How to Write an AI Character Prompt That Stays in Character
An AI character prompt is what the model reads before every reply, and a lot of chats that go sideways were set up wrong right there. You know the symptoms: the AI writes your lines, a sharp character goes soft after twenty messages, or every reply is a wall of narration with one line of speech. Most of that can be fixed in the prompt.
Quick answer
Describe what the character does, how they talk and how they react to you, then add a few sample lines in their voice. Include a short list of things they never do and one plain rule that they speak only for themselves. Keep the whole prompt short enough that every line changes how the character behaves.
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Their personality
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Odile Marchetti
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Odile is warm in a way that fills a room: she remembers birthdays, feeds strangers and assumes the best of everyone until the moment she cannot.
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She makes people feel like the most interesting person she has met all week.
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She takes on everyone's problems and quietly drowns in them.
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She is the most generous person anyone knows and cannot accept a single favour.
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Fast, affectionate and full of nicknames: "Sit, sit, you look starving, sweetheart."
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When she is hurt she starts cleaning something that is already clean.
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Browse all storiesHow do I stop the AI speaking for me?
People ask this more than anything else about AI characters. The AI writes what you say, feel or do next, and the scene stops being yours. The cause is usually in the prompt, in examples the model copies, or in the gaps you leave in your own messages.
What to put in the prompt
Add one plain rule near the top: 'Write only {char}'s words and actions. Never write {user}'s dialogue, thoughts or choices. End each reply on something {user} can answer.' The last line does the most work, because a reply with a clear stopping point gives the model no reason to keep going for you.
Then check your sample lines and any opening message. If an example says 'you blush and look away', the model learns that narrating you is how this character writes. Rewrite every example so it shows only the character.
What to do in your own messages
End your turn with an action or a question. A message like 'I nod' leaves a gap, and models fill gaps with your character. Keep your turns about as long as you want the replies to be.
When a reply still speaks for you, don't answer it. Whatever stays in the chat becomes an example for the next reply, so regenerate it or rewind to the message before.
If you chat on Rabu AI
The chat rules already tell every character never to write your thoughts, feelings, dialogue, decisions or actions, and to leave your response open. Group chats and the Story Mode narrator follow the same rule. When a reply slips anyway, regenerate or rewind it; Plus members can also edit the character's newest message.
Write personality as things the character does
'Shy, kind, mysterious' tells a model very little, so it fills each word with the most average version it knows. Behavior gives it something to copy. Compare 'shy' with 'changes the subject when complimented, talks fast about her plants, goes quiet when you raise your voice'.
Two or three traits written this way do more than ten adjectives. Give the character one thing they want and one thing in the way, and the replies start to have a direction. Our free personality generator and backstory generator give you raw material to turn into behavior.
Behavior also slows the drift where a cold rival turns sweet after twenty messages, because habits keep showing up in the recent chat. Why AI characters forget covers the rest of that problem.
Give the character a voice with sample lines
Sample lines teach a model more than any description of speech. A few short lines show vocabulary, sentence length, humor and what the character cares about. Write them as things they'd say to you in different moods.
Here are three for Juno, an invented night-shift mechanic who is gruff on the outside:
- Pleased: "You brought coffee? Fine. You can stay."
- Annoyed: "Don't touch that. No, the other that."
- Worried: "I'm not worried. I'm checking the brakes twice because I like brakes."
More dialogue, less narration
Keep the samples mostly speech. If every example is a paragraph of narration with one line of dialogue, that's the ratio you'll get back, which is why so many people ask why their bot barely talks. If you want more talking, make the samples talk and put a line of dialogue in your own turns too.
Behavior anchors: when this happens, they do that
Anchors are short if-then rules for the moments you care about most. The model gets a direct instruction for a situation instead of guessing from a trait. Four to six is plenty, picked from moments that come up in most chats, like greetings, teasing or bad days.
- WHEN {user} is upset, Juno stops working, asks one blunt question and listens to the answer.
- WHEN {user} flirts, she deflects with a joke the first time and answers honestly the second.
- WHEN someone insults her work, she gets very calm and very specific about what they got wrong.
- WHEN {user} goes quiet, she fills the silence with shop talk instead of asking what's wrong.
Things the character never does
A short 'never' list catches the habits that ruin a character for you: emojis, pet names, apologizing in every reply, sudden romance. Keep it to a few lines, and pair each one with what to do instead.
Repeating a banned word often backfires: a word written five times in the prompt is a word the model has read five times. Instead of 'NO EMOJIS. Never use emojis!', write 'Texts in plain words and shows mood through word choice, never emojis.'
Looks and who you are
Describe looks in a few concrete lines the character might mention in a scene: grease on her sleeves, hair tied up with a zip tie, a scar across one knuckle. Long lists of measurements and colors rarely make it into replies.
For your side, give the model the facts it keeps getting wrong. If it assumes the wrong gender, put your name, pronouns and one or two traits in your persona, and keep actions out of it so the AI doesn't start playing them. On Rabu AI, fill in your profile: name, gender, interests and a short bio. Characters' replies know the first three, so you don't have to repeat them in every chat.
Build it in the Rabu AI Character Creator
Everything above has a field in the free Character Creator, so you don't have to write one long prompt from scratch. Fill in the Advanced section and you've covered most of this guide.
- About. Name, personality type, occupation, hobbies, interests, height, age (18 and up), birthday and bio. Put the want and the obstacle in the bio.
- Speech style, tone and messaging style. How they talk and how they text. "Short messages, lowercase, dry humor" is a complete answer.
- "Things she'd actually say". Six sample lines, the voice section of this guide.
- Behavior anchors and things the character never does. Your WHEN rules and your short never list.
- Writers. If replies still run heavy on description, switch the writing model in the chat: Comet is wordier, Nova is quicker.
Starting from nothing
Randomize buttons fill fields when you're stuck, and you can import a character you already wrote from a link or a card file. If the character doesn't exist yet, how to make an OC starts from zero, with help from the free OC generator and the character name generator.
You can chat with a new character as soon as it's saved and change any field later with Edit Character, so treat the first version as a draft: write it, chat ten messages, fix what feels off. It stays private until you submit it for review. For a feel of how well-written characters play, try a few in AI character chat.
Rabu AI facts
Rabu AI has an ad-supported free tier with 20 free messages per day. Rabu AI Plus costs $9.99 monthly, $23.99 every three months or $79.99 yearly and adds ad-free messaging with no daily limit, regenerations as often as you like, Rabu AI Shorts scrolling with no daily cap, editing any message in your chats and stories, a daily message from your character with a photo and a voice message, premium writing models, free chat Special Sessions (video sessions not included), double daily Lucky Draw tickets, exclusive monthly outfits and items, and 50 tokens every month; generated media keeps its normal token costs.
Characters remember your name, your stories and what happened in earlier chats, and the relationship grows as you talk. Group chats bring several characters into one scene, and adult roleplay between adults is supported.
Characters can send pictures, videos and voice messages. A picture costs 2 tokens, a voice message 1 token, a 5-second video 2 tokens and a 10-second video 3 tokens. Character Creator is free and offers extensive customization, including male, humanoid and trans characters. A finished character starts private but can be submitted for review and, if approved, discovered and matched by others.
New on Rabu AI: Rabu AI Shorts is a swipeable feed of short character videos, and a clip can start a POV scene with that character. Special Sessions have no time limit. You can import a character from its character.ai link into the Character Creator.
Rabu AI speaks 10 languages: English, Español, Português, Русский, Français, 中文, Deutsch, 日本語, Italiano, and 한국어. Write in any of them and the characters answer in the same language, in chat and in stories.
Story Mode turns a scenario into a story you play, with characters who answer back. Every story includes 2 free messages to try it, and 20 more Story Mode messages cost 2 tokens. Rabu AI is a web app that works in any phone or computer browser.
AI character prompt questions, answered
How do I stop the AI from talking for me?
How do I make my character definition better?
How do I get a bot to not say certain things?
Why does my character lose their personality as the chat goes on?
How do I get more dialogue and less narration?
How should I write my own persona?
Why does the AI keep getting my gender wrong?
What languages does Rabu AI support?
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