Writing fiction with Sudowrite

Antoni Dol  
Sudowrite proves to be a powerful tool bridging an LLM and a writer to quickly and flawlessly write fiction. You can maintain control by doing your homework well and guiding the AI within the framework of your Genre, Synopsis, Characters, and Outline when generating Beats and Chapters.

How to Write Fiction with AI Assistant Sudowrite

 Why AI?

As a writer, I've always had the mindset to make the most of digital tools. Websites like a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a site for conjugations were just a click away on my browser's favorites bar while working on my manuscript. I even wrote a book about Scrivener in Scrivener. That is until I started writing in English.

In English, resources like Google Translate, dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, theconjugator.com, and hyphenation24.com were also a few more clicks away. I tried DeepL but wasn't impressed. Then I discovered that ChatGPT also provided translations and applied the context of the text excellently to the translation.

I released my Dutch book "Autonoom" as "Autonomous" with a translation via ChatGPT after an English proofreader had refined all manual formulations. After that, I wrote my first book using AI. The English language usage was much better than I could write in English myself, and almost flawless. Inspiration for a culture of extraterrestrial beings via Midjourney, an AI image generator via Discord, turned out to produce useful images. Text generation was fast, but editing took up a lot of time. The book is now being read by my English-speaking proofreader among others.

Afterward, I began a trilogy in English using Sudowrite.

 

Sudowrite

Sudowrite is an online tool that connects various Large Language Models (LLMs) with a writer. It's a user interface for writers with an AI assistant. As a writer, you can specify which LLM you want to use and access various useful functions to generate, improve, or expand text. Sudowrite isn't the only tool available, and it may not be the best, but it has been around for quite some time and has a large and active user group. Novelcrafter does something similar, and verb.ai also helps with writing fiction. I don't like the Sorbet theme much, but others exist.

Sudowrite operates on a credit system because some LLMs require more processing power than others. For less than thirty dollars, you get a million credits. The consumption of credits is opaque, but with a million credits, you can go quite far. I used up a bit more than half of them for my first book. At the start of a new month, you get another million credits, costing you another thirty dollars, but you can always pause.

 Sudowrite Tools

When writing in Sudowrite's online editor, you have access to several tools:

 Describe

From a selected piece of prose, you can request further description. You'll receive a few lines with a more detailed description of the selected text, and you can indicate which senses are involved. Sight and hearing are common, but you can also include smell, taste, and touch, as well as the use of metaphors in the description.

 Rewrite

Sudowrite can rewrite text in various ways: rephrasing, shortening, or making it more descriptive, for example. "Show, not tell" is also an option to rewrite your text or make it more internally conflicted or intense, but you can also provide your own prompt for the AI to rewrite the text.

 

Expand

You can request to expand the selected text further. You'll then receive a continuation of the selected text, as the AI thinks it can fill in. This can be surprisingly creative but may also go completely in the wrong direction. More on keeping your story on track later.

 The result of these tools is cards with content in a right column on the screen that you can insert or copy in its entirety. It's also possible to copy a selection and paste it into your text. This way, you can also compose new paragraphs from different cards, being careful not to repeat text in your story.

 Write

Finally, there's the option to let the AI write. This can be automatic, guided, or with a change in tone. In the writing settings, you can choose one of the different LLMs, such as ChatGPT 4 Turbo or Claude 2 Opus. Additionally, you can set the number of cards to choose from and the length of the text based on that. There are options to adjust the quality, speed, and accuracy of the generated text. A few relevant hints help the AI generate meaningful text. The slider for adjusting Creativity affects the extent to which the AI takes liberties with your story.

 Sudowrite's True Power: Story Bible

With these tools, you can do a lot to quickly write flawless texts. However, they don't leverage Sudowrite's power to write fiction. Generating a book with the press of a button isn't possible. I also don't think you should want that. You want to write your own story, and the "Story Bible" is the function that allows you to do this. Sudowrite supports you in the process of writing with a few possibilities:

 Braindump

The Braindump function provides a framework where you can jot down your initial thoughts about a story. Sudowrite takes these into account in later stages, such as your Synopsis and your Beats.

 Genre

In the Genre section, you can specify your Genre and Subgenre, but also make Themes, Tropes, and Tone-of-Voice known to Sudowrite.

 Style

By pasting an example of previously written text into the Style section and pressing the "Match my Style" button, Sudowrite generates a description of the style in which the story will be written.

 Synopsis

The Synopsis section should contain the summary of your story. If you create it yourself, you paste it in. Sudowrite can also generate a synopsis based on the information in the Braindump and Genre sections.

 Characters

Sudowrite can also generate characters in the Characters section, but I prefer to control which characters appear in my book. Besides the main characters, you can specify secondary characters. The format for Sudowrite is: "Character name: Description," and Sudowrite uses the synopsis to suggest characters. This information influences how the characters are described, how their dialogues sound, what choices they make, and how they react to other characters. You can update these sections at any time.

In the beta, much more detailed character components can be found, where the free-text section has been replaced by various characteristics and traits of your character.

 Worldbuilding

In the beta, there's also a worldbuilding section with components such as Setting, Lore, Organization, Key Events, Magic System, Clue, Item, Technology, Government, Economy, Culture, and Religion. Apart from that, you can also create your own section and fill in a description and properties.

 Outline

The Outline section is important for the progression of the plot in your story. Sudowrite can generate an outline based on Genre, Synopsis, and Characters, but by providing your own outline in the form of "Act 1: title, Chapter 1: text," you can better control and keep your story on track. You can always adjust the outline to what you think is necessary for the story.

 Beats and Prose

Once you've done all this groundwork, Sudowrite can really get to work for you: the next step is generating Beats. These are step-by-step instructions on how a chapter or scene should unfold. From here on, I let Sudowrite generate the text, but I rigorously rewrite the Beats if they don't go in the direction I want the story to go. Furthermore, Sudowrite generates text in "Strides" of two Beats, so I split each Beat into two parts so that each Beat is generated in one Stride. With about ten Beats, Sudowrite is able to generate a scene or chapter in a few minutes. You can also structure your Beats in a way that allows you to be surprised by the AI's suggestions. Being open to the AI's suggestions and accepting what the AI has served you is part of writing with Sudowrite.

 Editing

Carefully read through the generated pieces of text and discard anything that isn't good. This is where your role as editor of the text written by your AI assistant comes into play. The text is generated in purple, but once you edit it, the color returns to normal. You can replace words, shorten sentences, and add text to make your story flow optimally. Moreover, all the previously mentioned tools for expanding text are available here. This way, you make your story as good as possible.

To keep your story on the right track, you may need to regenerate texts, discard them altogether, or rewrite them rigorously. You determine how your story should be told, not the AI.

 Rewriting

I copy the generated text into Scrivener afterward to read it through calmly and ensure that the story flows well. It's a good idea to read your book in one go to determine if any scenes are missing. If necessary, you can always go back to Sudowrite to generate new text or expand existing text. Outside Sudowrite, the text is safe if Sudowrite is temporarily offline (rare, but it recently happened), and Scrivener has other tools that are better suited for rewriting and finalizing your First Draft. For example, for replacing terms that the AI has used too often, such as "a testament to," "Tapestry of," and "a symphony of."

 Copyright

Unlike digital photography, it doesn't seem possible for there to be copyright on your book, despite determining the frameworks and direction of the plot in your Outline and Beats yourself. I also determine the characters and Synopsis of my story. Moreover, I extensively edit the text to ensure it goes in the direction I want.

I'm aware that you can also give the AI free rein to make suggestions and thus leave the direction and characters of the book entirely to the AI. I wonder if that results in a strong story.

 Publishing

When publishing a book created based on AI, you should be aware that platforms like Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) require you to indicate whether the book was written with AI and whether the images on the cover were generated with AI. Currently, this has no impact on the book's sales, but in the future, there may be an indication for readers about how the book was written.

 Conclusion

Sudowrite proves to be a powerful tool bridging an LLM and a writer to quickly and flawlessly write fiction. You can maintain control by doing your homework well and guiding the AI within the framework of your Genre, Synopsis, Characters, and Outline when generating Beats and Chapters. Of course, you can continue to write everything yourself if you prefer, but others are already picking up these tools and producing books in months instead of years. The quality of the book lies entirely in the hands of the writer when selecting and editing generated texts. After all, the AI is merely an assistant to the writer.

 

Antoni Dol

April 24, 2024

http://antonidol.nl/ai

19+ Comments

Lvocem

A friend of mine just got a post grad certification from Cornel on AI. So to me, there are places where AI is and should be welcome. But when it comes to writing something that will carry your name, I would say no. Substitute the word AI for my cousin Vini. My cousin Vini is doing all the research, does the first draft, I edit, I tell my cousin Vini to do more changes, so in the end, can I put my name on it. I would say no. At best, it’s a collaboration. At the worst, it’s me taking the work of other and stamping my name on it. There’s a name for that.

Now, let say that you have product X. And to do the marketing, promotion, PR is going to cost you to either hire and agency with a retainer of 10 grant, or hire staff which will cost you about 30 grant a month. So instead you hire a marketing director and a couple of AI specialist, who have in different capacities AI doing the work of 7 people. At the end of the day. There’s no personal signature on the promotion of the product. The product is your baby, and you just saved half a million dollars a year and can now complete with a company that makes billions. I’d say AI is a good friend here.

So for my money. If you are putting your name on it, it better be you. Beyond research the AI footprint should not be there.
I am not the only one that feels this way. Most literary publications have a zero tolerance for AI generated work. And most publishers feel the same way.

May-06 at 00:19

Sunsetgods

I’m not too fond of the idea of using AI to write fiction and I don’t think I ever will. Sorry, but it will always seem lazy to me. I think there’s a big difference between using technology as an aid and then having it produce huge swaths of your craft without human interaction. There’s a reason VFX, Photoshop, CGI, and other tools have been accepted as part of art, but AI art isn’t. Everything except AI art is a tool mediated by human hands and requires skill.

Writing has stayed mostly the same since its conception. You just string sentences and paragraphs together to make a tale. Sure, there are AI tools to improve writing (like Grammarly and ProWritingAid), but those are like VFX, Photoshop, etc. They’re tools. The line between tool and laziness is breached when it makes big chunks of work for you.

Now, I saw in your blog that you use AI for translations. To be honest, I think that’s a neat and good use of AI. The only thing I’m worried about is how AI translations may push people out of jobs. I remember articles coming out about Duolingo laying off employees because they’ve invested in AI. It’s sickening to me.

May-06 at 00:46

Trevose

I’m a big fan of using tools such as AutoCrit to help me find repeated phrases, generic words, overused words, overly long sentences, repeated sentences and paragraphs that start with the same word, etc., but it would feel like a brutal homework assignment to use a tool such as you described the way you described it. I’d rather stick a fork in my eye. I appreciate you sharing the info, however.

As to whether or not such work will displace fiction written the old fashion way…I doubt it. AI is impressive (and sales of AI products made by the company I work for is part of my salary), but it’s a long, long way from displacing good human creativity. I say that having spent too many hours today creating videos by combining images I had one AI tool create that I then imported into another tool that in turn changed a static image into a 12 second video to which I added generated music. I had fun with it and you can kinda tell what I was going for, but in the end it was all kind of goofy and slightly flawed in one way or another. Kinda like…

image

May-06 at 02:15

Lvocem

Dude, the Spiderman Fisherman and Archer are sick. You did that on that program?
Pardon my French, fucking awesome.

May-06 at 02:44

Trevose

No, no. My point was that the videos “I” created with a lot of AI help were just a bit off…like these funky spidermen.

May-06 at 03:24

Miked

I think “Writing Fiction” and “Sudowrite” together in the same sentence comprises an oxymoron.

Not a fan of so-called AI writing programs. The word @Lvocem was too polite to use is plagiarism. No AI can write with empathy. IMO having a sentence-generator produce a piece for you and calling it your own is dishonest no matter how much time the ‘writer’ spends providing input. The ‘writer’ is reduced to a Data Input Engineer. What comes out is not the writer’s writing.

AI-generated cover art seems slightly more acceptable to me, but that’s probably just because I’m not an artist. I might feel differently if I were.

May-06 at 04:45

Jcgreen

I am actually surprised this blog was even allowed. It is a clear rule on this site that AI material is not allowed, so why have a blog promoting it? There is not even a note in the blog acknowledging that any material produced by AI cannot be posted here. :-1:

May-06 at 07:20

Michiemap

I am not interested in reading AI generated books in the same way I’m not interested in reading ghostwritten work. It feels inauthentic to me. I also would hate to write a book like this. It would massively change my voice which ive worked pretty hard for :rofl: . That’s one reason i dont think this will take off in a big way - agents always bang on about voice. AI can’t do that, can it? Or at least it would struggle with different writer voices without copying.

Writing using this tech would take all the joy out of being a writer for me as spending three hours getting a paragraph of description right in my own words is kind of what its all about. So not for me both from a reading and a writing perspective, and I would be frustrated if someone called themselves a writer after using it.

May-06 at 07:43

Wendyg

Of course, you can continue to write everything yourself if you prefer, but others are already picking up these tools and producing books in months instead of years.

Of course, there will always be craftsmanship and … factory produced product. Some people will prefer to sit in their workshops and handcraft their paintings and pottery and prose. Others will join the mass production line either in management level or down on the factory floor.

Neither is the right or wrong way to make something (unless they steal the basis of their product from others, which is why AI-produced material can’t be copyrighted because of its origins), and I’m sure there will inevitably be a market for both.
I have flat-pack bookshelves from the equivalent of Ikea, and I have antique bookshelves courtesy of some craftsman of long ago – the former didn’t cost much and are in the alcove overflow where nobody goes,and the latter are facing me as I type and hold the best books. If I downsize again, it won’t be the flat-pack bookshelves that come with me.

May-06 at 08:13

Michiemap

Haha - I like the analogy. You’d call the end result a bookcase, but you wouldn’t call the person who put it together a carpenter. So yeah, that works!

May-06 at 08:29

Andy_jacob

So far, my experience with AI is still the same. Editing with the help from an AI is okay, as long as you don’t fall into a rut of accepting every single change. On the other hand, it feels to me like writing with the help of an AI in first place will give you all kinds of generic habits, which will make your writing bland and unexciting. My take, as a non-native, would be to stick to your own language, if you don’t feel confident writing (or learning to write) in foreign languages. I’m not saying that out of spite or to restrict anyone from doing things they like, but if an AI will do the majority of writing for you, the finished product will be stripped of personality, the author’s personality. There are many interesting, budding writers here on CC, some of whom are not from UK or US, and I would bet a hundred bucks their own experiences and even the use of their native language influences the way they write in a way that makes their works unique and fresh. I’m afraid the AI will take that away. I’d say, learn to write in a foreign language first to find your own voice, and then use the AI as a helpful tool, not the other way around.

May-06 at 09:17

Vidyut

If AI can write in a way I find useful, I’ll take it. So far my content is too story dense to generate with most of it directly being plot related. The AI would generate the story as well.

Me being me, of course I’ve tried it. Didn’t find it useful.

At the moment, I’m giving AI some time to develop, and the next major thing I’ll try it on is book 3 stage expanding rough draft into first. Its a lot of slog, and triples the word count, but is mostly about expanding my outline filling in details, etc so that I can start editing it. Though now that I’ve written it I’m a bit skeptical. Even with slog work, there’s all the character work that needs to happen and microcontinuity that needs to line up… the thought of verifying all that is exhausting. Will be simpler to write…

But I will consider ChatGPT doing a critting pass before my submissions here. That way I don’t have to torture my critters with my typo skills and basic mistakes.

I WILL check out Sudowrite, however. At least based on the blog, I suspect it may do more clever organising of my data than my current notes. It’s a long time till book 3 and I hope it develops enough to be of good, solid use.

About those saying AI is not allowed, I’m not currently using AI since I didn’t find it useful. If I found a tool that let me manifest my stories faster, I’d totally take it, and if this site didn’t allow it, I’d post other stories here and develop the AI stuff in other ways.

I have no intentions of breaking rules.

Basically I don’t die on hills. Or rather I do, but AI isn’t my hill.

May-06 at 09:22

Josielynn

Surely it does what it says on the tin? Sudo, a homophone for Pseudo, meaning fake.
I see these tools working for two purposes:

  1. To mass produce crap because you’ve seen some kind of I make $20k a month selling books on Amazon model, and that’s all you’re interested in.
  2. For the kind of work-avoidant individual who isn’t prepared to do any personal research and doesn’t read, but they want the kudos of calling themselves a writer and mentally aligning themselves with Herman Melville.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned artists’ reactions to art AI. My husband is a book and game artist. It’s exactly the same situation.
Thanks, no thanks.

May-06 at 09:26

Vidyut

What I really need is an AI that will take out my typos and package my book into epub and print pdf without mangling it.

Opened my book 1 for the new edits and after each chapter being edited dozens of times, and the book being published, took me under ten minutes to find a typo. FACEPALM. This is just not my superpower.

May-06 at 09:41

Elliestorm

AI was supposed to do the boring stuff for me so I could do the creating, not do the creating and leave me with the boring stuff like house work.

What I’ve seen with people who use AI is that there is a place for it, but its not in creativity. AI will never capture what makes a work great … that is the heart you bring to it.

you also still need to know what you’re looking at and understand it … unfortunately a lot of people who use AI forget this and therefore cannot make good use of its outputs.

I’ve also noted it makes people very lazy the ones that use it. The young kids coming through who won’t be able utilize skills we think of as basic and standard today is phenomenal.

I don’t think anything good will come from promoting AI to take over in the creative space. It will just make the human race collectively dumber and easier to manipulate by people at the top who seek to take advantage of our collective stupidity.

May-06 at 09:43

Glitterpen

I wasn’t working in the art industry when AI generated images became a thing—I made art for fun, as a hobby—but it feels downright horrible to know that the people I admired for so long were not compensated for their work. AI trained on a database of 5 billion images that were scraped from the internet without the consent of artists and photographers (some of these people struggled with disabilities to make what they did).

I deleted my art account on an art site which started allowing AI art at the end of 2022 (I’m not well known, not even close, but I didn’t want my stuff used by AI). It takes about 25 to 40 hours for a human artist to make a decent digital painting (fantasy, or sci fi, etc.). The AI software can make an image (I refuse to call it art) in a matter of minutes, so some art sites became flooded with the easy-to-make derivatives, drowning out the human art (meaning real people get less attention than all the pretenders).

The worst part is many people actually signed their name to the AI images. It just devalued what we did. One art site started forcing people to label AI images as AI…but the damage had been done because so many human artists left the site.

May-06 at 09:47

Josielynn

Absolutely this. There also seems to be a shifting line in young adults’ minds as to what constitutes real and pretend. In the uni where I work, there’s been a huge upswing in students submitting assignments written by AI. Some of them genuinely don’t realise they’ve cheated.

May-06 at 09:49

Elliestorm

I’ve noted its becoming a default go to for young people and they aren’t developing understanding as a result.

Which will not be good in the long run for the human race. critical skills will be lost …

if you’ve ever see Idiocracry … that future is where we are fast heading with AI and I wish I was kidding.

May-06 at 09:55

Rxd01

This. So much this.

May-06 at 10:02
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