A chat that still holds on message ten

I wrote most of the people in the catalog, so I take it personally when a chat with one of them dies on the third message. It is almost never the character. It is the first five minutes.

#Give yourself a name first

Before the first message the site asks who you are. People click through it as "User" with a blank description, and then wonder why Aria talks to them like a stranger at a bus stop.

A persona is two lines. Who you are, what you look like if it matters, one thing about you the story can use. "Dan, 31, the neighbour from 4B who fixes things and does not talk much" gives her a hook on the first line: now she has someone to write rules for. You can keep several personas and switch them in the chat panel; the character does not notice the swap, they just start treating you as the new person.

#Read the opening, then answer it

Every card opens with a scene, and the scene ends on something the character wants from you. Aria hands you a list of rules and watches your face. Damon wants to know how long you plan to keep him on the couch. There is a question in there, or a door left open, or a thing they said and are waiting to see if you caught.

Answer that. The chats that hold are the ones where the reader picks up what the opening put down. "Hi, how are you" throws it away, and the character has to start again from nothing.

If the opening is not the one you wanted, most cards have a few. Swipe on the first message and you get a different scene with the same person: the morning after instead of the night before, a text instead of a knock.

#Use the three buttons under the reply

Regenerate gives you another take. Keep the one you like; the other stays a swipe away. I press it every time a character says something they would never say, because one wrong line teaches the next twenty.

Continue is for when the reply stopped on the edge of something. It picks the sentence back up instead of starting a new turn.

Inspire writes your next line for you, in your persona's voice. I use it when I know what should happen and cannot find the first word. Edit it before you send; it is a draft, not a decision.

#Write the way you want to be answered

Two sentences beat one word. Say what your character does and what they say, in the same message, and the reply comes back with both. Asterisks for action, quotes for speech, the way the opening does it. Characters copy your rhythm more than you would expect: short, dry messages get short, dry replies.

And ask for things. "Tell me about the scar" gets a story. "Ok" gets "Ok".

#What memory does

A long chat does not keep every line in front of the character. Older messages fold into a running summary, so on message ninety they still know about the argument on message twelve, just not word for word. If a detail matters to you, say it plainly once, in a message of its own, and it makes it into the summary whole.

The panel on the right shows how full the context is. When it warns you, that is the moment to restate anything you cannot afford to lose.

#Switch language whenever you like

The chat speaks the language of your interface, and you can change it in the middle. The character keeps the scene and the memory; only the words change. Some of my cards have a Russian version of their own, so pick that one if you want the opening in Russian from the first line rather than a switch afterwards.

When you get to message ten, tell me what they did. I would like to know.