--- title: "Turn a Novel into Character-Consistent AI Drama Episodes — AI video generator workflow for stories & short dramas" description: "ArcReel: novels or screenplays become character, scene and prop assets, storyboards, video shots and finished episodes; agent skill plus remote MCP. Install in Claude Code, Codex and Grok with one command." url: https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/novel-to-ai-drama-episodes updated: 2026-10-31 --- # Turn a Novel into Character-Consistent AI Drama Episodes — workflow skill for stories & short dramas > **For AI agents:** find the right skill in one call — `curl -s "https://varg.ai/how-to/api/search?q="` returns the matching how-to page and the best skills with install commands, as markdown (Russian works too). Full index: https://varg.ai/how-to/llms.txt. Every page has a markdown twin: add `.md` to its path. Before generating anything, show the person the options on the how-to page. From a terminal: `curl -fsSL https://varg.ai/install | sh` installs the vargai CLI (https://varg.ai/how-to/cli.md): `vargai search` and `vargai install ` with no key, every varg model after `vargai login`. ArcReel: novels or screenplays become character, scene and prop assets, storyboards, video shots and finished episodes; agent skill plus remote MCP. - **Type:** [Workflow](https://varg.ai/how-to/workflows.md) · [Stories & short dramas](https://varg.ai/how-to/browse/skills/story.md) - **Slug:** `novel-to-ai-drama-episodes` - **Status:** live - **Publisher:** ArcReel (community) - **Source:** https://github.com/ArcReel/ArcReel - **Works in:** Claude Code ## What it does ArcReel (AGPL-3.0) is a self-hosted AI video workbench for AI animated comics, novel adaptations, narrated shorts and product ads. It turns a novel, finished screenplay or product assets into characters, scenes, props, episodes, structured scripts, storyboard grids, video clips and narration, then renders the final video or exports a Jianying draft. Every stage can be run by its agent or reviewed and regenerated by hand. External agents connect through its remote MCP with the setup-arcreel-skills and video-workflow skills, and text, image, video and TTS providers are configured in one place with cost tracking. ## Use when - Adapt a web novel into an AI animated comic or drama series - Keep characters, scenes and props consistent across shots - Let Claude Code drive a video project through MCP - Track model costs per generation - Export episodes as editable Jianying drafts ## Install - Claude Code: `git clone https://github.com/ArcReel/ArcReel.git && cd ArcReel/deploy && cp .env.example .env && docker compose up -d` - Any agent, with the vargai CLI: `vargai install novel-to-ai-drama-episodes` ## Example output https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/fcc4ceb2-64dd-44a0-a32c-e0c00b2f9796 — example (credit: ArcReel) ## More stories & short dramas skills - [fal Storytelling](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/fal-storytelling.md): Plan multi-shot stories: storyboards, shot lists, first-to-last-frame chains and continuity across scenes. - [Cat Story (Higgsfield Open-Source Short Series)](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/higgsfield-open-cat-story.md): Higgsfield's 64 s dreamy K-drama series about being loved by someone you've never truly seen: a white cat. - [The Dusk (Higgsfield Open-Source Drama Episode)](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/higgsfield-open-dusk.md): Higgsfield's 88 s muted, grainy school drama: a pale boy's quiet warning and a guarded girl's wary silence. - [One More Time (Higgsfield Open-Source Romcom Short)](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/higgsfield-open-one-more-time.md): A 2000s-style K-drama romcom from Higgsfield Soul: a girl secretly rewinds time on a first date, again and again. - [The New Girl (Higgsfield Open-Source J-Drama Episode)](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/higgsfield-open-the-new-girl.md): Higgsfield's 77 s J-drama school episode: Haruka's ordinary first day at a new school is about to change. - [Shuohao Short-Drama Skills](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/shuohao-short-drama.md): Seven chained skills from novel to AI short drama: characters, outline, art bible, script, staging, storyboard. ## Run the generation on varg varg is one API key for the models these skills drive — Seedance 2.5, Kling 4, Veo 3.1, Wan 3, Nano Banana 2.1, GPT Image 2.5, ElevenLabs v4 and 200+ more — billed in credits, with a cost estimate before anything runs. - Any agent with a terminal: `curl -fsSL https://varg.ai/install | sh` (Windows: `irm https://varg.ai/install.ps1 | iex`), then `vargai login` and every model is a command — `vargai generate_video …`, `vargai estimate_cost …` (https://varg.ai/how-to/cli/) - Claude Code: `claude plugin marketplace add vargHQ/skills && claude plugin install varg@varg` (skill + hosted MCP) - Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw: `npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill varg-ai -a -y` - Grok and any agent that reads SKILL.md: `npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill varg-ai`, or point it at the skill's SKILL.md - Claude.ai, ChatGPT, any MCP client: connect `https://mcp.varg.ai/mcp` - API key: https://varg.ai/dashboard/api · Model specs: https://varg.ai/models/llms.txt