git:20260930.11d07ba to git:20260930.81be44a

# ZenStory AI

> Open-source AI tools and agent skills for story creation, adaptation, and production. Create stories. Adapt them. Ship them — from web fiction and short drama to games and video. Everything is MIT-licensed and maintained at https://github.com/zenstory-ai.

ZenStory AI (GitHub org `zenstory-ai`) publishes six projects. Five are skill packs / plugins for coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, Google Antigravity, OpenCode, ZCode, OpenClaw, Kimi Code and DeepSeek Harness; one is a hosted writing workbench. Choose by the material and deliverable: plan or revise fiction, adapt a story into short drama or a game, or turn footage into narrated video. Projects have separate setup and workspace requirements; this is not an automatic cross-product pipeline.

Canonical install path for the skill packs is the GitHub repository under `zenstory-ai/` (e.g. `npx skills add zenstory-ai/oh-story-claudecode`). Repositories were previously hosted under `worldwonderer/`; those paths permanently redirect here.

## Projects

Overview page: https://zenstory.ai/projects (中文: https://zenstory.ai/zh/projects) — each project has a canonical page in English and, under `/zh`, in 中文, with its definition, audience, workflow, capability limits and dated, versioned source notes. Those notes identify the reviewed source snapshot, not a guarantee about later releases.

- [Oh Story (oh-story-claudecode)](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story) · [source](https://github.com/zenstory-ai/oh-story-claudecode): Thirteen agent skills for web-fiction research, deconstruction, drafting, revision and covers. Chart data depends on available sources; historical fallback is labeled. Pattern checks do not establish authorship or guarantee AI-detector scores. Host capabilities determine orchestration support.

- [Drama Skills (drama-skills)](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills) · [source](https://github.com/zenstory-ai/drama-skills): Eleven skills for short-drama and motion-comic scripts, visual specifications, storyboards and generation prompts. Documents and stages are selected as needed. Media production requires configured providers and explicit spending confirmation; review is separately requested.

- [Novel to Game (novel-to-game)](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game) · [source](https://github.com/zenstory-ai/novel-to-game): Seven agent skills for source-grounded adaptation into a game candidate on a selected target runtime. Six runtime QA checks record execution evidence, not subjective quality or readiness for commercial release.

- [Video Recap Skills (video-recap-skills)](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap) · [source](https://github.com/zenstory-ai/video-recap-skills): Six skills total — five stage skills plus one orchestrator — for Chinese-narration video recaps and optional CapCut/JianYing draft export. ffmpeg processes media locally; MiMo and optional Fish Audio services handle remote model tasks. Final output requires playback review.

- [Oh Story DSH (oh-story-dsh)](https://zenstory.ai/dsh) · [source](https://github.com/zenstory-ai/oh-story-dsh): A community DeepSeek Harness plugin with pinned novel, short-drama, game and video skill packs and four workbenches. The local DSH Web environment and model/media services require configuration. Package: `@oh-story/dsh`; not affiliated with, partnered with or endorsed by DeepSeek.

- [ZenStory workbench (zenstory)](https://zenstory.ai/workbench) · [source](https://github.com/zenstory-ai/zenstory): A conversation-first writing workspace for project files, materials, characters, drafts and version history. Hosted at https://app.zenstory.ai; self-hosting requires backend/model configuration. See the project page for version limits and the published privacy-policy statement.

## Guides

Guides index: https://zenstory.ai/guides (中文: https://zenstory.ai/zh/guides) — browse by creative task or search for a working question. Each published article includes a concrete method, an original example, and its skill source.

### Start writing with AI / AI 写作入门

- [Start writing with AI](https://zenstory.ai/guides/getting-started) — Install a writing workflow, import a draft, and write your first chapter.

- [Agent skills for writers: prompts, skill packs, plugins, MCP](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/agent-skills-for-writers) — An agent skill is a folder of instructions and reference files that a coding agent such as Claude Code or Codex loads when a matching task comes up. You do not write code to use one. For a novelist the tasks are turning an idea into an outline, importing a manuscript, or revising a chapter against project notes. Oh Story is a pack of 13 such skills for fiction; it runs inside the agent host and uses the model that host is configured with. Skills differ from prompts (they live on disk and are reused), plugins (a distribution wrapper) and MCP servers (tools exposed over a protocol). Pick the writing job first, then the host. The example below compares two investigation openings in chat before any planning files are created.

- [Write a novel with DeepSeek: pick a workspace, keep drafting](https://zenstory.ai/dsh/deepseek-novel-writing) — To write a novel with DeepSeek, choose by where the writing lives: ordinary DeepSeek chat for one-off tasks, a local DSH workspace for a whole manuscript. Use an ordinary DeepSeek model chat for a disposable brainstorm, outline critique or scene rewrite that you will copy into your own manuscript. Use DeepSeek Harness (DSH) plus the community Oh Story DSH plugin when you want a local writing folder, persistent sessions, creation skills and a file/editor/Chat workbench. Use the separate hosted ZenStory service at app.zenstory.ai when you want an account-based browser project with nothing to run locally. These sit on different layers: DeepSeek is the model/provider choice, DSH is the agent host, @oh-story/dsh is a community plugin for that host, and hosted ZenStory is a separate application. The plugin runs inside DSH; an ordinary DeepSeek chat does not load it. For the broader difference between chat, skills and agents, see AI agent skills for writers; for a field-by-field comparison of the three ZenStory AI writing environments, see the workflow comparison. Already have a draft? Start by naming the latest accepted manuscript, the last complete chapter and any unfinished tail, then ask for the next step. The worked archive mystery below shows how to turn those materials into a next-scene choice before importing or changing files, and the last step gives a paste-ready prompt that makes the agent continue from the project's state files.

- [Continue your unfinished novel with AI: import into Oh Story](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/import-and-continue) — If you already have 10 to 20 chapters, do not ask an empty chat to continue in the same style. Run Oh Story's story-import: it rebuilds the manuscript as a writing project, keeps the original prose, and generates settings, outlines and continuity records from it. Inferred facts go on a review list, and the manuscript stays the evidence you check them against. Then request the next chapter by name. The harbor-radio example below shows a continuation paying off a decision the last chapter already made. Intentions that never reached the page come from you: put them in the next-chapter plan, and check the new chapter's voice against your last original chapters.

- [How to write a book with Claude Code or Codex: install to chapter one](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/claude-code-novel-writing) — To write a book with Claude Code or Codex, install the Oh Story skill pack, run /story-setup, start a fresh session and draft chapter one in Markdown.

- [How to Prompt AI to Write a Novel Chapter](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/ai-novel-writing-prompts) — Give the AI a defined task, chapter beats, current character state and limits on what may be revealed. Includes a filled prompt and focused revision requests.

### Outlines and plot / 小说大纲与情节

- [Outlines and plot](https://zenstory.ai/guides/plot-and-outline) — Plan openings, chapters, suspense, pacing, and endings.

- [How to Draft a Novel Chapter from an Outline](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/outline-to-chapter) — A chapter outline specifies what must happen; the prose turns that into a process. Write goals, obstacles, evidence, choices and costs as events the viewpoint character can perceive, then deliver the agreed ending change. The original library example below compares a briefing-like opening with staged prose, then continues from the signed form through conditional cooperation, a short transport transition and the end of the first trip. Give consequential reactions room and keep routine actions brief. The excerpts are hand-written editorial samples.

- [How to Turn an Idea into a Complete Short Story](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/short-story-from-idea) — A premise gives a short story its starting pressure; the plot still has to be built. Decide what the reader should want answered, what prevents an easy answer, what the protagonist must choose and what observable change will settle that question. Then build only the scenes needed to earn that ending. A twist is optional. Oh Story’s short-writing workflow separates design from drafting and plans with a section outline that is lighter than a long-novel chapter blueprint. The four-part framing here is an editorial thinking aid; the design files still follow the skill’s bundled format. The original repair-shop example closes one relationship decision and leaves the family’s longer history where it is. The opening, negotiation and ending excerpts below show that choice on the page: a failed hint becomes stated terms, a deposit and a departure, while the jacket still waits to be mended at her new home and older family hurts remain.

- [How to Write a Web Novel Opening: The First Three Chapters](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/novel-opening) — Chapter 1 puts the protagonist in a conflict with a clear goal and an early payoff; chapter 2 escalates to another; chapter 3 gives a reason to read on.

- [Types of Cliffhangers for Web Serials: 13 Hooks and How to Choose](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/chapter-ending-hooks) — A cliffhanger ends a chapter on an unresolved question. Get 13 ending hooks, 7 opening hooks, original examples, and how to write one by mood and stage.

- [Chapter Outline Template for a Web Novel](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/chapter-outline-template) — A chapter outline for a web serial sets the emotional shift, the lead's key choice, detail per beat and what stays hidden. Copy the template and example.

- [How to Write Satisfying Payoff Beats in Web Fiction](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/satisfaction-beats) — Six payoffs: ability, goals, gains, attitudes, identity, emotion. A table works back through result, expectation, setup, reaction and next goal.

- [How to Write Plot Twists: Six Types, Setup, Reveals, and Consequences](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/plot-twists) — Identity, perspective, motive, timeline, information, or perception twists—or direct emotion. Includes an example, guessability test, and design table.

- [How to Write a Web-Fiction Outline: Template and Volume Example](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/novel-outline-template) — Set core appeal, ending, and volume climaxes first; work back through goals, obstacles, and causality. Includes a book–volume–scene template and example.

- [Short-Story Outline Template: Work Backward from the Emotional Landing](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/short-story-outline-template) — Build from emotional landing and core payoff; track change, causality, reader knowledge, handoff. Includes a concise template and full example.

- [How to Write a System Panel in Fiction: Rules, Costs, and Display](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/system-panel-template) — Define capability limits, failure conditions, and costs before deciding what the character sees. Includes a panel template and original example.

- [How to Write a Face-Slapping Scene That Changes the Situation](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/face-slapping-scene) — Set up underestimation, overturn it with action, and let witnesses respond according to their interests. Includes a full scene and failure fixes.

- [How to Plant Foreshadowing: Setup, Suspense, and Payoff](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/foreshadowing-and-suspense) — Altered-list example: separate foreshadowing from suspense, plant and misdirect fairly, order and pay off clues, fix hidden answers and plot delay.

- [How to Control Pacing in a Web Novel](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/web-serial-pacing) — Vary high-pressure, progress, relationship and quiet chapters through state changes. Includes pacing diagnosis and an original chapter sequence.

- [How to Explain Worldbuilding Naturally Through Action](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/worldbuilding-exposition) — Explain rules when they shape choices. Use action results, brief conflict dialogue, and in-scene carriers; cut exposition. Includes an original rewrite.

- [How to Title Web Fiction from a Promise the Story Can Keep](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/novel-titles) — Extract genre, identity, core method, and reward; build titles from contrast, events, plot, or payoff, then test whether the story delivers.

- [Where to Put a Short Story’s Paywall: Work Back from the Payoff](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/short-story-paywall) — Hooks: unfinished action, a key object changing hands, a relationship turn or a dilemma. Plan the payoff, then work back to the setup, choices and costs.

- [Short Stories vs. Novels: Two Structures for One Idea](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/short-vs-long-fiction) — Compare time to payoff, cast size, scene density, foreshadowing and emotional expression to decide whether your idea suits a short story or a novel.

- [Organising a Story Bible: Characters, Timelines and Knowledge](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/story-bible-template) — Maintain stable character facts, current states, relationships, timelines, world rules and open threads separately to reduce continuity conflicts.

- [Writing Novel-Cover Prompts: Separate Genre, Composition and Text](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/novel-cover-prompts) — Translate a genre promise into subject, background, colour and light. Treat the title and author name as separate text layers.

- [How to Write Story Conflict: Make Each Countermove Close an Old Option](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/story-conflict) — Conflict means incompatible outcomes and opponents who learn and adjust after each round. Includes an original restoration contest and escalation fixes.

- [How to Write a Climax: Converge Promises and Force a Final Choice](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/climax-scene) — Bring ability, relationships, evidence, and cost into one action, close escape routes, and resolve the climax through choice. Includes an original example.

- [How to Write Scene Transitions: Let One Scene Lead into the Next](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/scene-transitions) — Decide when to jump ahead, then bridge scenes through causality, questions, emotional residue, objects, or sound. Includes a weather-station example.

- [How to Write Flashbacks: Make the Past Change a Present Choice](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/flashbacks-in-fiction) — Trigger a flashback from the present, retrieve only what changes judgment, relationships, or choice, then act on it. Includes a repair-shop example.

- [How to Write Setting Description: Let Characters Act in the Scene](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/environment-description) — Choose setting details a character would notice, touch, and act on instead of listing scenery. Includes a greenhouse blackout and revision method.

- [How to Design a Web-Novel Cheat: Rules, Costs, and Growth](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/golden-finger) — A hero’s unique lasting edge: information, growth boosts or items. Set triggers, feedback, costs and limits; see five questions and an original ledger case.

- [How to Design Cultivation Realms, with an Original Progression Table](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/cultivation-realms) — Build realms around ability, status, ties, and cost. Includes an original five-stage system, breakthrough comparison, capacity check, and scaling fixes.

- [How to Write a Short-Story Hook](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/story-lead-in) — Build opening paragraphs from cause, conflict, character, and emotional turn; add an object, information gap, and open hook. Includes an original rewrite.

- [How to Write a Subplot That Serves the Main Plot](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/subplot-mainline-convergence) — Use a function card to connect a subplot’s goal and obstacles to a main-plot change, convergence point, and remove-or-merge test.

- [How to Outline a Novel Volume](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/volume-outline-template) — Plan one novel volume with a clear end-state change, connected story lines, causal plot units, an original example, and a restrained AI handoff template.

- [How to Write a Satisfying Novel Ending](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-a-satisfying-novel-ending) — Trace the story’s promises, make the final choice cost something, and give the protagonist a concrete new state in the last scene.

- [Show vs. Tell in Fiction: When to Use Each](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/show-vs-tell-fiction) — Choose scene detail for decisions and change; summarize routine, elapsed time, and information the reader needs without replaying.

- [How to Plan a Novel Series Without Losing Momentum](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/plan-a-novel-series) — Give each book a complete emotional payoff, a larger unresolved question, and a changing protagonist goal that earns the next installment.

- [How to Write a Novel Synopsis That Shows the Whole Story](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-a-novel-synopsis) — Summarize the protagonist’s goal, major turns, causal links, and ending in plain language; a synopsis is not a blurb.

- [How to Write an Unreliable Narrator With Fair Clues](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-an-unreliable-narrator) — Separate mistaken interpretation from withheld motives. Use a fact ledger, two original versions and a reveal that survives rereading.

- [How to Use Three-Act Structure for a Novel](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/use-three-act-structure-for-a-novel) — Plan setup, confrontation and resolution around changing choices. Includes a filled three-act outline, a middle turn and use within a serial volume.

- [How to Write a Story Theme Without Preaching](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-theme-without-preaching) — Turn an abstract theme into recurring choices with different consequences. Includes an original comparison, a scene revision and checks for drift.

### Characters and dialogue / 人物与对白

- [Characters and dialogue](https://zenstory.ai/guides/characters-and-dialogue) — Build believable motives, distinct voices, and relationships.

- [Distinct character dialogue: goals, knowledge, relationships](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/character-dialogue) — Distinct dialogue starts with what each speaker is trying to do to the conversation: obtain permission, protect something, avoid an admission, test a claim or offer a concession. Give each character a different selection of relevant information and a relationship to the listener, then choose wording and rhythm that fit this moment. Catchphrases alone do not provide that structure. Oh Story’s dialogue references tie voice to agenda, relationship, setting and purpose, so the same character’s rhythm shifts with the listener and the moment. The original rehearsal example below preserves the same decision while separating three voices and keeping a private fact out of characters’ mouths. A second version lets a direct answer resolve a misunderstanding while leaving a private fact undisclosed; it compares that extra friction with the earlier, quicker exchange.

- [How to Write Believable Character Motivation](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/character-motivation) — To show why a character acts, give them a concrete goal, a reason it matters to them, an obstacle and something they could lose, then show how their usual way of solving problems shapes one choice. However detailed the profile, the motive only becomes visible in that choice. Oh Story’s character references distinguish goals from motives and connect motivation to cause, intention, constraint and risk. The original fantasy-courier example below turns “proud but responsible” into a sequence of decisions, and a separate prose excerpt lets the offer, resistance and agreement happen in dialogue and action. Trauma, a hidden secret and a growth arc are optional; use them when the character and the story call for them.

- [How to Write a Romance Subplot](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/romance-subplot) — Shared choices, understanding, and costs advance romance. Set intimacy by the slower partner's pace and current relationship stage; keep goals beyond love.

- [How to Write a Smart Antagonist: Goals, Leverage, and Countermoves](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/villains) — Give antagonists goals, resources, judgment, and adaptive strategies. Match depth to their role; let action and stable weaknesses decide the outcome.

- [How to Keep Your Protagonist at the Center of the Story](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/protagonist-agency) — Keep the protagonist central through decisive choices, consequences and earned rewards. Supporting characters can act without taking over the payoff.

- [How to Write Emotion in Fiction: Let Feeling Change Action](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/emotion-on-the-page) — Ground emotion in a choice, line of dialogue, strategy, or cost before adding an object, physical detail, or direct statement. Avoid performing it twice.

- [How to Write an Ensemble Cast with Distinct Roles and Relationships](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/ensemble-cast) — Manage an ensemble through roles, relationship layers, and distinctive actions. Includes an original function table and ways to merge or cut characters.

- [How to Choose Narrative POV: First Person, Third Person & Switching](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/narrative-point-of-view) — Choose POV by information limits, psychic distance, blind spots, and story scale. Includes one event in multiple POVs and fixes for head-hopping.

- [How to Write a Character Arc](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/character-arc) — Build a character arc through choices: an old belief and strategy work, accrue costs, then change under an unavoidable decision. Includes a six-stage map.

- [How to Write Subtext Between Two Male Leads](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/dual-male-lead-subtext) — Plan subtext between two male leads with dialogue, action, visible evidence, and viewpoint. Includes a scene example and a bounded AI prompt.

- [How to Write a Slow-Burn Romance That Keeps Moving](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-a-slow-burn-romance) — Build attraction through repeated acts of trust, change the relationship at each milestone, and keep the external story moving.

- [How to Write Enemies-to-Lovers Romance](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-enemies-to-lovers-romance) — Build a real conflict, preserve both characters’ agency, and show the repeated choices that make cooperation and trust believable.

- [How to Write Character Backstory Without Stopping the Story](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-character-backstory) — Connect a character’s past to a present choice, then decide what the reader needs now. Includes an original scene, a reveal plan and revision checks.

- [How to Write Supporting Characters Who Have Their Own Goals](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-a-memorable-supporting-character) — Give supporting characters a story function, a goal of their own and a planned exit. Includes character cards and three choices in one conflict.

- [Dialogue Tags and Action Beats: When to Use Each](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/write-natural-dialogue-tags) — Use tags to identify speakers and action beats to change the scene. Original before-and-after examples address unclear attribution and repetitive gestures.

### Choose and write a genre / 题材与类型写法

- [Choose and write a genre](https://zenstory.ai/guides/genres) — Choose a genre and learn the story patterns it needs.

- [How to write rules horror: when the rules start to collide](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/rules-horror) — How to write rule-based horror: make two rules collide so each test costs a route, a tool or an ally. Includes a build order and a sample rule sheet.

- [How to Write a Novel Blurb from the Story's Real Selling Point](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/novel-blurb) — A blurb is not a synopsis: show protagonist situation, conflict, action direction, and promised emotion. Includes a template and versions of one story.

- [How to Write a Fight Scene: Decide the Outcome Before the Moves](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/fight-scenes) — Set outcome, advantage, and cost. Use mind, body, skill, and setting; show key-action consequences, compress repeats, and land the heaviest beat briefly.

- [How to Write Angst: Build the Bond Before You Break It](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/angst-fiction) — Make loss hurt through specific bonds, irreversible choices and quiet aftermath. Includes a three-stage approach and an original worked example.

- [How to Write Social and Family Drama: Let Small Wrongs Build to an Evidence-Based Reckoning](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/family-drama-fiction) — Show exploitation through money, property, rules and enablers. Stop yielding, keep evidence, then counter with accounts, rules and real-world consequences.

- [How to Write Sweet Romance: Create Sweetness Through Relationship Change](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/sweet-romance) — Sweet beats prove change: affection targets one person, care alters choices, and brief misunderstandings prompt responses. Includes a method and example.

- [How to Write Period Web Fiction: Objects, Procedures, and Favors](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/period-novel) — Period details should restrict choices, shift resources, or change reputations. Includes a research checklist, practical ledgers, and an original scene.

- [How to Write Palace Intrigue: Rules, Evidence, and Rulings](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/palace-intrigue) — Build rounds from challenge, evidence, alignment, ruling, and aftermath, so rules recognize each win. Includes an original evidence plot.

- [Writing a Groveling Reconciliation Arc: Harm, Departure, Remorse](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/crematorium-arc) — Establish irreversible harm, let departure shift power, and prove regret with matching actions. Includes structure and an original example.

- [How to Write a CEO Romance Without Making Care Feel Like Control](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/ceo-romance) — Distinguish care from control through decision rights, refusal costs, and public boundaries. Shows how the power gap shapes choices in a contract marriage.

- [How to Write Rebirth Revenge: Limit Knowledge, Create New Obstacles](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/rebirth-revenge) — Limit past-life memory so intervention makes the future unreliable. Includes opening method, knowledge boundaries, layered foes, and an original example.

- [How to Write a Fair-Play Mystery with a Clue Ledger](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/mystery-novel) — A mystery must show readers facts they can reason from. Use a three-part clue ledger for discovery, interpretation, and truth. Includes an original case.

- [Web-Fiction Subgenres Explained Through Their Core Loops](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/web-novel-subgenres) — Compare common web-fiction modes through core loops, from mortal-flow and infinite-flow to rules horror, urban martial arts, systems, and rebirth revenge.

- [How to Write Yanyan-Style Stories: Limited Viewpoint and Fair Twists](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/yanyan-stories) — Use an urgent first-person goal, limited information, an everyday anomaly, and recovered evidence so a twist changes the meaning of earlier facts.

- [Choosing a Web-Fiction Genre: From Interest to a Trial Scene](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/choosing-a-genre) — Skip unverified hype. Choose a genre using your material, a promise to readers, a sustainable story engine and the cost of a trial draft.

- [Writing Quick Transmigration: Make Each World Change the Mission](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/quick-transmigration-novel) — Build each world around a role, relationship pressure, mission limits and changes to the original plot. Make experience from other worlds carry a cost.

- [Female-Oriented Farming Fiction: Grow Resources and Relationships](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/farming-novel) — Drive farming fiction with livelihood needs, business cycles, obligations and family boundaries. Avoid supply lists and cost-free special powers.

- [Writing Apocalyptic Sci-Fi: Resources, Rules and Trust Under Pressure](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/apocalypse-scifi-novel) — Connect disaster patterns, resource use and group trust through choices. Make every survival gain bring depletion or exposure.

- [Writing Western Fantasy: Put Institutions and Magic Costs into Action](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/western-fantasy-novel) — Build conflicts through status, professional permissions, contracts and costs of power. Avoid reskinning cultivation progression with Western terms.

- [Writing Workplace Romance: Let Work and Love Change Each Other](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/workplace-romance-novel) — Put project goals, professional judgment, public appraisal and relationship boundaries into one event, so gains in one storyline cost the other.

- [How to Build Reader Investment in Women-Focused Fiction](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/emotional-safety-in-romance) — Use promise anchors, phase payoffs and character choices to sustain emotional safety. Avoid a whole volume of suffering followed by contrived compensation.

- [Writing Urban Speculative Fiction: Build a Novel Around One New Rule](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/urban-premise-novel) — Put one speculative rule into bills, contracts, work and relationships. Develop distinct gains, risks and public responses instead of repeating rewards.

- [How to Write Absurdist Comedy from Rules and Character Reactions](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/comedy-short-story) — Build comedy from expectation gaps, earnest action, and escalating consequences. Includes an original rule demo and a method for cutting joke explanations.

- [Historical Fiction: Turn Sources into Plot Constraints](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/historical-fiction) — Set period, place and identity; turn systems, resources and procedures into plot constraints. Includes evidence tiers and a fictional canal-warehouse case.

- [How to Write Historical Speculative Fiction That Changes the Old Order](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/historical-premise-novel) — New information must pass through interpretation, power struggles, limited trials, and institutional consequences. Includes an original flood-map example.

- [Esports Fiction: Rules, Plays & Team Feedback Decide the Match](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/game-competition-novel) — Define the match goal and limits, then resolve choices through observable play, counters, and team feedback. Includes an original competitive-game example.

- [Entertainment-Industry Fiction: Turn Talent into Career Consequences](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/entertainment-industry-novel) — Make auditions, performances, and recordings prove skill; feedback should change roles, contracts, trust, or opportunities. Includes an audition example.

- [Urban Slice-of-Life Fiction: How to Avoid a Daily Log](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/urban-slice-of-life-novel) — Connect bills, work, neighbors, and family through a life goal, leaving changes in relationships, resources, or next steps. Includes repair-table example.

- [How to Write Folk Horror: One Taboo, Human Ties, and Consequences](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/folk-horror-fiction) — Embed one taboo in kinship, ritual, and practical interests, then escalate one causal chain. Includes a fictional well ritual and rules-horror comparison.

- [Fanqie vs Qidian Writing Styles: Two AI Briefs](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/fanqie-vs-qidian) — Turn one original premise into pace-first and immersion-first AI briefs, then compare opening focus, anticipation, and information order.

- [How to Write a Protagonist Who Hides Their Strength](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/hidden-strength-loop) — Plan a secretly powerful protagonist with a repeatable loop, a three-party information card, an original example, and a bounded AI prompt.

### Revise your novel / 小说改稿与去 AI 味

- [Revise your novel](https://zenstory.ai/guides/revision) — Fix weak prose, continuity mistakes, and chapters that stall.

- [AI Keeps Forgetting Your Novel? Track Characters and Plot](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/long-novel-continuity) — AI drifts over a long novel when the model is asked to remember the whole book. Oh Story keeps the state in files instead: what is true in the story, what each character knows and what the reader has seen are recorded separately in the project's tracking directory, and each new chapter loads only the current state and unfinished commitments. Anything still in the plan stays in the plan until the chapter that shows it is written. The three-chapter example below shows the handoff in practice, plus an optional clue design that separates a visible clue from a plausible misreading and gives the reveal consequences. The method targets two failures in particular: forgetting, and characters knowing answers too early.

- [Keep your writing voice when AI continues your novel](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/preserve-author-voice) — Describe the dimensions of your voice, give a short sample you own or may use, and keep those choices separate from the current book’s facts. Oh Story’s documented workflow resolves the current request, book style and relevant active author preferences before generic writing advice; a sample offers candidate observations, and a lasting preference needs your explicit confirmation. The goal is a continuation in fresh sentences that fits this narrator and scene, with sentence length set by your choices. The original comparison also shows a one-paragraph exception: keep extended observation, drop the semicolon pattern and the comic aside, and leave the book’s preferences as they are.

- [Turn AI manuscript feedback into a focused revision plan](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/review-and-revise) — Sort review comments before you rewrite anything. Connect each criticism to a passage and an established story constraint, then decide what to fix, what needs clarification and what is simply an alternative taste. A useful revision brief names the problem, approved action, facts to preserve, exact chapter or scene and possible effects on later chapters. Oh Story separates story-review findings from the chapter-revision workflow. The decision sheet below is an editorial aid that the author fills in and rules on. For wording alone, use the separate prose-revision guide; for which character or reader knows what, see long-novel continuity. For interchangeable character speech, start with the dialogue example and fix it as a dialogue problem first; consider a whole-book style change only after that. The revised scene below turns an accepted agency repair into dialogue and action while holding three constraints: the seal stays intact, the culprit stays hidden, and an agreement to register stays distinct from a completed registration.

- [Make AI Fiction Sound Human: Fix AI-Sounding Prose in Three Passes](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/revise-ai-prose) — To make AI fiction sound human, delete-test each flagged line, revise the rest in three ordered passes, and cap cuts so the prose never goes telegraphic.

- [How to Deconstruct a Novel Chapter by Chapter (Breakdown Template)](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/learn-from-fiction) — Break down a novel chapter by chapter: log plot points plainly, map each key reveal to its technique, mark what to reuse. Copyable template included.

- [Stuck Writing a Novel? Diagnose the Block and Write the Next Step](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/writers-block) — Diagnose goal, resistance, causality, scene or energy. Ask what the next step changes to find one writable action; avoid new lore and random accidents.

- [Readers Stop Returning? Fix Your Web Novel’s Pacing](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/reader-retention) — Diagnose a sagging serial through short-term questions, arc goals and the whole-story promise. Restore progress without abandoning the original appeal.

- [Use Fiction Tropes Without Copying: Redesign the Story](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/tropes-without-copying) — Learn from a trope’s dramatic function and emotional payoff, then redesign its characters, setting and causal chain. Includes an original worked example.

- [Web-Fiction Dealbreakers: Character Mistakes or Forced Plot?](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/reader-dealbreakers) — Spot web-fiction dealbreakers, from forced foolishness to stolen rewards. Use information, motives and consequences to judge what can be repaired.

- [Common Signs of AI-Like Prose: Diagnose the Sentence Before Rewriting](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/ai-tell-words) — Treat AI-like words as clues. Diagnose explanatory tone, vague emotion, and stock actions by function; rewrite with information, choice, and consequence.

- [When Removing AI-Like Prose Goes Too Far: Repair Telegraphic Writing](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/over-edited-prose) — Repair choppy fragments, action lists, and broken dialogue caused by over-editing. Lock the facts, then restore only necessary links and scene continuity.

- [AI Novel Chapter Too Short? Restore the Missing Beats](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/ai-novel-word-count) — AI chapter too short? Audit approved beats. Add only missing action, resistance, choice, and results; revise the plan or accept the current length.

- [AI-Assisted Novel Submission Checklist](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/ai-assisted-novel-submission) — Check route rules and AI-source provenance before submission. Includes a checklist, audit prompt, original example, and final-file check.

- [How to Fix Repetitive Actions in AI Fiction](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/ai-repeated-actions) — Fix AI fiction that repeats one beat as action, bodily reaction, and explanation. Use a mark-and-merge worksheet, example, checklist, and prompt.

- [How to Check AI Fiction for Continuity Errors](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/ai-fiction-consistency-check) — Audit AI-assisted fiction for factual, rule, timeline, causal, and cost conflicts. Cite both sides, separate evidence from severity, and recheck later chapters.

- [How to Fix Plot Logic With Cause and Effect](https://zenstory.ai/oh-story/build-a-cause-and-effect-plot) — Turn an event list into a causal chain. Check knowledge, choices and outcomes with an original investigation example and a revision table.

### Short-drama scripts / 短剧改编与剧本

- [Short-drama scripts](https://zenstory.ai/guides/short-drama) — Adapt a story into episodes, scenes, and shootable dialogue.

- [Novel to short drama: episodes, scripts and storyboards](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/novel-to-short-drama) — Start from the source facts you must keep and the changes you allow, then cut episodes around dramatic results and write one pilot before storyboarding. Drama Skills is an open-source agent skill suite that can help analyze the source, plan episode handoffs, write a pilot and develop its visual specifications and storyboard. Image, video, voice and music generation is a separate step: it shows you a preview and calls an external provider only after you confirm. This guide stops at a text handoff. Its original repair-shop example turns prose into visible action, then compares one-episode and three-episode versions and shows how to compress while keeping the reason for the protagonist’s choice. The same private thought is also compared as subjective VO and spoken dialogue, separating what the audience learns from what another character hears. A small dialogue revision lets the mother show concern while the rent problem stays and the decision remains her daughter’s.

- [How to Design a Paywall Cliffhanger for a Short Drama](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/paywall-episode) — Establish characters, rules, and stakes; produce a partial result; let it start the next action. Includes a placement table and multi-episode example.

- [How to Write a Short-Drama Episode Outline: Map and Example](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/episode-outline-template) — Cut episodes at visible state changes, not equal intervals. Includes an entry, pressure, choice, payoff, exit template and original episode example.

- [How to Write Episode-End Hooks: Give This Episode a Result, the Next a Task](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/episode-ending-hooks) — Build hooks from six changes: choices, new evidence, countermoves, spent resources, authority shifts, and blocked routes. Includes a rewrite and handoff.

- [How to Write a Short Drama's First Episode: Pick the Opening, Give the Character a Task](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/episode-one) — Start when pressure makes the hero’s old method costly. Compare entry points, allocate backstory, and build a goal, local result, and next-step question.

- [How to Write Misunderstandings: Coincidence, Choice, and Cost](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/coincidence-and-misunderstanding) — Credible information gaps and reasons for silence drive action; fallout remains after clarification. The scene fixes forced silence and coincidence rescue.

- [Writing Revenge Micro-Dramas: Win Back Power with Every Reversal](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/revenge-micro-drama) — Make past losses verifiable. Let each reversal change sign-off rights, supplies, lists or who can explain events publicly. Keep public scenes affordable.

- [Writing Secret-Baby Dramas: Give the Child a Goal of Their Own](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/secret-baby-drama) — Define four layers of knowledge, give the child an independent goal, and turn a parentage reveal into changes in signing, pickups or care responsibilities.

- [Writing Micro-Drama Scripts: Turn Stories into Playable Scenes](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/screenwriting) — Work from an episode’s result to scene goals, opposition, turns and exit states. Includes an original script excerpt and a self-review method.

- [Micro-Drama Episode Structure: Build a Chain of Consequences](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/episode-structure) — Build an episode from entry state, goal and resistance, a turn, payoff and exit state. Test the causal chain with “therefore” and “but.”

- [Which Novels Suit Micro-Drama Adaptation? Look for Screen Action](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/adaptation-value) — Sort material into screen-ready, requiring a new vehicle, or prose-only. Assess adaptation value with new openings and a production-burden checklist.

- [Writing Micro-Drama Dialogue: Make Every Line Change the Scene](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/micro-drama-dialogue) — Build dialogue from agendas, subtext risks, visible anchors and tactical shifts. Includes a speaker-swap test and an original exchange.

- [Fixing a Micro-Drama’s Sagging Middle: Renew the Story Cycle](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/mid-season-sag) — Spot repetition by shuffling sequences. Restore momentum with a new line of proof, higher costs, closure, a changed mechanism or a handover.

- [How to Write a Body-Swap Short Drama: Make Identity Change the Method](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/body-swap-story) — Tie an external task to identity permissions, recognition cues, and the cost of exposure. Includes an identity map and an original beat-by-beat example.

- [Short Drama: Preserve Character Function Before Cutting or Merging](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/adaptation-character-compression) — Cut subplots first, then merge characters by action, information, relationships, and causality. Includes a function ledger and an original gallery example.

- [How to Write Inner Monologue for Short Drama: Make It Performable](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/short-drama-inner-monologue) — Preserve how a thought changes a choice, then carry it through action, evidence, space, dialogue, or deliberate voice-over. Includes a cold-room example.

- [Reordering a Novel Timeline for Short Drama Without Breaking Causality](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/adaptation-timeline-reordering) — Map knowledge, prop, relationship, setup, and consequence dependencies before choosing when viewers learn each fact. Includes a mountain-rescue example.

- [Merge Scenes for Short Drama: Fewer Locations, Intact Causality](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/adaptation-scene-compression) — Map choices, evidence, relationships, and causal functions, then test time, agendas, information order, and reaction space. Includes a contest example.

- [How to Develop an Idea into a Short-Drama Series](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/idea-to-creative-brief) — Separate a premise from a story engine, compare two mechanisms in a compact brief, build an engine card, and test three rounds for real state change.

- [Vertical Drama Script Format: A Scene and Dialogue Template](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/vertical-drama-script-format) — Use this Markdown template for scene headings, action, dialogue, and production cues. Choose a format, then check AI edits against the source.

### Storyboards and AI video / 分镜与 AI 视频

- [Storyboards and AI video](https://zenstory.ai/guides/ai-video) — Plan shots, keep characters consistent, and improve generated footage.

- [AI short drama character consistency across shots](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/character-consistency) — Cross-shot consistency in AI short drama breaks on costume, props and eyelines far more often than on faces. Drama Skills separates three things: persistent character identity, the Look compatible with the scene, and each shot's changing state. It then asks what each reference image is allowed to control in the current frame, and marks references as prompt-only, planned, or actually checked. Existing images do not have to be regenerated. The three-shot archive example below includes a reference-selection exercise. Text constraints reduce drift; confirm consistency by watching the generated shots.

- [Character turnaround sheet prompt template for AI, with 6 examples](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/character-turnaround-prompt) — A character turnaround sheet prompt states its purpose, one outfit, side and back anchors, lighting chosen for comparison and no labels. Plus 6 examples.

- [Seedance prompt guide: turn short drama shots into video prompts](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/seedance-prompts) — Write Seedance prompts as start state, causal action chain, end state. Seedance 2.5 uses timed segments that fill the clip; 2.0 uses shot numbers.

- [How to write a storyboard script: shot list template for short drama](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/script-to-storyboard) — A storyboard script gives each shot a row: source, purpose, framing, start state, action to end state, dialogue and duration. Copy the shot list template.

- [Image-to-Video Prompts: Reference Subtraction + 8 Motion Problems](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/image-to-video-prompts) — Delete static appearance, clothing, and setting; add hands, props, occlusion, and endpoint changes. Includes two tables and eight motion rewrites.

- [How to Use First and Last Frames for AI Video](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/first-last-frame) — Use first/last frames for clear endpoints and unimportant paths. Get definitions, fit checks and a prompt template; keep end facts out of frame one.

- [Unsatisfied with an AI Video? Reroll, Rewrite, Edit, or Reshoot](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/reroll-or-rewrite) — Ask if text controls the flaw and if it repeats. Reroll random failures sparingly, rewrite structural flaws, and edit or reshoot local defects.

- [When AI Video Actions Break: Preserve Story Facts, Rewrite the Action](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/generable-actions) — For failing actions, preserve the story fact; then substitute action, split the shot, hold a state, or use sound. Includes a rewrite and skip test.

- [Garbled AI Frame Text: Render, Reserve Space, or Add in Post](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/text-in-ai-frames) — Classify text by story role, then generate it, render it as graphics, reserve blank space, or add it later. Includes prompt and reference/subtitle checks.

- [Choose Motion-Comic Styles: Limited Animation, Anime, Ink Wash & Chibi](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/motion-comic-styles) — Choose a motion-comic style by character, action, line/color, and key information. Compare limited animation, anime, ink wash, and chibi in one scene.

- [Vertical Short-Drama Storyboarding: Blocking, Shot Size, and Overlays](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/vertical-storyboarding) — Keep relationships, key actions, and evidence readable before choosing shot size. A three-person example covers depth, reactions, and actual UI occlusion.

- [Micro-Drama Lighting: Source, Narrative Job and Continuity](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/short-drama-lighting-prompts) — Set shot intent: reveal or conceal; name source, direction, lit result and subject/background separation. Watch-repair example, template, continuity fixes.

- [Designing Camera Movement: Give Every Move a Story Motive](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/motivated-camera-movement) — Choose camera moves for shifts in attention, pressure or space—not by rote. Includes a lost-property scene, movement checklist and fixes.

- [Shot–Reverse-Shot Continuity: Track the Axis, Eyelines and Props](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/shot-reverse-shot-continuity) — Plan the axis, camera side and screen direction. Track crossings, third-person reactions and props through a three-person ticket-gate scene and checklist.

- [How to Design Sound for Short Drama: Dialogue and Music](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/scene-sound-and-silence) — Plan dialogue, ambience, music and silence for short drama. Use sound tables and original scenes to fix music restarts and abrupt changes between shots.

- [How to Time Short-Drama Dialogue with Action and Reaction](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/dialogue-timing) — Map every line, action, interruption, pause, and listener reaction on a timeline. Includes a copy-shop example, relative-beat template, and overload fixes.

- [AI Short-Drama Image Roles: Character, Setting, Composition & Style](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/reference-image-roles) — Set roles so references cannot override wardrobe, setting or composition. Nine roles, an original coastal weather-station example and conflict fixes.

- [Short-Drama Look Development: Representative-Frame Method](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/visual-look-development) — Define stable rules and variables for material, color, edges and space. Test characters, locations and high-pressure scenes with an original pool example.

- [How to Shoot Evidence Reveals: Make the Proof and Consequences Clear](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/evidence-reveal-storyboard) — Define the feature viewers must read, then stage control, reveal, reaction, and consequence. Includes a pharmacy example with two temperature logs.

- [How to Create Prop References for AI Video](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/prop-reference-image) — Fix a prop’s scale, form, materials, and working parts; list current open/closed state, damage, contents, and text separately. Includes a recorder board.

- [What Is an AI Motion Comic? A Workflow from Script to Final Cut](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/motion-comic) — Use art, keyframes, limited motion, voice, and editing. Choose static or dynamic; build script, visuals, shots, and sound. See an original breakdown.

- [How to Address Stiff AI-Video Acting: Make Emotion Visible](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/character-performance-prompts) — Start with goal, trigger, and shot size; choose gaze, voice, body, or decisive action, not stacked emotion words. Includes an original dance-class example.

- [How to Write Prompts for Targeted AI Image Edits: What to Change and Keep](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/local-image-edit-prompts) — Name the area, change, and what stays; note occlusion and effects on related images. Includes an original removal example, preview, and revision tips.

- [Keep AI Characters Consistent Across Costume Changes](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/character-look-variants) — Separate identity, reusable looks, brief deltas, and shot state. Includes a character card, look registry, three-look example, and mismatch fix.

- [How to Write Hailuo H3 Prompts: Structure, Sound, and Reference Modes](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/hailuo-h3-prompts) — Write Hailuo H3 prompts with a visual timeline, soundscape, and audience-only score. Includes a flower-shop example, mode choices, and fixes.

- [How to Find Continuity Breaks Between AI Short-Drama Shots](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/shot-continuity-checklist) — Compare each shot's end with the next shot's start across position, props, visible state, light, text, and action stage; find and repair the first break.

- [How to Keep Locations Consistent Across AI Video Shots](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/ai-video-location-consistency) — Keep room layout, viewing direction and temporary states separate. Use location references to preserve doors, routes and light sources, with filled examples.

- [AI Video Lip Sync Problems: Check Speaker, Audio Role and Timing](https://zenstory.ai/drama-skills/ai-video-lip-sync) — Separate visible dialogue, off-screen speech and voiceover, then budget time for the full line. Includes a two-person example and a repair table.

### Interactive stories and games / 互动故事与游戏

- [Interactive stories and games](https://zenstory.ai/guides/interactive-games) — Turn a novel into player actions, branching stories, and a playable game.

- [Adapt a novel into a game: pick a playable slice, then build](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/quick-start) — Start with a novel you own or are authorized to adapt, then choose a bounded experience in which a player can act and see a consequence. A useful first slice keeps the source’s particular pressure while limiting scenes, systems and assets. Novel to Game’s seven skills take an agreed brief through analysis, concept and design to a built candidate. The ferry example below shows how to choose the scope before building; a playable result needs a built candidate that passes its runtime checks. Once a candidate exists, sort each comment into a misleading line, a result that breaks the approved rules or a new design request before asking for another build. The author-feedback examples below show how to keep the next change small and handle a different story as a new design decision.

- [Adapt a novel scene into meaningful choices and endings](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/meaningful-choices) — Start with what the player can change, and put choices only there. Make an important decision’s trade-off understandable, then write a response that preserves what the player actually chose. This original ferry scene goes from source facts to two decision points, advance information, a confirmation exchange and three different ending passages. A meaningful choice can also converge on an existing ending as long as its route history carries through, and expressive wording has a place too when it is presented as flavor. What follows is an editorial design draft, written before any build or playtest.

- [Choosing Gameplay for a Novel Adaptation: Start with Repeated Actions](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/choose-gameplay) — Use recurring actions, rules and costs to compare puzzles, management and interactive narrative. See three original designs and a fill-in concept card.

- [How to Design Resource Costs: Calculate Every Route to Its End](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/resource-cost-design) — Calculate energy, sampling, and return costs in a rover level, then fix accidental dead ends and dominant solutions while preserving clear choices.

- [How to Design a Game’s Core Loop](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/gameplay-core-loop) — Define player goals, actions, world rules, state changes, and readable feedback, then test the loop with a complete Paper City path.

- [How to Design a Game Level](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/game-level-pacing) — Plan level pacing with entry states, new decisions, visible responses, and end markers; recombine learned rules instead of adding enemies and puzzles.

- [How to Design Game Feedback Players Can Understand](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/readable-gameplay-feedback) — Design feedback around pre-action conditions, input responses, state changes, outcomes, and next steps, with an original mechanical post office example.

- [How to Design Game Failure and Restarts](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/game-failure-and-restart) — Distinguish hard failure, soft failure, and weaker outcomes. Define what is lost or preserved, where play resumes, and the state restored on restart.

- [How to Design an AI Text Adventure Without Invented Outcomes](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/llm-text-games) — Use a compact turn card to connect current facts, player action, conditions, actual change, and narration without inventing success.

- [Turn a Novel into an AI Text Adventure: Start with One Scene](https://zenstory.ai/dsh/deepseek-text-adventure) — Adapt one novel scene into an AI text adventure. Preserve source facts, define the player’s goal and choices, and test one path before expanding.

- [How to Organize AI-Assisted Voice Lines for a Small Game](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/game-voice-assets) — Track approved game lines by ID, speaker, trigger, subtitle, source, output, and fallback; check pronunciation, skip, mute, missing audio, and restart.

- [How to Design Multiple Endings That Reflect Player Choices](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/design-multiple-endings-in-a-game) — Tie endings to a small set of tracked decisions, make each outcome resolve the central promise, and show the cost of the chosen route.

- [How to Write a Visual Novel Script with Clear Routes](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/write-a-visual-novel-script) — Plan the common route, define what opens each character route, and write dialogue with clear speaker, scene, and choice state.

- [How to Write a Game Quest with a Clear Goal and Payoff](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/write-a-game-quest) — Give each quest a player-readable goal, a reason to act, meaningful steps, and a reward that changes future options.

- [How to Write Video-Game Dialogue That Fits Play](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/write-video-game-dialogue) — Keep lines tied to character goals and game state, avoid narrating visible actions, and test dialogue in the actual interaction.

- [How to Tell a Story Through a Game Environment](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/tell-a-game-story-through-the-environment) — Use object placement, damage, access, and repeated locations to show what happened and what players can infer.

- [How to Playtest a Novel-to-Game Adaptation](https://zenstory.ai/novel-to-game/playtest-a-novel-game-adaptation) — Test whether players understand the game's goals, source identity, choices, and story feedback without relying on your explanation.

### Video scripts and editing / 视频解说与剪辑

- [Video scripts and editing](https://zenstory.ai/guides/video-recaps) — Write narration from footage, edit a story, and finish audio and subtitles.

- [Export a video recap as an editable CapCut or JianYing draft](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/capcut-draft) — To keep editing a finished recap in JianYing or CapCut, export its existing timeline.json as an editable draft built from the source clips and per-segment narration. Video Recap Skills' standalone exporter puts the source clips with their original sound, the narration and optional music on separate tracks, keeps captions as text, and by default bundles the media into a draft folder under --out-dir, so the draft still opens after being moved. The export reads only the timeline and the media it references: ASR, visual understanding and TTS stay idle, and the rendered MP4 stays as it is. The rehearsal example below compares two edits, including what else has to move when a voiceover moves.

- [Make a video recap with Chinese narration from local footage](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/video-to-narration) — Video Recap Skills separates a Chinese-narration recap into understanding, editorial planning, narration, voiceover and assembly. Starting from an authorized local video, it builds a scene/speech/frame evidence index, chooses a viewer promise and POV, and writes only claims that evidence or supplied context supports. It can deliver a rendered MP4 or an editable draft. The source need not already have narration: the original no-dialogue example below compares two story angles and writes a short Chinese script that treats a promise written on screen as still untested. A separate partial-source variant covers footage that stops after the first attempts: request the missing payoff footage, or propose a narrower account and let the creator decide whether a fixed direction changes.

- [Video recap audio: keep the original sound or add narration?](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/original-audio-and-narration) — Let the sound that carries the event lead: a complete spoken line, a switch click or a meaningful wait tells its own part, so narration can stay out of its way. When viewers need context, say only what is supported and useful at that moment. This original radio example assigns five beats, then compares shortening a context sentence with removing it. Shortening keeps the owner’s reluctance to replace the radio without inventing poverty, and both options keep the wait after the switch fails to respond. Cutting narration leaves the dialogue captions in place; only extra commentary goes. The whole example stays at the written-plan stage; voiceover and mixing come later.

- [How to Write a Recap Script: Give Images and Narration Jobs](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/recap-script) — Build a recap around a promise to viewers, a main perspective and beats of change. Keep key original audio; narrate context, causality and interpretation.

- [Writing Clip Titles and On-Screen Text That the Video Supports](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/clip-titles) — Find a reason to watch that the clip can deliver. Give persistent titles, cover text, post titles, annotations and time-and-place labels distinct jobs.

- [How to Control Editing Rhythm: Cut Waiting, Keep Action and Reaction](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/editing-rhythm) — Judge rhythm through precise in and out points and reaction shots. Separate dead time from useful pauses with an original cut comparison and review method.

- [How to Edit Multiple Videos into One Complete Story](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/multi-video-story-edit) — Organize multiple videos around one question, story roles, changes, and evidence instead of file order. Includes an original three-source edit plan.

- [How to Research Before Writing a Video Recap](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/recap-background-research) — Research necessary relationships, prior events, and terms. Keep external context separate from current images and dialogue to avoid unsupported claims.

- [How to Lay Out Video Subtitles and Choose Line Breaks: Lock Picture and Sound, Then Check Sample Frames](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/subtitle-layout-and-line-breaks) — Separate spoken sentences from subtitle cues and line breaks, then inspect bright, dark, close-up, and long-caption frames for legibility and occlusion.

- [SRT Subtitles Out of Sync with AI Narration: Offset, Drift, or One Bad Cue?](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/subtitle-timing-evidence) — SRT early, late, or drifting from AI narration? Check the final video’s start, middle, and end, diagnose the pattern, repair it, and replay the render.

- [How to Write a YouTube Video Script Viewers Can Follow](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/write-a-youtube-video-script) — Define the viewer’s question, organize the answer into clear beats, and plan what the audience sees as well as hears.

- [How to Turn a Long Video into Short Clips That Stand Alone](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/turn-a-long-video-into-short-clips) — Choose moments with a complete point, add only the context needed to understand them, and make each clip’s title match its evidence.

- [How to Fix Flash Frames and Stray Shots in an Edit](https://zenstory.ai/video-recap/fix-flash-frames) — Distinguish stray frames from useful fast cuts, exposure changes and crop jumps. Inspect the rendered video, repair source boundaries and review the result.

## Workbench docs

Product documentation for the ZenStory workbench only (the hosted browser app at https://app.zenstory.ai, project page https://zenstory.ai/workbench). Single URL per page, 中文 first with the English translation below. Index: https://zenstory.ai/docs — getting started, user guide, advanced, reference, troubleshooting.

- [Start writing in the browser workbench](https://zenstory.ai/docs/getting-started/quick-start): how to start in one session: create, target project files, request scoped help, save, export.

- [Write your first short story in ZenStory](https://zenstory.ai/docs/getting-started/first-project): a first short story from premise to TXT export, with facts, open choices and project files.

- [AI writing assistant: context and continuation](https://zenstory.ai/docs/user-guide/ai-assistant): how to give the assistant the right context: focused files, attachments, quotes, scoped requests and recovery.

- [Revise a passage in the workbench editor](https://zenstory.ai/docs/user-guide/editor): manual writing, quotations, review decisions, and save and conflict boundaries.

- [Use reference materials in the browser workbench](https://zenstory.ai/docs/user-guide/materials): TXT limits, asynchronous decomposition, result categories and explicit attachments.

- [Export a manuscript from the workbench](https://zenstory.ai/docs/user-guide/export): sequence-aware TXT export, a separate review copy, and bringing back offline edits.

- [Choose the scope of version recovery](https://zenstory.ai/docs/user-guide/version-history): file versions versus project snapshots, and comparing before recovery.

- [AI Memory: settings, progress and open ideas](https://zenstory.ai/docs/advanced/ai-memory): four editable project-summary fields, saved facts versus plans, and context budgets.

- [Browser writing workflow: decisions to saved prose](https://zenstory.ai/docs/advanced/workflow-tips): what to keep in context, what to save, and what the workbench does not promise.

- [Material analysis: source evidence to your own scene](https://zenstory.ai/docs/advanced/material-analysis): separate evidence from interpretation, then transfer the changed goal and cost into your own scene.

## Optional

- [Pricing for the hosted workbench](https://app.zenstory.ai/pricing)

- [Privacy policy](https://zenstory.ai/privacy-policy)

- [Terms of service](https://zenstory.ai/terms-of-service)