How to Edit and Manage Your Lorebook

The Lorebook is the AI's memory of your story. It tracks what happened, who's in it, and what components you've attached. But a lot of users aren't sure what they can change, whether edits stick, or when they should step in and manage it themselves.

Here's the full picture.

Open Your Lorebook

Open any story and look for the Lorebook button in the top bar. It opens a panel with three tabs: Summary, Characters, and Components (Components only shows if you've attached non-character components).

Edit Summaries to Shape the AI's Memory

This is a chapter-by-chapter record of what happened in your story. The AI reads these summaries when generating new chapters so it can reference earlier events.

How summaries work:

• RedQuill auto-generates a summary for each chapter after you write it
• Summaries appear in chronological order
• Each one has an editable text field

Can I edit summaries? Yes. Click into any summary, change the text, and hit Update Summary. Your edit persists and the AI will use your version going forward.

When should I edit a summary?

• When the auto-generated summary missed something important (a key reveal, a character's emotional state, a plot detail you want the AI to remember)
• When the summary includes something you want the AI to forget (a plot thread you're abandoning, a detail you plan to retcon)
• When the summary is too long and buries the important details

Can I regenerate a summary? Yes. Hit the Regenerate button and RedQuill rewrites it using the AI. Useful if the original summary was weak but you don't want to write one from scratch.

Pro tip: Keep summaries focused on what matters for future chapters. The AI reads every summary, so trim anything that isn't relevant anymore. A tight summary of "Maren confronted Jake about the letter. He denied everything but she found it in his desk. She left without saying goodbye." is more useful than a blow-by-blow recap of the whole chapter.

Manage Characters in Your Story

Shows every character in your story, both ones you added and ones the AI auto-detected. For a deeper dive on building characters, see Characters 101.

What you can do:

• Edit any character's name and description for this story. Changes only affect this story, not the original component in your library.
• Add new characters manually with the New Character button
• Detect characters from the latest chapter with the Detect Chapter Characters button
• Delete characters you don't want in the story anymore
• Save characters to your library if you want to reuse them in other stories

Do edits persist? Yes. When you edit a character's description in the Lorebook, that edited version is what the AI reads for every future chapter of this story. It does not change the original component in your library.

This is important. Your Lorebook is story-specific. Editing "Detective Reyes" in one story's Lorebook doesn't affect her description in your library or in any other story. If you want to update the library version, do that separately from your component library. Learn more in How to Reuse Characters Across Stories.

Manage Non-Character Components

Same idea as Characters, but for Settings, Tropes, Plot Devices, Writing Styles, and Other components. You can edit, delete, and manage them the same way. New to components? Start with Story Components 101.

Troubleshooting

"I edited a character but the AI still writes them wrong."

Check the description. The AI follows what's written, so if it's still getting something wrong, the description might not cover that behavior. Be more specific. Instead of "she's tough," try "she deflects vulnerability with sarcasm and never admits when something hurts."

"Do I need to update summaries every chapter?"

No. Auto-generated summaries are usually fine. Only step in when you notice the AI forgetting something important or referencing something you've moved past.

"Should I delete characters who left the story?"

It depends. If a character left but might come back, keep them. If they're gone for good and have no bearing on future events, removing them cleans up the AI's context and lets it focus on who's actually in the story.

"I want to change a character's name mid-story."

Edit their name in the Lorebook. The AI will use the new name going forward. Previous chapters keep the old name (they're already written), but new chapters will reference the updated name.

Check In Every 5-10 Chapters

Think of the Lorebook as something you check in on periodically, not something you manage every chapter. A good rhythm:

1. After story creation: Check that your characters and components look right
2. Every 5-10 chapters: Skim your summaries. Trim anything stale. Beef up character descriptions if the AI isn't getting them right. If your story feels cluttered, see How to Use Components Without Overloading
3. When something feels off: Open the Lorebook first. Nine times out of ten, the fix is in there.