Building My First AI Story Prototype

Three weeks ago I decided to stop circling ideas and just build. I gave myself one month to turn a vague concept into a working storytelling platform powered by AI.

The goal wasn't to build the perfect product. It was to ship something real, test my assumptions, and learn what actually matters when you're building with AI.

Why I built it

I'd been exploring AI for storytelling for a while, but exploration only gets you so far. At some point, you need to commit to something and see if it holds up.

I wanted to see if I could build a system where AI supports creativity without taking over. Where people still feel like they're in control of the story, but the tool removes friction and helps them move faster.

The technical choices

I chose Next.js, Supabase, and React Query because I wanted control over how data flows and how the interface responds. I didn't want to rely on abstraction layers that hide complexity, I wanted to understand how everything connects.

That decision made development slower at first, but it gave me a deeper understanding of how to design AI workflows that feel predictable and maintainable.

What I learnt

Shipping fast taught me more than weeks of planning ever could. I learnt where the bottlenecks are, what users actually care about, and what features sound good but don't matter in practice.

The prototype isn't perfect, but it works. And now I have a foundation I can iterate on instead of a pile of ideas that never shipped.