Creating stories
Types of Story
Starter stories are available for everyone to create. They are stories that can only be published in the Charisma mobile app.
Pro stories are stories that can be published and played anywhere, such as on a website, your own mobile app, or in a games engine, through the Charisma SDKs. These stories are available to users with an active Charisma Pro licence. Pro Stories only consist of subplots. It’s up to the game to start each subplot when appropriate and co-ordinate the wider “story”. It’s driven more by triggers/events that happen in a game, so is more fluid than the story equivalent.
Stories
When you create stories for the Charisma app you can define the following:
- Title: This will be what your story is named when it is published in the app. We recommend keeping it short and sweet, and titles up to 35 characters will be optimum when viewed in the app.
- Description: Add a description for your story so people know what to expect. Think of this as a blurb, it will be visible on the app under your title. Descriptions between 10 - 40 words work best with the space allocated on the app.
- Genres: Choose from the dropdown list of Genres that best describe your story. You can choose more than one genre. These are how your story will be categorised in the app.
- Template: Choose if you want to start from a basic template (with a couple of scenes set up for you already) or a completely blank canvas.
When you create the story you will be taken to the story's Story Overview page. You can return here at any time by clicking Story Overview in the left-hand menu.
Here you can edit the title, description, and genres. You can also add promo panels(for Starter stories), collaborators, and a cover image for your story.
For your cover image we recommend dimensions of around 1920px x 1080px for your images' size to be displayed consistently across the app. We advise not including typography to the image, as the title will be added as an overlay in-app.
Be aware that on some screens your image will need to be resized, so we recommend keeping the edges of your image free of important information, as it may get cut off on some screens. Up to 96px on each side and 280px on the top and bottom could be cut off on certain mobile devices.
Narrative Elements
You can start building Episodes, and Scenes for Starter stories, Subplots for Pro stories, and Characters by clicking on them in the left-hand menu.
Creating Episodes
You can use Episodes to split your story into chunks, which will be listed separately once in the app. You must have at least 1 Episode per story.
- Add an Episode by clicking the
+icon next to Story. - Name your Episode by clicking the
…icon next to it and select Rename. - Position your Episode by drag and dropping it to the desired position between scenes.
Creating Scenes
Scenes are used to break your story up into manageable chunks. Each scene has its own Story Graph. Although these graphs are infinite, we recommend creating several shorter scenes over one long one, to make editing simpler.
- Create a scene by clicking Add new scene under Story on the left-hand menu and writing a scene name.
- Edit your scene name by clicking the
…icon and clicking Rename.
Creating Characters
In Charisma, Characters are the life-blood of your stories. You can have as many as you like throughout your story. Don’t hold back!
- Create a character by clicking Characters on the left-hand menu, then clicking Add new character....
- Name your character. This will be displayed in-app on every character bubble, so keep it short.
- Add character image. Add an image for your character. It'll be displayed in any feeling effects pop-ups in the app!
- Choose a voice. Select from the dropdown list of existing voices for your character. You can preview the voice and adjust the pitch, rate and volume.
- Moods and relationships. Hit next, and you'll now be able to adjust your character's baseline mood and relationship values. For more info on how these work, see Emotions.
You're ready to start your story. Happy writing!