How Stories for Skazoria Are Created

Alongside the technical development of the app, the creation of the stories themselves plays an important role. Before a story appears in the Skazoria app, it goes through several steps.

The first step is finding suitable stories. For this I explore different public domain collections and look for fairy tales and stories that work well for children. Often I start with stories I already know from my own childhood or stories that are widely known.

To simplify this process a bit, I also built some small technical tools. My program searches through different sources for potential stories and evaluates them based on certain criteria. In the end it gives me a list of suggestions, and I decide which stories should be included.

Once a story is selected, the original text and metadata are imported. After that, the editorial work begins.

I read the story carefully and adjust it if necessary. Some sentences are simplified and certain parts may be slightly rewritten to make the story easier to read and understand.

There is also an important test at home: I read every story to my daughter. This helps me quickly see whether the story works well, whether some words are difficult to understand, or whether the story feels too long or too complex.

At the same time additional elements are prepared. Each story receives a cover image, a description, categories and age groups.

For translations I use a combination of different tools such as AI assistants, DeepL and my own language skills. This is particularly helpful because many public domain stories are originally available in English.

Once all steps are completed and the story passes the planned milestones, it is released. Technically this happens through an API that stores the story on the online server. From there the content becomes directly available in the app.

In the long run it would be exciting if a small community forms around Skazoria. Maybe one day people will join the project and help with selecting or preparing new stories.