Around the writing
Settings and personalisation
Make the workspace simpler, warmer, faster or more careful — as you prefer.
What it is
Settings is a categorised panel covering how CharmWriter looks, how much of it you see, how the AI behaves, and what happens to your data. The two settings that change the experience most are the experience mode — which hides whole panels you do not use — and the AI model tier, which trades speed against depth. Everything else is comfort: colour scheme, visual style, font pairing, voice, and how much guidance you want on screen.
Where to find it: Dashboard → avatar → Settings. The same panel is reachable from inside the workspace.
What this covers
- Experience modes: Simple, Full or Custom
- Per-feature toggles for panels you do not use
- Colour scheme including dark mode
- Visual styles: Modern and Editorial
- Six font pairings
- AI model tiers: fast, balanced, most capable
- Separate tier for the research assistant
- Creativity levels from faithful to creative
- Chapter transition style
- Writing reminders you can switch off
- Dictation and voice settings
- Guided tours and a spoken tutorial
- Feature hints you can switch off
- Author name for your books
- A picture of you, uploaded or generated
- Account, password and email changes
- Privacy: voice consent, data export, deletion
- Android app
How to use it
- 1
Choose how much app you want
General → experience mode. Simple hides the advanced panels; Full shows everything; Custom lets you toggle session notes, story questions, the Story Map, contradictions, live consistency, uploading a recording and talking to your characters individually.
- 2
Make it comfortable to look at
Appearance offers a colour scheme including dark mode, two visual styles — Modern and the warm-paper Editorial — and six font pairings previewed in place.
- 3
Pick an AI tier
AI Models offers fast, balanced and most capable. Balanced is the default and is deliberately held steady so your prose voice does not shift mid-book. The research assistant has its own tier.
- 4
Set the creativity level
Per book, creativity runs from faithful — stay close to what I said — through balanced and enriched to creative. It affects drafting and expansion, not summaries or extraction.
- 5
Tune voice and dictation
Voice covers Talk to Charm, the voice Charm speaks in, speaking speed and pause sensitivity. Writing covers dictation behaviour, chapter transition style, and Writing reminders — the switch for the "when will you write next?" question at the end of a session. Turning it off also cancels any reminder already booked.
- 6
Decide how much guidance you want
First-time tours run in the workspace and the editor, and there is a spoken tutorial that walks you through your first book. Each tour remembers where you left off, so an interrupted one picks up rather than starting over. Feature hints hides the explanatory info icons and the workflow coach banner.
- 7
Handle your account and data
Account holds your picture, your author name, your email and your password. The picture can be uploaded or generated — describe yourself in a line, pick an art style, and it is drawn for a small fraction of a credit; it then shows on your avatar throughout the app. Privacy holds voice consent, the full data export and permanent account deletion.
What it gives you
The app can be as simple as you need
Simple mode removes the Story Map, contradictions and question panels entirely. For someone writing a family history, that is a calmer tool without losing the writing itself.
Your prose voice stays stable
Model tiers are tiers, not pinned model names. The balanced tier is deliberately held on a known-good model so an upgrade elsewhere does not change how chapter twelve sounds compared with chapter two.
Creativity is a dial, not a guess
Faithful keeps close to your own words for memoir and testimony. Creative gives the AI room to invent connective tissue in fiction. You choose per book.
Editorial mode is genuinely easier on the eyes
The warm-paper style with a serif pairing is closer to reading a book than an app, which matters over a long session.
The Android app
CharmWriter has a native Android app that wraps the same live site, so everything described in this guide works there identically and your books are the same books. The phone layout is designed around three destinations — Story, Write and Book — with a swipe between them, and the writing screen is built to survive being interrupted by a phone call or the keyboard appearing.
Good to know
- Talk to Charm is stored per device rather than per account, so it must be switched on separately on each device you use.
- A more capable model tier costs more credits per request. Fast is genuinely fine for background work.
- Creativity affects drafting and expansion only. Background tasks such as extraction and summarising deliberately stay precise.
- Account deletion is permanent and immediate — every chapter, note and bible entry goes with it.
- Writing reminders are stored per account rather than per device, unlike Talk to Charm, because the reminder is sent by email rather than by the browser you set it in.
- Generating your picture gives a new face each time rather than a better version of the last one. To steer it, change the description before generating again.
Questions
Which AI tier should I use?
Balanced, unless you have a reason not to. It is the default, and it is deliberately pinned to a model chosen for prose quality rather than being upgraded automatically.
What does Simple mode hide?
Session notes, story questions, the Story Map, contradiction detection and live consistency. Writing, chapters, the Story Bible and export all remain.
Can I turn off the tips and tours?
Yes. Appearance → Feature hints hides the explanatory info icons and the workflow coach banner. Tours run once and remember where you left off, and Appearance → Show again brings every tip, tour and the spoken intro back for all your books in this browser.
How do I delete my account?
Settings → Privacy → delete account. It is permanent and immediate, and removes every book, note and bible entry. Export your data first if you want a copy.
Start your first chapter
Every new account starts with two free credits, enough to talk a whole chapter through, have it drafted, and see how it reads.
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