From unfinished outlines to books I could read.

Why I built StoryForge

I had ten novel outlines sitting in a drawer for years. I knew the characters, the worlds, and the climaxes. Writing the prose took so long that I stopped finishing the stories I wanted to read.

The thing I wanted most as a writer was to read my own finished book: to watch the characters do what I imagined them doing. So I built a tool to help me get there.

What I needed from the writing process

Voice mattered. A book needed to sound like the same author from its opening to its climax. Continuity mattered too: characters, settings, world rules, and who knew what at each point in the story.

That led to StoryForge’s outline, story bible, voice, drafting, and editing workflow. The aim was to keep creative decisions connected as a manuscript grew, while giving me room to review and change the result.

The books I used to develop it

My original account includes published books and unfinished work. Under Garrick Hale, The Wailing Spire and The Bound Fang were published, with The Choir Abomination drafted and in the publishing queue. Other published titles included The Last Human under JM Price and Earth Forgotten under Mark Wahlbeck.

The work also included a draft of The Eidolon Drift, a YA academy fantasy draft, and The Red Mark, a LitRPG manuscript still being finished at the time of that account. These different projects helped me test voice, character continuity, and genre expectations.

What that experience does and does not establish

This was an experiment in finishing my own stories. I had not run advertising, newsletter, or review campaigns for these books. It was not proof of predictable sales or of a result every author would get.

The part that mattered to me was being able to read a finished story whose ideas and voice felt like mine. Authors still need to judge the prose, revise the manuscript, and review their files before publishing.