Persona or Preset?
When to use personas and when to use presets in Novelcrafter.
1 min read Last updated Aug 8, 2026
When you first start editing prompts, you may wonder when you should use a persona, and when a preset will apply better to your workflow.
Use a persona when…
- You want to share the information across multiple prompt types (i.e. in both your text replacement and scene beat completion prompts)
- The same information will be useful/used for multiple projects/series, and is more about you or the AI, than something belonging to the Codex
Examples for personas include:
- Your Pen name details/preferences, your inspirations and motivation for writing
- Telling the AI to skip/never bring up certain (uncomfortable) concepts or topics
- Style guides for AI responses like always having it write in tables or specific list formats when brainstorming ideas
Use a preset when…
- You have a favorite version of a prompt (but want to be able to tweak it at will)
- You have an AI model that you always use with a prompt
- You only want to use the instructions for one or two specific prompts (rather than across all chat prompts, for instance)
Examples for presets include:
- A specific instruction set for your beta reader prompt
- Style guide, word count, and other settings for scene beat or text replacement prompts
- Specific instructions for an expansion or rephrase prompt