How to plot a manga with AI

One plot per work, built with scene cards

Each work (main story) or character story has one plot. Open it from "Plot" in the left menu.

It has two levels: the design of the whole work, and scene cards for each episode. On a scene card you write the scene name, what happens there, what changes in that scene, foreshadowing and so on. Cards can be reordered by dragging, and every edit is kept in the history, so you can go back to an earlier version with "Restore this version".

Decide first: "What makes this work enjoyable" and "Aim in one sentence"

Before thinking about scenes, choose "what you want readers to enjoy", separately from the genre. Even within romance, for example, a story enjoyed for its slow-burn frustration and one enjoyed for the ache of missed connections need completely different scenes. The appeal you choose here becomes the lens for the AI's suggestions and checks.

Next, write an "Aim in one sentence" that sums up the work (e.g. "A guarded lead slowly opens up only to the one person who never pushes"). Put conditions you want the AI to know in "Constraints", and lines or appearances you never want changed in "Pins". The AI cannot change pinned lines and appearances.

Have AI suggest ideas: drafts, scene breakdowns and deepening

The plot screen has a full set of actions for getting ideas from AI. AI results appear as proposals, and you choose "Adopt" or "Dismiss", so nothing is rewritten without your say.

• "Draft from characters": from your registered characters, it creates the work's appeal, a rough arc and the scene cards for episode 1 (8 to 12 cards)
• "Break episode into scenes": splits the flow of one episode into 8 to 12 scene cards
• "Add a scene after this", "Deepen" and "Continue": fill gaps between scenes, deepen a single scene, or have the AI think up what comes next
• "Alternatives": lines up two or three takes on the same scene so you can adopt the best one

Start from a synopsis or novel you already have

If you already have a synopsis, notes or a novel, paste it into "Build a plot from text" (up to 20,000 characters). What is written is transferred into the work's appeal, arc and scene cards. The AI does not add anything that is not written. Fill in missing scenes afterwards by deepening or adding.

Have AI check the "connections"

Once the scenes are in place, use "Check this episode" or "Check the whole plot" to have AI read the flow of the story. It looks at character motivation, emotional leaps, payoff of foreshadowing, the order in which information is revealed, whether the appeal you chose comes through, and whether the constraints are kept.

The check does not give a score. It returns up to 10 notes, split into "Worth fixing" and "Fine if intentional". You do not need to fix leaps you put there on purpose.

From plot to name: storyboard and panel layout

When the plot of a work (main story) is settled, use "Copy to a manga episode" to copy the title and synopsis into a manga episode. This is free and does not use AI. After revising the plot, you can overwrite it with "Recopy synopsis".

The word "name" does not appear on CromStudio's screens, but what corresponds to the name is the storyboard, which splits the episode into a page-by-page flow, and the panel layout and composition for each page. You can have AI draft the storyboard from the synopsis or write it yourself. How to lay out panels is explained in "How to lay out manga panels with AI".

From a work's plot you can also go to "Write screenplay" to create a screenplay that serves as the basis for anime and more (this uses AI, so it costs coins). From a character story's plot, "Create this episode's manuscript" creates the manuscript for a story with choices.