your subscription plan). You can switch to one of those models in the model settings.
  • Wait until your credits reset: Every user, including free users, gets monthly and daily recurring credits. If you run out, you can wait until they reset.

Scenario Definition Is Too Long

This error means that the scenario definition (plot, settings, style, characters, etc.) is too long for the model to handle.

AI models operate on what we call "tokens"—units of text, usually a word or part of a word. Different models have different "context windows," which determine how many tokens they can see at once. The "context window" needs to fit the whole scenario definition and the story generated so far (though we automatically truncate the oldest parts of the story if needed).

You can see how many tokens your scenario definition has in the scenario editor:

You can see the context window size of each model in the model picker:

Here are our recommended scenario token limits based on the model context window:

  • 4000 token context window: Keep it under 2000 tokens
  • 8000 token context window: Keep it under 5000 tokens
  • 15000 or more: Keep it under 8000 tokens

Here's what you can do when you run into this error:

  • Make the scenario shorter: We commonly see people including too much detail in a scenario—detail that could be easily filled in by the model. Try to keep the scenario concise, focusing on the elements that you care about most.
  • Switch to a model with a larger context window: Depending on your subscription, you might have access to models with larger context windows. Check the model picker and switch to one of those models.

Something Went Wrong

This is a generic error message that can happen for a variety of reasons, such as when the model is overloaded or temporarily down.

When this happens, try switching to a different model, or wait a bit and try again. If the problem persists, join our Discord and ask in the #help or #general channels.

Tips and Power User Features

Adjust Your Workspace on Desktop

Make your writing area bigger. You can adjust the size of the right sidebar by dragging the handle in the middle. Double-click it to close it completely. You can also completely hide the left sidebar (menu) by clicking the "collapse" icon in the top left.

Save Different Versions of Your Story

Found an interesting fork in the narrative? Go to Your Stories, click the "..." menu next to the session, and select Clone. This creates a copy where you can explore an alternate direction without losing your original.

Export Your Finished Story

When you're done, go to Your Stories, click "..." and select Export.

Choose Markdown for a readable format you can share or publish, or JSON if you want to back up your session and re-import it later.

Next Steps

Now that you know how to write stories on DreamGen, you might want to: