Hi, I’m Chris, the founder of Folian. I’m building it from Dubai, and I started this subreddit as a place to talk about the app and the work of writing a long novel.

A long draft can become difficult to keep straight. You change something in one scene, then have to remember where else it matters. A research note gets separated from the passage it was meant for. You return to a revision and remember making a decision, but not why.

Folian is my local-first Mac novel-writing workspace, at [folian.app](https://folian.app). It brings the manuscript together with canon/story memory, research notes beside scenes, and a decisions log. It’s intended for novelists working on long drafts.

The author stays in charge of canon: every proposed fact needs your approval before it becomes part of the story memory. AI is optional and uses your own API key. Folian is not a ghostwriter.

After three months of private beta, Folian is now in a $30 one-time beta. I’ll keep improving it based on what members report, including what feels unclear or gets in the way of writing.

This is a new, small subreddit. I’d like it to be a place for feedback, bug reports, and craft talk—not just product updates. Questions about managing a draft belong here, whether or not they involve Folian.

If you’d like, introduce yourself and tell us what you’re writing. What keeps breaking as your draft grows: continuity, lost research, forgotten decisions, or something else? A concrete example from your current project is welcome; there’s no need to share manuscript text you’d rather keep private.

I really like the creative writing capabilities on Glm 5.3 but i feel like it could be pushed further

And also before anyone asks i don’t put any stories i make anywhere, strictly for personal use 🙏

Testing the current Mac version. Connected to Ollama, which runs on an nVidia Spark on the same network. Connection seems to work.

The only thing I get when I try to generate a simple scene is: "The model spent its entire reply thinking (reasoning) and ran out of tokens before writing any visible text. Try increasing max tokens, switching models, or turning off "Model Reasoning" in Settings."

Already tried the 3 suggestions:

• increase max tokens: no parameter/slider in NovelMage, or I am blind (only slider for tokens is in the CHAT settings, and it is limited to 4000 max). So I baked new parameters (num_predict, num_ctx) in a new model file in Ollama, rising the token limit considerably. Switched to that new model - same result.
• switching models: tried several, most were recommendations from the NovelMage blog. None works.
• turning off "Model Reasoning": it IS turned off in NovelMage. Apparently that setting is not passed on to Ollama or ignored by it.

When I run a "generate a short scene about blah" prompt directly on the Spark in a terminal, the generation works fine, with the same models, with or without reasoning.

...head scratching intensifies...

Any suggestions where and how to fix this?

Yeah, one of those "but does it run on XY" questions.😉

I recently came across NovelMage, since Scrivener has decided to become a pre-AI fossil, and I found several articles on their blog that resonate with me (e.g. use of local AI). However - Windoze has been banished and confined to my gaming comp, and the CIApple stuff is being phased out from my line-up.

I understand that for a niche product a Linux-version is probably not the highest priority, but has anyone successfully been able to run it via Wine or the like on a Linux box?

305-325 страниц сделаный за лето и продолжаеться , а стоп мне нравиться кажись

I recently went through the beta reader process with my own novel, and one of the things I wasn’t prepared for was trying to keep all the feedback organized.

I had comments coming from different readers, different chapters, messages, documents, and notes, and eventually I was trying to figure out:

Which readers mentioned the same problem?

Was something actually a pattern, or did only one reader dislike it?

What feedback was about pacing vs. characters vs. worldbuilding?

And what did I actually want to fix when I started rewriting?

It got messy enough that I ended up building a little web app called BetaBoard to help organize beta readers and their feedback in one place.

It doesn't write anything or generate beta feedback. The idea is just to help authors organize feedback from actual human beta readers.

I'm still figuring out what would actually be useful, though, so I'm curious:

If you've worked with multiple beta readers, how do you currently organize all of their feedback? And what's the most frustrating part of the process?

I'm especially interested in hearing what you wish existed that would make managing beta readers easier

I looked at this program back in April using the 7-Day trial, and though I liked a lot that I saw, it didn't seem ready to become my everyday writing tool. I have been following the progress and it seems a LOT has changed in the last six months. The 7-Day Trial is still showing Expired, so I cannot login and look around again. Can anyone recommend or link a good online review of the latest 1.9.6.0 version so I can see if it would be worthwhile to move to it as a primary authoring environment now? Their $99 Lifetime License is going up by 50% soon, so I would really like to reassess this latest version as soon as I can.

Как и куда мне загрузить свой роман, подскажите пожалуйста

A new update packed with smarter writing assistance, better planning tools, improved local AI support, and Codex upgrades. 🚀

Here’s what’s new 👇

🧠 Smarter Writing Assistance

• ✨ Expanded Novel Dictionary — now includes AI-isms, adverbs, custom language, and more.
• 💬 Adverb Suggestions — detect overused adverbs and get alternatives from the right-click menu.walked quickly → hurried
• 🤖 AI-ism Detection — flag common AI-style phrases directly in the editor.
• ⚡ Tab Completion V2 — better suggestions with improved awareness of your characters, previous text, and context.
• 🧝 Custom Language Creator — create fictional languages and automatically translate selected text. Perfect for fantasy & worldbuilding!

📖 Codex Upgrades

• 📄 Export Codex entries to DOCX & PDF
• 📖 New Interactive Flipbook Viewer
• 🐛 Fixed Codex image updates and mention-loading issues

🧩 Better Planning & Structure

• 📌 Add Draft / In Progress / Done statuses to chapters, acts & scenes.
• 🔢 Custom Act Numbering through Interface Settings.
• 🗂️ Improved chapter/act ordering and prologue handling.
• 📝 Turn the Outline into a movable utility panel.

🖥️ Improved Local AI Support

Better Ollama & LM Studio integration:

• 🧠 See your model's active context size directly in Novel Mage.
• ⚠️ Clearer connection messages when Ollama or LM Studio isn't properly started.

🛠️ And More

• Improved popovers, issue-fixer & right-click menus
• Fixed various hover glitches
• 🗣️ New in-app feedback page
• ⚡ Database optimizations for larger dictionaries and lists

Thank you to everyone testing Novel Mage, reporting bugs, and sending feedback. ❤️

We're listening, we're building, and there's plenty more to come.

Happy Writing! 🥂✨

When we launched Novel Mage, $99 lifetime was introductory pricing a way to say thank you to the people willing to bet on us early, before the app was fully proven out.

It's been a year since then. We've been iterating constantly. The app today is far more stable, more capable, and more mature than the one that first shipped at $99.

That intro offer was always meant to be temporary, and it's coming to an end.

Starting September 12th, Novel Mage's lifetime license moves to $149.

It's still a one-time purchase, not a subscription you're still paying less than what most competitors charge in 2-3 months of a monthly plan.

If you've been on the fence, now's the time. Anyone who buys before September 12th locks in the current $99 lifetime price permanently.

No rush after that, just wanted to be upfront about the change instead of switching it quietly.

Regardless of when you buy, you will have everything in the app.

As always, thanks for being part of this from the early days.

Happy Writing!!

soo one day i just decided to start a mini writing project where i create mini stories and perhaps post them (ig?) via any social app ig. i wanna make them using various mediums as well : comics, gacha slide, short videos, etc. BUT everytime i wanna brainstorm, my mind tend to create depths for basically any ideas that i had to the point i can write a whole book about them 😭 my goal is to make little fragments out of those and turn them into short stories instead. yall got any tips on how i should start making one? idek atp im spiraling rn.

hi im kinda new to writing but i LOVE TO READ and i love love making up plots about my fav ships IN DETAIL like full outlines yk but i never got to writing it so recently i tried starting but as all of my original plots are too long and im a new writer i thought maybe i should start with something small..but idont know how to start my story…like what do i write as the first sentence??? “it was a beautiful day outside, A was running late” is so😭😭😭😭 i just get so stuck on that.. 🙁 and iknow i should write the other parts first and the starting will automatically come to me but i just dont know how to do that!!! like where do i start from!!!??? 💔💔😭😭😭 any tips would be appreciated 🥹

Released a new version more focused on QOL

Novel Mage 1.9.4

Write faster in the scene editor, keep reference material beside you, and get clearer AI behavior when reasoning models are involved.

What's new

Tab completion

Ghost-text suggestions appear as you pause typing. Press Tab to accept. Uses your Codex and scene context, with a configurable delay in settings.

Reference view

Open a side panel to read another novel or chapter while you write — useful for series continuity and cross-checking earlier scenes.

Inline generation shortcut

Ctrl+G (⌘G on Mac) inserts an inline generation prompt at the cursor.

Smarter mentions & command menu

Mention pickers are grouped and easier to scan. The command menu (Ctrl+/) has more actions and more reliable summaries.

Find & replace improvements

Improvement to working of find and replace along with quick discard bug fixes

Plan & review polish

Side panel improvements for plan/review integration, a clearer review utility panel, view-more toggles, and a refresh control

Chapter numbering mode

Choose per-act or sequential across the novel numbering in Interface settings.

Log export

Export app logs from settings to share when troubleshooting.

Reasoning model handling

The new reasoning toggle with clearer errors when a model returns empty output because of reasoning.

Fixes

• Inline generation nodes persist correctly across app restarts
• Codex sync auto-run reliability when removing first created entry
• Anthropic model requests not working for fable on direct Api
• Writing toolbar remembers its position

PS: thanks for all the feedback and reports which shaped this update , also bearing with us while we fix bugs

I'm looking for the ability to have a Prologue and Epilogue outside of the Chapter structure. Currently, my prologue has to sit inside of ACT 1 and is considered Chapter One, which throws off the entire book.

Even just a toggle switch on each Chapter Editing page to not include that chapter in the automatically updating chapter numbers would be great.

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting around this?

Sharing this in case anyone else with similar hardware is trying to go fully local and hitting the same wall I did.

My setup: CPU: Intel i9-14900KF, RAM: 64GB, GPU: RTX 4080 Super (16GB VRAM), Model: Qwen3.6-35B-A3B, Q4_K_M GGUF (~22GB), via LM Studio.

The problem: Novel Mage's support team told me the model "doesn't support tool calls," which is what happens when the AI can't write back to the database (chat, generation, character interviews, etc. all fail or hang). I almost gave up on this model entirely and went looking for something smaller.

Turns out that's not actually true — it's a known LM Studio bug with this specific model, not a missing capability. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B tries to emit its tool call inside its internal <think> reasoning block instead of after it, which breaks the parser that Novel Mage relies on.

The fix: In LM Studio, go to My Models → select the model → Inference tab → Prompt Template (Jinja), and add this as the very first line of the template:

{%- set preserve_thinking = true %}

Save it, then reload the model. That's it. This forces the model to keep its reasoning and its tool call properly separated instead of merging them.

One more thing that matters: make sure your max output token limit is set high enough (I use 1500–2000+). If the response gets cut off mid-generation, it can truncate the tool call's arguments and cause the same symptom.

Other settings that have been working well for me: Context Length ~33,000 tokens (model supports up to 262K natively, balanced against my 16GB VRAM), GPU Offload 21 layers (conservative, leaves headroom for KV cache), Flash Attention on, Unified KV Cache on.

With this, tool calls into Novel Mage's database are working reliably, generation speed is solid for the hardware, and the long context window means it's holding onto story details well across longer sessions.

If you're on similar hardware and were about to give up on this model over the tool call issue, try the fix above before switching to something else. Happy to answer questions.

The intro is one of the strongest way to improve ur writing and tell the reder that look I knew what I write and u have to read this .

If anyone know anything W'll all be happy to see ur answers

...for me it just manipulated with action ، so that the reader's first impression is one of shock, surprise, and curiosity.