📖 User Manual

1. Create Your First Story

Click "+ New Story" in the navigation bar to open the creation wizard (7 steps):

1. Language & Form: choose the writing language and form (Novel / Story / Essay / Fairytale)
2. Genre: 29 options including Fantasy, Urban Warmth, Epic Fantasy, Hard Sci-Fi, Mystery Adventure, Comedy
3. Mood: 15 options including Relaxing, Power Fantasy, Bedtime Calm, Comedy, Suspense
4. Protagonist Traits: pick 2-4 tags (Brave, Cautious, Optimistic, Hot-blooded, Gentle, Humorous, ...)
5. Story Settings: narrative perspective (First / Third person / Multi-POV), length (Short 5-15 ch / Medium 15-40 ch / Long 40-100 ch / Epic 100+ ch), words per chapter (1500 / 2000 / 2500 / 3000 / 5000)
6. Your Idea: free-text inspiration, can be left empty
7. Confirm: click "Generate Story Architecture" → review on the confirmation page → click "Create Story"

You can also use "Quick Start": write one sentence (at least 3 characters) and the AI auto-fills genre, mood, length, title and synopsis, then the Architect Assistant interviews you to finish the settings.

2. Generate a Chapter

1. Go to the story reading page and click the "Generate Next Chapter" button in the bottom right
2. The AI automatically reads the story bible, character profiles, foreshadowing ledger, and recent chapter summaries to generate the new chapter
3. You can watch the text stream in real time as it's generated (SSE streaming)
4. The page refreshes automatically once generation is complete, showing the full chapter

🎛️ Options Before Generating

• 💬 Send Instruction & Generate / 📝 Generate Directly: the former lets you write an instruction first, the latter generates immediately
• Impact Range: This chapter only / Next 3 ch / Next 5 ch / Long-term (10 ch); default is 3
• 🧠 Thinking Level: Off / Low / Medium / High — higher means deeper reasoning (and slower)
• 📋 Plan: when on, a chapter plan is generated first for your approval
• 🤔 Reflection: when on, the AI self-evaluates after generating
• 📚 Enrich: automatically enriches the story bible; interval configurable (1-20 chapters, default 3)

3. Interactive Novels (readers choose the story direction)

Interactive novels are a flagship feature of FlowDream Stories: instead of a fixed plot, each chapter ends with readers voting on what happens next, and the AI generates the corresponding new chapter — different readers choosing different directions branch into different "parallel worlds."

1. Browse the work list in FlowDream Space — anything tagged 🌿 Interactive is an interactive novel
2. After finishing a chapter, a "Choose a Direction" panel pops up at the bottom of the page with 2-3 specific directions the AI generated based on the plot
3. Besides the AI-suggested directions, there are two fixed options: 📝 Let AI Continue (no specific direction, let the AI continue freely) and ✍️ Custom Input (type your own instruction for what happens next)
4. After you pick a direction the AI generates the new chapter in real time. If another reader already explored that direction, you are taken straight to the existing content — no regeneration and no extra points.

🌌 Multiverse Compass & Branch Map

In the reading page sidebar you can see:

• Branch Map: which branch worlds the story has split into so far, and how far each world has been written
• Multiverse Compass: the path of choices you've made ("Your Journey"), plus other parallel worlds you haven't explored yet
• Clicking a branch world's title takes you to a dedicated graph page showing the whole story family as a swimlane diagram, along with an AI-generated summary of "how this branch differs from the others"

🎉 Positive Feedback & Achievements

At key moments, the page pops up gamified, instant feedback:

• 🔍 Foreshadowing resolved: this chapter genuinely paid off a foreshadow planted earlier
• 🎯 Key plot point reached: the chapter advanced a key event from the outline
• 🌟 Rare discovery: very few readers have explored the branch path you're on
• 📕 Volume Goal / Clear: complete a volume's arc / reach a stage ending

Click the 🏆 trophy icon on the reading page to open "My Achievements" and review everything you have unlocked.

💬 Community

• Bookmark: save a work and view it under "My Bookmarks"
• Comment: leave a comment on a work, up to 2000 characters
• React: send a chapter ❤️ love / 👏 applause
• 🔥 Urge Update: nudge the author to update. Each user can urge the same work once every 24 hours; the author gets a notification

4. Guide What the AI Writes (SAY Command)

Type an instruction in the input box at the bottom of the reading page to tell the AI how you want the story to develop:

• Plot direction: "Give the protagonist a moral dilemma"
• Character adjustment: "Yun Qianyue should be more proactive"
• Pacing control: "Keep this chapter light, not too heavy"
• Foreshadow payoff: "Remember to pay off the key foreshadowed in Chapter 3"

5. Chapter Planning

You can enable "Chapter Planning" in the story settings. Once enabled:

1. The AI drafts a plan before generating, showing this chapter's goal, key events, and pacing suggestions
2. You can confirm, edit, or skip the plan
3. Once confirmed, the AI generates according to the plan, giving more consistent quality

6. Story Bible (Worldbuilding Management)

You can expand the "Story Bible" panel on the left or bottom of the reading page, which includes:

• Worldbuilding: era, geography, special rules
• Power system: cultivation realms, ability settings
• Factions/Organizations: each faction's stance and relationships
• Character profiles: personality, desires, secrets, relationship web
• Foreshadowing ledger: planted, pending payoff, resolved

7. FlowDream Assistant (AI Chat)

Open the FlowDream Assistant via the chat button in the bottom right of the reading page. You can:

• Discuss the plot — story direction, character development, revision advice
• Look up story details ("What happened in chapter 5?")
• Edit chapter content ("Make the fight in chapter 8 more intense")
• Manage settings: character profiles, foreshadow ledger, story bible, entities (techniques / realms / factions / items / locations) and outline
• Answer platform questions: how features work, how points are charged, membership benefits, top-ups and refunds, what an error means
• Distill next-chapter instructions: after analysing the story, condense the advice into 1-3 instructions that apply directly when you generate the next chapter

8. Revision & Reflection

• Rewrite: click 🤖 "AI Rewrite" in the table of contents and the AI regenerates the chapter based on reflection advice. Quick tags: lighter mood, slow down, speed up, fix continuity, adjust characters, condense, fix reflection issues. Costs 1 point (2 if reflection also runs).
• Reflection: runs automatically after each chapter (can be disabled in story settings). The AI self-assesses pacing, character consistency and missed foreshadows. You can also trigger "Re-reflect" manually for 1 point.
• AI Analysis: tick several chapters in the table of contents and click "AI Analysis" to batch-extract structured data. 1 point per chapter, up to 10 chapters at a time.
• Re-extract Chapter Data: have the AI re-analyse a single chapter and extract foreshadows, characters and other structured data. Costs 1 point.

9. Chapter Management (Edit / Versions / Manual)

In the table of contents, every chapter has action buttons:

• ✏️ Edit: manually change the chapter title and text
• 🗑️ Delete: remove the chapter
• 📋 Version History: see every revision, with diff and restore to an older version
• 🤖 AI Rewrite: see "Rewrite & Reflection"
• ✍️ Manual Chapter: create a blank chapter and write it yourself — no points

10. Audiobook (Text-to-Speech)

Chapter pages have an audio player that turns chapters into speech, with per-chapter playback, batch audio generation and word-level sync highlighting.

Available voices: Xiaoxiao (lively female), Xiaoyi (gentle female), Yunjian (steady male), Yunxi (young male), Yunxia (mature female), plus English voices Jenny / Aria / Guy / Sonia / Ryan.

11. Share & Export

• Share Link: generate a link in story settings so anyone can read without logging in. Links last 30 days by default and can be revoked at any time by deleting or regenerating them.
• Export TXT: export the whole work; share pages also support exporting the full work or a single chapter as .txt, plus speech playback.
• Publish to Flow Dream Space: publish or unpublish chapter by chapter; published works appear in the public Flow Dream Space gallery.
• Copyright Proof: after each chapter the system computes a hash and chains it into a proof chain, evidencing creation time and content integrity. Download the evidence package from the work page; third parties can verify it on the verification page.

12. Finish, Postscript & Sequel

• When the story reaches a good stopping point, click "🏁 Finish" to end the main arc
• You can "Undo Completion" at any time to keep writing
• After completion, you can generate an "Afterword" summarizing the whole story and wrapping up character endings. Costs 2 points.
• You can also click "Write Sequel": the new story inherits the original's worldbuilding, characters and open foreshadows. Creating a sequel also costs 5 points.

13. Creation Points & Membership

💰 How to Get Creation Points

• New users get 50 creation points, and the first 30 AI operations are free
• Daily Check-in: check in once a day; rewards increase with consecutive days
• Membership Grant: Basic 100 / Premium 250 / Pro 600 points per month; unused points roll over 1 month
• Top-up (see the tiers below)
• Promotions: comeback rewards and more

📅 Daily Check-in

Check in once a day. Consecutive-day rewards increase: days 1-7 give 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4 and 5 points; from day 7 onward it is a flat 5 points per day. Missing a day resets the streak to day 1.

📊 Cost Overview

💳 Top-up Tiers

⭐ Membership Tiers

⏳ Point Expiry

• Top-up purchases: 6 months
• Membership grant: rolls over to the end of the following month
• Daily check-in: 7 days (use them promptly)
• Signup / admin grants: 30 days

14. FAQ

Q: What if I'm not happy with the generated content?

Use "Rewrite" and the AI regenerates the chapter based on reflection advice. You can also steer it with a SAY instruction beforehand, or ask the Flow Dream Assistant to edit a specific passage.

Q: Why did my character suddenly seem like a different person?

Long novels can suffer from character drift. Ask the Flow Dream Assistant to "check character consistency", or run AI Analysis; you can also have the assistant update character profiles so key traits and motivations are explicit.

Q: What if I run out of creation points?

Daily check-in earns points, members receive a monthly grant, and you can buy more in the Top-up Center or upgrade your membership for a larger grant.

Q: What does "insufficient points" mean?

It means you do not have enough creation points for this action. Check in, top up, or upgrade your membership and retry. The system checks your balance before charging and will not go negative.

Q: What should I do about "too many requests" or "too many people generating right now"?

The first means you hit the hourly request limit (60 for regular users, 120 for Premium/Pro); the second is system-wide concurrency queueing. Just retry shortly — Premium/Pro members get the priority queue.

Q: "This novel already has a generation task in progress"?

Only one generation task may run per novel at a time. Wait for the current task to finish before clicking "Generate Next Chapter"; refresh the page to check its status.

Q: I was charged but nothing was generated?

When generation fails, returns empty content, or the target chapter already exists, the system refunds the points automatically — check "Point History". If you confirm no refund was issued, contact us via "Feedback".

Q: I topped up but the points didn't arrive?

First refresh the page and check your balance in "Point History", then confirm the charge status with the payment provider. If you were definitely charged and the points still haven't arrived, submit "Feedback" with the payment time, amount and order ID.

Q: Why can't I generate new chapters any more?

There are three common causes: the story is marked as finished (unfinish it in story settings), you are out of creation points, or you have hit the story limit (10 for free users, 20 for Basic members).

Q: Is my data safe?

Passwords are stored encrypted, and every chapter is hashed into a proof chain evidencing creation time and content integrity. See the copyright proof scheme for details.

Q: Can I write multiple novels?

Yes. Free users get 10, Basic members 20, and Premium/Pro unlimited. Deleted works go to the recycle bin first, where you can restore or permanently delete them.