Edit It / Continuity CompendiumsPatron tool
Creatures & Plants Compendium: Keep your world's wildlife straight.
The moon-moths appear in chapter two, get a paragraph of description, and come back 200 pages later doing something you have to hope is consistent. The poison your assassin uses has a plant source you named once. You can stop hoping. Your world's living things can sit on one page, so you write the next scene sure of what your creatures are like and what your plants do.
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Your world's living things end up in a field guide you can check against your book. It is a draft, so give it a quick look in case it missed an entry.
Your manuscript stays private. Author Media never stores or views it, and the AI companies do not train on it.
Know your world before you write more of it
Your bestiary, assembled from the book you wrote
Invented biology carries a burden real biology does not. A reader knows what a horse can do. When you invent a creature, every property is one you have to establish and then honor, and readers track those properties closely because tracking them is part of the fun.
Stop wondering what you forgot
The beast you invented in a single scene and the fungus that matters in act three stop nagging at the back of your mind. You see the whole cast of your ecosystem, not only the few you remember.
Know how a creature behaves before you write it again
You sit down to a scene with the moon-moths and their habits are beside you, not buried in four old chapters. The scenes stay where they are and what your book says comes to you.
Check that a poison, a cure, or a magical ingredient behaves the same way twice
Your twist should land because readers believe your rules, not because they caught a cheat. You can hold the herb that healed in chapter ten up against chapter forty and sleep easier.
Watch your world turn into an ecosystem
Your creatures and plants stop feeling like props and start feeling like a living web. You close the guide knowing where your next draft can give your world more life.
When you will reach for it
Put your bestiary to work
Readers track what you invent, so a contradiction is expensive. A reader who noticed your beast could not swim in chapter four will notice it swimming in chapter twenty, and the immersion you spent 300 pages building takes the hit. Find the moment that sounds like yours.
Check each creature against the scene you are writing
A creature that had six legs in chapter three and four in chapter fifteen is hard to catch from memory. Keep its entry beside your draft and do the comparing yourself.
Keep book two's ecology consistent with book one
When book two begins, your whole world is waiting. You start the next book with the whole ecosystem in reach, and Compendium Consolidator can bring each book's guide together into one series reference.
Build the bestiary appendix readers of epic fantasy expect
Skip the blank page and the weekend of rereading. Put the entries in your own voice, check them against your book, and read them for spoilers before readers see them.
Give an illustrator real descriptions instead of a paragraph you write from memory
You hand over a written description to start from, so the cover or interior art can match your text. Check it against your book first.
Create bonus content for your newsletter or a preorder incentive
Bonus content stops being one more thing to write from scratch. Bestiary appendices, illustrated guides, and worldbuilding posts are popular bonus content in fantasy, and your guide is a place to start.
Hand a game designer or adaptation team a real reference
Nobody has to guess what your creatures are like. Give an editor, co-author, game designer, or adaptation team the same written reference you work from, so they build on your book.
What goes in and what comes out
You bring
Your fiction manuscript as a .txt, .doc, .docx, or .pdf file. The form has no other fields, and a partial draft gets a partial guide.
Your manuscript stays private. Author Media never stores or views it, and the AI companies do not train on it.
You get
A written bestiary and plant guide for the creatures and plants your story features.
This is a draft reference, so check each entry against your manuscript before you call it canon. It can miss a minor creature or merge two lookalikes, and it does not search your book for contradictions. You can follow up in the chat to expand any entry. It is made for fiction.
Questions about your bestiary and plant guide
What is Creatures & Plants Compendium?+
Creatures & Plants Compendium gives fiction authors a bestiary and plant guide for their story world, made from the manuscript they already wrote. It is for indie and traditionally published authors, and it suits fantasy and science fiction best.
Does this only work for fantasy?+
Fantasy and science fiction get the most from it, since invented species need the most tracking. Historical and contemporary fiction still benefit when animals, crops, or plants carry weight in the plot.
How do I keep my fantasy creatures and plants consistent?+
Write down each property the first time you establish it, and check the list before you use the creature again. Invented biology is the easiest thing in a fantasy novel to contradict, because you build it in fragments as scenes need it. Nothing forces you to write it down, and by draft three the details live in four chapters and none of your notes. With Creatures & Plants Compendium, you do not have to build that list from memory.
Can I use it on an unfinished draft?+
Yes, and it is a relief if you discover your world as you write. A partial draft gets a partial guide, so run it mid-draft to see what you have already invented, then run it again after a revision.
Will it find every creature and plant?+
It can miss one, so give the guide a skim with your own memory in hand. It can also merge two lookalikes, so ask in the chat for anything missing or mixed up.
Does it find contradictions in my book?+
You stay in charge of your own continuity. This tool does not search your book for contradictions, so you hold each entry up against the scene you are writing or revising and check the manuscript yourself.
Can I ask for more on one creature?+
Yes, and you do not have to settle for a thin entry. Keep talking in the chat until you have the detail you want, and check what you get against your book.
Can I use it for a bestiary appendix?+
Yes, and it beats starting from a blank page. Put the entries in your voice first, since a reference built for you reads differently from one written for readers. Check them against your book, and read them for spoilers before readers see them.
Can I use it for a series?+
Yes, and your world can grow with the series, one book at a time. Compendium Consolidator can bring each book's guide together into one series reference. It asks for a label at the top of each file (series, book number, and the words Creatures & Plants Compendium), and this tool does not add it, so you add it by hand before you merge.
What about the places and peoples of my world?+
Your world is bigger than its wildlife, and this tool stays with the living things. Location Compendium covers places, and Faction Compendium covers groups, orders, and races. Run each one on the same manuscript, then use Map Maker if you want to see the world on a map.
Does it work for nonfiction?+
It is made for fiction. A memoir or narrative nonfiction book with a few animals or plants may give it something to list, but it is not designed to index the species in a nature or gardening book.
Is my manuscript private?+
Yes. Author Media does not store, track, or view anything you post to this tool. The tools reach each AI through its business API with privacy set to the maximum, so the AI companies do not train on your words.
How much does it cost?+
Creatures & Plants Compendium is included with any Novel Marketing Patreon membership of $10 per month or more. That membership also unlocks more than 80 other author tools in the Patron Toolbox. AI tool use draws from your membership's credit balance.
Put your story world's living things on one page.
Get Creatures & Plants Compendium and more than 80 other author tools with a qualifying Novel Marketing Patreon membership.
AI tool use draws from your membership's credit balance. The amount used varies with the request.
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Build out the rest of your story world
Where they live
Location CompendiumCatalog the places these creatures live, so each habitat has a real location behind it.
Who shares the world
Faction CompendiumCatalog the groups, orders, and races that live alongside your creatures and plants.
When you want to see it
Map MakerTurn a rough sketch of your world into a finished map.
