# Writing style

> Choose how a character's replies are written — perspective, length, markup and prose — or leave it to the character card.

Source: https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/writing-style
Language: en

Every character already writes in a style of its own: its description, greeting and example dialogue set the voice. **Writing Style** lets you choose a different one. Anything you leave on **Auto** keeps following the card; anything you set wins over it.

Open it from **Side panel → Settings → Replies & Generation → Writing Style**. The row shows the style in use and the settings it changes.

## This character or all characters \[#this-character-or-all-characters]

The switch at the top of the dialog picks what you are editing:

| Tab                | What it changes                                                            |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **This character** | Every chat you have with this character.                                   |
| **All characters** | Your default. Each character uses it wherever its own setting is **Auto**. |

A line set to **Auto** on **This character** shows the default it falls back to, as \*\*Auto · your default: …\*\*. Standing requests add up rather than replace each other: your default's requests apply alongside the character's own.

A change applies from the next reply. Messages already in the chat are not rewritten.

## Presets \[#presets]

Pick one to set several lines at once, then fine-tune whatever you like. Picking a preset shows a short sample of it and the lines it sets, right below its group. Changing a line afterwards marks the preset **Adjusted**.

**Auto** follows the character card and its example dialogue. The rest come in three groups.

| Form               | What it does                                                      |
| ------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Cinematic**      | Concrete detail and present tense, so you can picture every move. |
| **Dialogue First** | Short and plain, mostly talking; reads well on a phone.           |
| **First Person**   | The character narrates as "I", in a voice that is theirs.         |
| **Novel**          | Past tense, literary prose without asterisks, long replies.       |
| **Light Novel**    | Lively dialogue, quick reactions, clean paragraphs.               |
| **Classical**      | Elegant, concise phrasing with seasonal imagery.                  |

| Mood           | What it does                                               |
| -------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Restrained** | Understated realism; feelings show through what people do. |
| **Cozy**       | Warm and unhurried; small everyday moments matter.         |
| **Comedic**    | Quick banter, deadpan reactions, well-timed punchlines.    |
| **Action**     | Kinetic scenes in short, easy-to-follow beats.             |
| **Slow Burn**  | Tension over release; closeness is earned.                 |
| **Suspense**   | The mundane first, then dread creeps in.                   |
| **Grimdark**   | Bleak and unsentimental; no plot armor.                    |

**Mature (18+)** holds **Tender**, **Sensual** and **Passionate**. The group is listed for 18+ characters, and on **All characters** when 18+ content is turned on. These presets write intimate scenes explicitly. Their wording reaches only chats with an 18+ character; anywhere else, a default set to one of them keeps only its fine-tune lines.

## From a work or a description \[#from-a-work-or-a-description]

**Extract style**, beside **Presets** and **Style library** at the top of the dialog, turns your own words into a style:

* **Describe it** — for example *like Murakami, detached and quiet, short sentences, lots of dialogue*.
* **Paste a passage** — a piece of writing whose style you want to borrow.

The **Extract style** button fills in the controls below, **Markup** set to match its sample, and the **Style notes**, and shows the style it found with a short sample. Only the style is kept: the passage you pasted never goes into your chat. With 18+ content on, a mature passage is analyzed and sampled as explicitly as it is written; with it off, the result stays non-graphic. Extraction is an AI call; the badge beside the button shows what it costs you. With 18+ content on, a sexual passage takes a second call after the analysis, which writes its sample.

## Style library \[#style-library]

**Style library** holds the same saved styles as [novel writing styles](https://reverie.im/en/docs/writing/writing-styles): **My styles** and **Shared styles**. **Use** applies one; **Save the current style** stores what you have, as **Private**, **Link only** or **Public**, so you can reuse it in other chats and in novels.

A chat keeps a copy of the style it uses. Editing or deleting the saved style later does not change it.

Delete a style of yours from **My styles** with its bin button; chats and novels that use it keep their copy. A shared style the platform finds sexual is listed and usable only for accounts with 18+ content turned on.

## Style notes \[#style-notes]

A style you extract or use from the library also carries written guidance: a **Style description**, its **Tone**, what to **Avoid**, and a **Sample**: a short passage in the style, written for a different story. **Style notes** shows it folded to the description and tone, with **Show more** opening every field, and every reply follows it, so you can correct what an extraction got wrong or add to it. Replies learn how the sample is written, never what happens in it. Presets keep their guidance built in, so they don't show it.

An 18+ sample, like the 18+ presets, reaches only chats with an 18+ character.

## Fine-tune \[#fine-tune]

| Line            | Options                                                               |
| --------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Perspective** | Auto · First person · Third person                                    |
| **Length**      | Auto · Short · Medium · Long                                          |
| **Markup**      | Auto · \*Actions\* and "speech" · Novel prose · Speech with (actions) |
| **Tense**       | Auto · Present · Past                                                 |
| **Dialogue**    | Auto · Less talking · More talking                                    |
| **Description** | Auto · Lean · Rich                                                    |

**Description** sets detail, sentence rhythm, imagery and pacing together. A preset or extracted style with its own combination shows **Set by the style** until you pick a level.

With **Perspective** on **Auto**, the character keeps the perspective its greeting and example dialogue use, and writes in the third person when they set none.

> **Cards with their own reply format.** Some characters come with a format
> of their own, such as a status panel under each reply. **Markup** then only
> changes how narration and dialogue are written; the card's panels and
> sections stay.

## Standing requests \[#standing-requests]

**Standing requests** (up to 2,000 characters) ride along with every reply: a quirk to keep, a topic to avoid, a tone to lean into. They don't replace the character or its card, and they can't ask the character to write your own lines or decisions for you.

## Try it on this chat \[#try-it-on-this-chat]

**Try it on this chat**, at the bottom of the dialog, shows what the style does before you save it. **Write a preview** writes the chat's next reply with the settings as they stand, both tabs together, the way the chat would combine them. If the character has already answered your last message, the preview is a new take on that reply; in a chat you haven't written in yet, it is the character's next message after the greeting. When it is a new take, **New style** and **Current reply** switch between the two in the same box, so you can compare them without closing the dialog.

Nothing is sent to the chat or saved, and the preview leaves out your memories and world books, so it shows how the reply is written rather than everything it would know. It uses the model selected for the chat, and the badge beside the button shows what it costs you. It isn't offered in group chats or in voice calls.

## Where it applies \[#where-it-applies]

* **Group chats** use the style of the conversation's main character. **Perspective** follows the group's own rule (third person unless you ask otherwise for a turn).
* **Voice calls** use only your standing requests; the rest of the style is for written replies.
* **Discord and Telegram**: your style applies in your private chat with the bot once your account is linked. Servers and group chats are shared with other people, so they keep the character's own style.
* **Slash commands** such as `/length: short` or `/pov: first person` override the style for a single turn. [Slash commands](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/slash-commands)

## Related \[#related]

* [Side panel](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/side-panel) — every other chat setting
* [Writing styles for novels](https://reverie.im/en/docs/writing/writing-styles) — the same library, used for novels