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 ThrillerForge 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 ThrillerForge before, start with the Getting Started Guide first. This guide assumes you already understand the basic flow: subgenre → plot engine → 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, ThrillerForge 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 subgenre/plot engine card system as the Guided View. Fills in genre DNA automatically.
Manual entry: title, premise, chapter count, word count target, and optional subgenre/plot engine dropdowns. For users who know exactly what they want.
Each book stores its own subgenre and plot engine. These choices determine which genre DNA (the writing rules and thriller 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 a core feature of ThrillerForge. It stores characters, locations, voice notes, world rules, and series summaries. Every time a chapter is generated, the bible is included in the AI's context to help maintain consistent characters, locations, and world rules across your 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, ThrillerForge 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. ThrillerForge 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 ThrillerForge 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 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. ThrillerForge 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.
Each chapter card has a ✕ delete button. Click it to remove a chapter from the plan entirely. Use this to trim chapters that don't serve the story.
Click ↻ Reject All & Regenerate to discard the entire plan and regenerate from scratch. The chapter count and word count fields at the top of the plan review screen are editable — adjust them before clicking Reject All to get a plan with different parameters.
Click ← Start Over to go back to the premise screen. Your premise is preserved — you can adjust your settings, trope, or story details and try again.
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: ThrillerForge 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 ThrillerForge — 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, ThrillerForge 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. ThrillerForge 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 detective's reasoning feels too convenient — add more misdirection" or "The chase scene is too short, build more tension" or "The reader already knows the killer from Chapter 8, remove the false reveal."
Then click Reject & Generate Next Draft. ThrillerForge generates a new draft in the next available slot, incorporating your revision notes. The previous draft is preserved so you can compare.
ThrillerForge is built for series from the ground up. Here's how the multi-book workflow operates:
After exporting your manuscript, ThrillerForge 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 a psychological whodunit, and Book 2 can be a crime thriller with a race-against-time engine — different subgenres, same universe, same characters carrying forward.
Each book 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 missing evidence here but don't reveal it" or "This chapter should mirror the structure of Chapter 3 but from the antagonist's perspective" or "The detective notices the same car from Chapter 12 — mention it in passing."
Chapter beats don't have to be sparse. You can write detailed beat descriptions: "The detective confronts the suspect — she presents the evidence, he deflects with an alibi — she finds a crack in the alibi — he panics and makes a call that she overhears — she now knows he's connected but can't prove it yet." 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.
ThrillerForge 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. The engine will generally use names you've specified, though occasional variations may occur.* If you leave naming to the AI, it selects from curated name pools, but including your preferred names gives you the best chance of getting 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.
ThrillerForge is powered by AI technology. While the engine is designed to produce high-quality, consistent output, AI-generated content is inherently unpredictable. Results may vary between generations, and the engine may occasionally produce output that deviates from your instructions — including incorrect character names, inconsistent plot details, unexpected chapter lengths, or content that doesn't match your specified subgenre or plot engine.
All AI-generated content should be reviewed and edited by the user before publishing. ThrillerForge is a drafting tool, not a finished-manuscript generator. The user is responsible for the final quality of any published work.
Generation caps, pricing, features, and AI behaviour are subject to change. Empathy Tech Solutions LLC makes no guarantees regarding the specific output, quality, or consistency of AI-generated content.