Creating a story isn't one big text box — it's a short form, and the fields do different jobs. Two of them look almost identical and behave completely differently, which is worth getting straight.

The fast way: the Story Generator

At the top of the form there's a single Story Prompt box under Story Generator. Describe a story in a sentence or two and DreamRunner fills in the rest of the form for you — premise, opening scene, location, characters.

You can also leave it blank and let it invent something entirely.

This is the path most people should take. Everything it produces is editable afterwards, so it's a starting point rather than a commitment.

The fields, and what each one does

Story Name — the title. Cosmetic.

Story Description — shown on your story card. The AI does not read this. It's a label for you, and for other players if you publish.

Starting Location — where the opening scene takes place.

Story Prompt (read by the AI) — this is the one that matters. It's the standing brief: premise, background, tone, and any direction you want held to throughout. Everything the AI writes is downstream of this field.

Starting Message — the opening scene itself. What's happening the moment you arrive.

Note: the trap is the two description-shaped fields. Story Description is display only; Story Prompt (read by the AI) is the real one. Writing your premise into the first is the most common setup mistake there is.

Writing the prompt the AI reads

Cover four things:

1. Setting — where and when, and what's unusual about it
2. Your character — who you are here, and what you want
3. Tone — grim, comic, romantic, procedural
4. Direction — what should happen, or what pressure exists

Be specific about tone

"Fantasy adventure" describes a shelf, not a story. "A tired mercenary in a rain-soaked port city, noir tone, short scenes, more dialogue than description" describes something the AI can write.

Standing instructions belong here

Pacing, scene length, how much dialogue, whether time should move forward, whether other characters act without you — this field is read on every turn, so instructions placed here hold.

Instructions typed into the story input during play tend to be read as story events, brackets and all. That box is for what your character does.

Leave room

A prompt that specifies every beat leaves the AI nothing to do but transcribe. Set the situation and the pressure, then let it surprise you.

Characters

Each character gets a name and a Character Description — one field covering who they are and what they look like.

DreamRunner splits that description into the separate physical-appearance and outfit fields that drive their images. Both stay editable on the character afterwards. See How Image Prompts Work.

Note: give characters clearly distinct names. Two similar names get merged by the AI, which then attributes one character's actions and history to the other.

Nothing here is permanent

Every field can be edited after the story starts, and so can the summaries the AI writes as you play. The setup is a starting position, not a contract.