While creating your book, you can manually add custom characters directly into your story. This allows you to create unique characters on the fly, customize their details, and keep them saved for future books.
In the Create Your Characters and Cover step, Scrively gives you the option to manually add your own characters. To begin, click “Add a Character.”
Select "Add Manually."
Add your character's name.
You can either manually enter a character description or click “AI Suggest” to let Scrively generate one for you.
💡 Tip: Your character's appearance (such as skin tone, hair color, clothing, height, and age) is already defined by their profile image. Use the Character Description to explain their personality, role, goals, or unique traits that help drive the story instead.
✅ Good: "A curious young inventor who loves solving puzzles and never gives up."
❌ Avoid: "A tall girl with brown hair, blue eyes, and a red shirt."
A character type will be automatically set based on the provided name or image which can be adjusted.
Upload the character's photo.
⚠️ For manually added characters: Upload a profile image containing a single person or character only. Avoid images with multiple people, characters, or group scenes to ensure the best results.
If needed zoom in/out of the image.
Click and drag the crop box to choose which part of the image you want to focus on.
When you're ready click on "Save."
Select who's in the image to help us tailor your experience.
Click on "Drawing Style."
⚠️ The Starter plan includes one style. One-time purchases include one style in each category. The Plus plan includes three styles per category, while the Pro plan unlocks all styles.
Browse through the available categories.
Hover over the drawing style to reveal and click on the enlarge tool.
Once selected, you’ll see a full-size preview of the drawing style.
Click on "Continue."
If you only want to change the drawing style of the character click on "Apply Style."
⚠️ When you change an uploaded character's style, that style will be preserved when the character is added to a book, even if the book uses a different style. If you want the character to match the book's style, do not modify the character style here.
Optional: Toggle on the option to change the character's appearance.
Add the details for the change you would like Scrively to apply.
Click on "Apply."
Give Scrively a few moments to process the change.
The requested edit will be applied to the character.
Not happy with the edit? Click on "Undo."
Optional: Click “Save to My Characters for Future Use” to add this character to your character library.
Click on "Add Character."
If you're adding a character to an existing book you will get a notification that the story will be updated to include the new character. The cover, illustrations and back-cover will be updated. You can tweak the title and description if needed.
Congratulations! Your character has been created and will now appear in your characters list. Hover over the character's image to reveal the enlarge tool.
Click to view a full-size image of the character.
Not happy with how the character turned out and want to try another image? Click on “Edit character.”
Hover over the character's image then click on "Replace photo" to select the new image.
⚠️ Each character includes 2 free replacement or regeneration credits. If additional regenerations are
needed, you can purchase a Magic Brush regeneration pack.
To view available packs and pricing, select the "Magic Brush" button located at the top right of the app.
The Magic Brush regeneration packs will be displayed along with pricing.
When purchasing Magic Brush credits, you'll be shown the purchase details before completing your order. Review the information, then click "Confirm Purchase" to proceed and add the credits to your account.
