This guide is for users who have completed at least one book using the Guided View and want more control. Dashboard View gives you direct access to every feature SteamyForge offers — the series bible editor, the chapter planner, individual chapter editing with revision notes, draft comparison, bible extraction from manuscripts, and more.
If you haven't used SteamyForge before, start with the Getting Started Guide first. This guide assumes you already understand the basic flow: trope → setting → heat → premise → plan → write → export.
To switch to Dashboard View, click Dashboard View in the top navigation bar. You can switch back to Guided View at any time — your work is preserved across both views.
When you first sign in, SteamyForge auto-creates a default series called "My Series." You can rename it or create additional series from the home screen.
In Dashboard View, click ＋ New Book in the sidebar. A modal appears with two tabs:
Uses the same trope/setting/heat card system as the Guided View. Fills in genre DNA automatically.
Manual entry: title, premise, chapter count, word count target, and optional trope/setting/heat dropdowns. For users who know exactly what they want.
Each book stores its own trope, setting, and heat level. These choices determine which genre DNA (the writing rules and conventions) the AI follows when generating chapters. Once set, they apply to every generation for that book.
Click any book in the sidebar to see its overview. This shows the title (editable), premise (editable), chapter/draft/word count stats, a progress bar, and the current stage with a call-to-action for the next step. Below the stats, all chapters are listed as cards showing their title, POV, plot notes preview, word count, and batch writing status.
The series bible is the most powerful feature in SteamyForge. It stores every character, location, voice note, world rule, and series summary. Every time a chapter is generated, the entire bible is included in the AI's context — ensuring consistent characters, locations, and world rules across your entire manuscript.
Access the bible by clicking 📖 in the sidebar footer or navigating to the Bible view.
Click ＋ Add next to Characters or Locations. Fill in the fields and save. Best for new books where you're building the world from scratch.
When you approve a chapter plan, SteamyForge automatically generates a bible from the plan and premise. This creates initial character and location entries that you can then edit and expand.
Click ✨ Extract from Text in the Bible toolbar. Upload a .docx manuscript or paste text. SteamyForge runs a multi-pass extraction pipeline: it preprocesses the text to find character and location-relevant passages, sends them to the AI in chunks, extracts all characters, locations, voice notes, and rules, then runs a consolidation pass to merge duplicates.
This typically takes 5–20 minutes depending on manuscript length. A progress panel shows each stage.
Click ⬆ Import JSON to load a bible exported from another SteamyForge project, StoryAdapt, NovelProof, or any tool that exports in the same JSON format.
Access the planner by clicking 📋 in the sidebar footer or navigating from the book overview. The planner gives you full control over every chapter's structure before any prose is generated.
At the top of the planner, you'll find input fields that shape the plan generation:
Click ✨ Generate Plan to create a chapter-by-chapter plan. The AI (DeepSeek Reasoner) analyses your premise, outline, and bible to produce a structured plan. This typically takes 30–90 seconds.
Each chapter in the plan is displayed as an expandable card. Click Edit on any chapter to modify its title, POV, summary, beats, or tone. Your edits are saved automatically.
Each chapter has a Plan Approved checkbox. You can approve chapters individually or use ✓ Approve All Chapters to approve everything at once. No chapters are written until approved. You can unapprove any chapter at any time before its draft is generated.
If the plan isn't right, type your feedback into the feedback field and click Regenerate with Feedback. SteamyForge regenerates the plan but preserves any chapters you've already approved. Only unapproved chapters are replaced. This lets you lock in chapters you like and iterate on the rest.
Click Import Chapter Guides to load a JSON file from StoryAdapt or another planning tool. The imported guides replace the existing plan for the current book. Supported formats: SteamyForge export format and StoryAdapt chapter guide format.
Click any chapter in the sidebar or on the book overview to open it in the chapter editing view. This is the most detailed view in SteamyForge — it gives you full control over a single chapter.
At the top of the chapter view, above the tabs, you'll find three controls:
POV — dropdown to select which character's perspective this chapter is told from. Populated from your bible's character list.
Target Words — the word count target for this chapter. Default is 3,500. The AI targets this length but output may vary by ±500 words.
Emotional Tone — free text describing the mood: "tense and yearning", "playful banter", "dark and desperate", "quiet intimacy." This shapes the AI's prose register.
Each chapter has three draft slots: Draft 1, Draft 2, Draft 3. The first generation fills Draft 1. If you reject a draft, the next generation fills the next available slot. You can switch between drafts using the slot buttons in the draft toolbar to compare versions.
The active draft is always editable — you can manually edit any word, sentence, or paragraph directly in the text area. Changes are saved automatically.
Click ✨ Generate Draft in the Draft tab. The chapter generates with live streaming — you see the text appear word by word in real time. Typical generation time is 60–120 seconds per chapter.
The AI uses everything available: your plot notes, beats, characters, location, extra context, the series bible, prior chapter summaries, and the POV/tone/target word settings.
Click 📝 Auto-Summary to generate a 2–3 sentence continuity summary of the chapter. This summary is automatically created after batch generation, but you can trigger it manually too. Summaries feed into subsequent chapters as "Prior Context" so the AI maintains story continuity.
Batch generation writes all eligible chapters sequentially. An "eligible" chapter is one that has plot notes but no draft yet. Chapters that already have drafts are skipped.
Start batch generation from the book overview (⚡ Write All Chapters →) or from the planner (⚡ Approve All & Start Writing →).
After each chapter, SteamyForge automatically generates a continuity summary. This means chapter 20 has full context from chapters 1–19 — not just the plan, but what actually happened in the generated prose.
After a chapter is drafted, you have three options: approve it, edit it manually, or reject it with revision notes.
Click 🔍 Review in the draft toolbar to run an AI-powered continuity review. SteamyForge checks the chapter against the series bible and prior chapters, looking for inconsistencies, continuity errors, character voice issues, and pacing problems. Results appear as cards below the draft, categorised by severity (error, warning, suggestion).
Click ✓ Approve to mark the current draft as approved. Approved chapters are included in the manuscript export. You can unapprove at any time.
If a draft isn't right, write your revision notes in the Revision Notes field below the draft. Be specific about what to fix — "The hero's dialogue feels too modern for a Victorian setting" or "The sex scene is too short, expand the foreplay" or "She already knows his secret from Chapter 8, remove the surprise reveal."
Then click Reject & Generate Next Draft. SteamyForge generates a new draft in the next available slot, incorporating your revision notes. The previous draft is preserved so you can compare.
SteamyForge is built for series from the ground up. Here's how the multi-book workflow operates:
After exporting your manuscript, SteamyForge offers to generate a bible update. This analyses all chapter summaries and proposes changes: new characters introduced, relationship changes, new locations, and a book summary for the continuity record. Review the proposals, accept them, and your bible is updated with everything from Book 1.
Click ＋ New Book in the sidebar. The new book shares the same series bible — all characters, locations, rules, and the running series summary from Book 1 are already present. When chapters are generated for Book 2, the AI has full context from Book 1's events.
While the bible is shared, each book has its own genre DNA. Book 1 can be enemies-to-lovers mafia, and Book 2 can be second-chance contemporary — different tropes, same universe, same characters carrying forward.
Each book you purchase comes with generation limits per feature. These limits are generous and designed to cover normal usage plus revisions.
Generation counters appear as small badges next to each generation button, showing remaining uses (e.g., "2 of 3 remaining"). When a limit is reached, the button is disabled and shows "Limit reached."
The richest bibles produce the richest output. Before generating chapters, flesh out your character entries with specific physical descriptions (not just "tall" — how tall, what build, what distinguishing features), speech patterns (does he use short sentences? does she swear?), and relationships. Add locations with atmosphere and sensory detail. The time you invest in the bible pays dividends in every chapter.
The Extra Context field on each chapter is your direct line to the AI for that specific chapter. Use it for one-off instructions: "Plant a clue about the poisoned wine here but don't reveal it" or "This chapter should mirror the structure of Chapter 3 but with reversed power dynamics" or "She's wearing the red dress from Chapter 12 — describe it again briefly."
Chapter beats don't have to be sparse. You can write detailed beat descriptions: "They argue about the contract — she accuses him of manipulating the terms, he admits it but says it was to protect her — she walks out but stops at the door — he says the one thing that makes her stay." The AI follows the beats in order.
Click "Optimize My Premise" on the planner page before generating a plan. The optimizer catches contradictions, vague elements, and missing genre requirements. A premise that passes optimization produces a tighter plan with fewer issues to fix later.
When regenerating a plan with feedback, approve the chapters you're happy with first. The regenerator preserves approved chapters and only rewrites unapproved ones. This lets you iterate on weak sections without losing strong ones.
The rejection/revision flow is essentially developmental editing. You read a chapter, identify what doesn't work, write specific notes, and get a revised draft. This is the same process a human developmental editor uses — the difference is you get the revision in 90 seconds instead of two weeks.
SteamyForge produces a strong first draft. The best published books then go through a human editing pass. Read through your manuscript, adjust character voice, smooth transitions, fix any name inconsistencies, and add your personal touches. The AI provides the foundation — you provide the polish.
Before regenerating a plan, clearing a bible, or starting a new extraction — click 💾 Backup. The JSON export takes seconds and can save hours if something goes wrong.
If you have specific character names in mind, include them in your premise. SteamyForge always respects names you've chosen. If you leave naming to the AI, it selects from curated decade-appropriate name pools, but including your preferred names ensures exactly the characters you want.
Guided View and Dashboard View show the same data in different layouts. You can start a book in Guided View, switch to Dashboard to fine-tune the bible, go back to Guided to watch batch generation with the progress cards, then switch to Dashboard to do chapter-level revisions. Your work is always preserved across both views.