AI storytelling and illustration
How to use
NovelAI.
Developing fiction with controlled context, memory and lorebooks; exploring story branches; generating anime-inspired concept art; and maintaining private, exportable creative projects.
NovelAI is a Privacy-oriented AI storytelling and anime-style image generation platform with lore, memory, editing, and creative-control tools. Developing fiction with controlled context, memory and lorebooks; exploring story branches; generating anime-inspired concept art; and maintaining private, exportable creative projects. This guide covers the whole path in one place: official access, a first session that produces something reviewable, the checks that make output trustworthy, and the permissions worth limiting before you connect real work.
AI should make the work easier to inspect. If the workflow removes the source, the owner, or the review step, redesign the workflow.
Access & setup
Find, install, and sign in to NovelAI
Get into the official NovelAI experience with the right account and a setup you understand.
- 01
Start at https://novelai.net/ and confirm the domain before entering account or payment information.
- 02
Availability: NovelAI runs in a web browser as a subscription service, with encrypted remote story storage, local export, session-based image history, and an isolated scripting API for extensions.
- 03
A modern browser and account, a suitable subscription and Anlas balance, secure credentials and recovery planning, rights to references and shared lore, local backups, and editorial review.
- 04
Sign in with the account you intend to keep using, then review plan, data, notification, and permission settings.
- 05
Run one low-risk test task before connecting sensitive files, repositories, or workspace data.
- Use official download pages.
- Review permissions during setup.
- Keep installers and applications updated.
First session
Your first useful NovelAI session
Learn the interaction loop using a small task with a clear outcome.
- 01
Create a brief for genre, viewpoint, characters, setting, tone, boundaries, canon, audience, ownership, and the exact role AI may play.
- 02
Start a locally backed-up story, keep authoritative facts in Memory or a carefully keyed Lorebook, and provide a short human-written opening rather than an entire private archive.
- 03
Generate one continuation at a time, edit it into your own voice, and track contradictions, repetition, unsafe content, accidental similarity, and canon changes.
- 04
Export versioned story and plain-text backups, fact-check real claims, complete originality and sensitivity review, and never publish raw model output as finished authorship.
- State the outcome before the background.
- Provide the real source material.
- Review the result before expanding the task.
Quality control
Check the quality of NovelAI output
Turn a promising generation into an asset you can legally and safely ship.
- 01
Restate the brief, the deliverable format, and where the asset will appear before judging any output.
- 02
Inspect at full resolution: generated media hides its errors at thumbnail size.
- 03
Check the details these systems reliably get wrong — hands, text, logos, reflections, symmetry, and edge artefacts.
- 04
Confirm the licence and commercial-use terms for your plan, and check the output does not reproduce a recognisable style, mark, or likeness you have no right to use.
- 05
Review for accessibility and delivery: alt text, contrast, colour profile, file size, and the exact export format.
- Inspect at full resolution before approving anything.
- Confirm commercial-use rights before an asset reaches a client.
- Keep the prompt and settings with the asset so it can be reproduced.
Privacy & permissions
Use NovelAI safely
Use the platform without surrendering rights, likenesses, or client material you do not control.
- 01
Confirm you hold the rights to every reference image, voice, or clip before uploading it.
- 02
Check whether your plan trains on submitted content, and opt out before uploading client work.
- 03
Never upload a real person's likeness or voice without their explicit, documented consent.
- 04
Review the output for marks, styles, or likenesses you have no licence to reproduce.
- 05
Label synthetic media where your client, platform, or jurisdiction requires disclosure.
- Generated prose and images can reproduce clichés, stereotypes, signatures, recognizable characters, or material too similar to existing work. NovelAI's privacy model does not replace backups: forgotten credentials can make encrypted stories unrecoverable, deleted stories cannot be restored, and unsaved image sessions disappear. Preserve metadata when reproducibility matters, clear rights for references and sharing, review Explore uploads carefully, and keep human editorial ownership.
- Follow your organisation's approved-use policy.
- Never treat fluent output as authorization to act.
Core workflows
Step-by-step ways to use NovelAI for the work it does best.
Each workflow below has its own outcome, steps and review checkpoints.
Use Memory, Author's Note, and keyed lore as controlled context while keeping canon and final prose under human authorship.
↓ 02 WorkflowCreate a reproducible NovelAI character conceptDevelop an original visual character with controlled tags, seed, references, metadata, rights, and manual art direction.
↓Workflow 01
Develop a consistent story with NovelAI Lorebook
Use Memory, Author's Note, and keyed lore as controlled context while keeping canon and final prose under human authorship.
Outcome: Build a coherent draft that can survive revision, backup, and continuity review without uncontrolled context growth.
- 01
Write the premise, audience, viewpoint, tense, tone, boundaries, character arcs, canon, originality goals, and the exact role of generated text.
- 02
Create concise canonical Memory and Lorebook entries with unique activation keys, separating fixed facts from tentative ideas and sensitive private notes.
- 03
Begin from human-written prose, generate one beat at a time, inspect active context, and edit every continuation into the intended voice before moving on.
- 04
Track contradictions, repetition, characterization, pacing, stereotypes, factual claims, accidental similarity, and lore activation errors in a continuity log.
- 05
Export versioned story, scenario, lorebook, and plaintext backups, complete originality and sensitivity review, and retain human editorial responsibility for the final work.
What good use looks like
- Keep lore concise and canonical.
- Generate one narrative beat at a time.
- Export backups outside the service.
Workflow 02
Create a reproducible NovelAI character concept
Develop an original visual character with controlled tags, seed, references, metadata, rights, and manual art direction.
Outcome: Produce an attributable concept sheet whose important design choices can be reproduced and legally reviewed.
- 01
Define the original character, silhouettes, palette, clothing, expressions, poses, views, exclusions, audience, reference rights, and similarity limits.
- 02
Choose the model and aspect ratio, use structured lower-case tags or natural language as documented, add undesired content, and generate a small exploratory set.
- 03
Select by design rather than polish, record seed and settings, and vary one controlled element at a time using reference or inpainting only with authorized inputs.
- 04
Review anatomy, identity drift, text and signatures, protected-character similarity, stereotypes, costume continuity, artifacts, and every reference's influence.
- 05
Save through the metadata-preserving control, export the session before leaving, refine manually, document generation, and complete rights and publication review.
What good use looks like
- Save with embedded metadata.
- Change one variable per iteration.
- Avoid recognizable protected characters.
Official references
Check the current product documentation.
Features, plan limits, availability, and data controls change. These official pages are the starting points used for this guide.