Add and edit characters

Add the people in your story yourself or from Ando's suggestions, then change their details whenever your story needs it.

Your story's characters live in its Characters tab. You can add each one yourself, which uses no credits, or ask Ando to suggest some, which uses AI credits. Either way, nothing is added until you say so, and you can change every character afterwards.

Ando reads your characters whenever it helps with your story, so the more you decide about them, the better it knows who they are.

Add a character yourself

Open your story and select the Characters tab.
Select Add character.
Fill in Name and Description. Those two are needed; everything else can wait.
Add whatever else you already know:
- Roles: what this character is to the story, such as Protagonist, Antagonist or Mentor. You can select more than one.
- Traits: short qualities, like "stubborn" or "secretive". Press Enter after each one.
- Goal, Motivation, Internal conflict, External conflict and Arc: what they want, why it matters to them, what stands in their way inside and out, and how they're different by the end.
Select Add character at the bottom.

Let Ando suggest characters

On the Creator and Pro plans, Ando can suggest characters from your story's plot. Each suggestion uses AI credits at the Balanced price. On the Free plan, the suggest buttons show a lock and open Plans.

A first cast

While your story has no characters, the Characters tab offers Suggest characters beside Add character.

Select Suggest characters. Ando's characters appear as they're written, each with a name and a short description. To stop, select the X beside Suggesting….
Read them through, then select the Add button, such as Add 4 characters, to add them all, or Discard to throw them all away.

You can't pick some and leave others, but you can edit or delete any of them once they're added. Suggested characters come with a name and a description; add their roles, traits and the rest yourself.

One more character

Select Add character, then Suggest a character.
Ando fills in Name and Description. If you'd already typed either, Storiando asks first: Keep mine leaves your words alone, Replace makes room for the suggestion.
Change anything you like, add the other details, then select Add character. Nothing is saved before that: Cancel leaves without adding anyone.

If you stop the suggestion, or Ando can't finish it, the name and description go back to what you had.

Improve a description

Below Description, Improve asks Ando to rework what you've written. It works on every plan and uses AI credits.

Write a description, then select Improve.
Ando's version appears in Improve your text. You can edit it there.
Select Replace my text to use it, or Discard to keep yours.
Select Add character or Save changes to save the character.

Edit a character

In the Characters tab, select the character's name.
Change anything in Edit character.
Select Save changes.

If you close the form before saving, Storiando asks whether to Keep editing or Discard changes. If a save doesn't go through, your changes stay in the form: check your connection and select Save changes again.

The Still to decide column shows which of Roles, Goal, Motivation and Arc a character is still missing, and says Detailed once they're all filled in.

Ask Ando to change a character

You can also ask Ando. In your story, select Ando and say what you'd like, such as "Fill in Tomas's motivation and arc". Each reply from Ando uses AI credits, and Ando says how many under its reply.

Ando answers with a card showing each detail it would change, Now and After this change. Your character doesn't change until you select Apply changes. Reject throws the proposal away, and Ask for changes lets you tell Ando what to adjust.

Ando's card proposing an arc for Tomas, with Apply changes highlighted beside Reject and Ask for changes

Once applied, Undo puts back what was there, as long as you haven't changed those details since.

Ando can change a character's details, but can't add or delete characters: do that in the Characters tab.

Relationships

If your story was created from a brainstorm, Relationships below the list shows how your characters stand towards each other. You can read them there, but not change them.

Delete a character

In the Characters tab, select the three dots at the end of the character's row.
Select Delete character, then Delete character again to confirm.

Deleting a character can't be undone. They're also taken out of the chapters in your outline that listed them, and out of their relationships. The words in your chapters stay exactly as you wrote them.