Characters

Importing Characters from Another Story

Already created a character in one of your stories? Bring them into a new story for free — no credits charged, no re-generation needed. Their character sheet is reused exactly as it is.

Watch the walkthrough

Two-minute video showing the whole flow — from opening the Characters tab to seeing the imported character live in the new story.

Why import instead of recreate?

Every character sheet takes credits to generate, and the AI never produces the same face twice — even with the same description. If you've spent time perfecting a character in one story and you want them to appear in another story with the same art style, recreating them from scratch wastes credits and gives you a different-looking person.

Importing is a free, one-click copy. The exact same character sheet image is reused. The character looks pixel-identical in both stories. You're not paying for a second generation because there isn't one.

How to import

  1. Open the story you want to import into (the destination).
  2. Go to the Characters tab.
  3. In the toolbar, click the copy icon (next to the add and photo buttons).
  4. A modal opens listing your other stories that share the same art style as the current one.
  5. Click any source story to expand it and see its ready characters.
  6. Check the characters you want to import (or click Select all available).
  7. Hit Import N characters. They appear instantly in the current story.

No credits charged

Importing a character is completely free. The credits you spent generating the original sheet cover this and every future import. You can reuse the same character across as many stories as you like.

Why only same-style stories show up

A character sheet is generated in the art style of the story it was created in. A character drawn in manga style won't visually match a story in noir cinematic style — their face, line work, and color palette would look completely wrong next to the rest of your panels.

To prevent this visual mismatch, YarnSaga only lets you import from stories that have the exact same art style as the destination. If you don't see any sources listed in the modal, it means you don't have other stories in this style — yet.

Can I change the art style of a character after import?

You can't transfer a character across styles. If you really need the same character in a different art style, the right move is to regenerate their sheet after switching the destination story to the target style — though that does cost credits because it's a fresh AI generation.

Only ready characters can be imported

Characters whose sheet is still generating, or whose generation failed, are skipped entirely. There's nothing to copy yet. Wait for the source character to finish (status: Ready), then come back to the import modal.

Duplicate protection

YarnSaga tracks which characters you've already imported. If you previously imported a character into the current story, the modal shows it as Already imported — pre-checked and disabled. You can't accidentally import the same character twice.

This also means: if you delete an imported character and want it back, you can re-import it from the same source.

What happens after import

The imported character is a full copy, not a reference. That means:

  • The character lives in the destination story as a normal character. You can rename, edit, regenerate, or delete it without affecting the original in the source story.
  • Mentions in scene descriptions match against this story's copy, not the source story's. Use the same /-mention picker you'd use for any other character.
  • Scene generations will use the imported character's sheet as the reference — visually identical to the source story.

Reuse your favorites across a whole series

If you're building a series, episode collection, or anthology, define your main cast once and import them into every episode. You save credits, you guarantee visual consistency, and you skip the busywork of redefining everyone.

What's next

Using in ScenesEditing & Deleting