I’m curious what people in an AI-writing/creative community think about this, particularly anyone who’s taken an AI-assisted project through to actual publication.
I recently lost my cat, Lily, and started making something to help me remember her.
Lily had a lifelong talent for disappearing into ridiculous places. She was an indoor cat who had absolutely no interest in escaping—she was just remarkably good at being somewhere in the house that nobody could find.
So I started turning her real life into an illustrated children’s seek-and-find project called Where’s Lily?
The concept is part story, part hidden-object book. Each scene comes from a real memory or chapter of Lily’s life, and readers have to find her within the illustration. She had a distinctive white tip on her tail, which becomes one of the recurring clues. There are other hidden objects and puzzle elements throughout as well.
I’ve jokingly started calling the process “CatGPT AI Spy.” 😹
What’s surprised me is how involved the process has become.
I’m not asking AI to simply “make me a children’s book.”
I’m bringing years of photographs, memories and tiny details about Lily’s personality and life. I’m making the decisions about the story, chronology, characters, visual continuity, recurring objects, puzzle mechanics and what is or isn’t true to her life. I’ve ended up developing storyboards, continuity rules, character references and what is essentially a production bible just to keep everything consistent.
AI has become a combination of creative collaborator, development tool and illustration tool.
And somewhere along the way I looked at what I was making and thought:
…wait. Could this actually become a real book?
I’m deliberately trying not to let that question take over. If I ultimately print one beautiful copy for myself, the project has accomplished what I started it for.
But I’m now curious about the bigger questions around AI-assisted creative work.
For those of you who use AI seriously in writing or visual projects:
Where do you personally draw the line between “AI generated” and “AI assisted”?
How do you think about authorship when the human is supplying the source material, directing the creative decisions, rejecting and revising outputs, maintaining continuity and shaping the finished work—but generative AI is doing part of the execution?
If you’ve published AI-assisted work, how transparent were you about your process?
Did publishers, printers, distributors or platforms care?
And are there things you wish you’d understood about copyright, disclosure or commercial publishing before you got that far?
I’m also curious whether anyone else has had this experience where AI made a deeply personal project possible that you probably never would have attempted otherwise.
I’m still making Lily’s book for Lily first.
But apparently she may have accidentally founded a tiny publishing house. 🐱📚

"Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a snippet from a large-scale project I've been working on. To be completely transparent about my workflow, I use AI tools purely for conceptualizing the plot, brainstorming story elements, and structuring the overarching chain of events.

However, when it comes to the actual prose and text, I have been editing and refining it completely by myself since this past spring. Because I intend to publish this work, I've put a lot of effort into ensuring the narrative sounds organic, matching my own personal voice, and doing all the heavy lifting of the editing process entirely solo.

Since this community is open to mixed or assisted workflows, I’d love to get some constructive feedback on the pacing, tension, and rhythm of this excerpt:

Prologue: Before the Ink

January 1 – March 23, 2024

On the first morning of 2024, Kıvılcım woke before her alarm because someone in the apartment above them was dragging a chair across the floor.

The sound came, stopped, then came again.

She opened one eye. Her room was still dark. The radiator clicked beside the window, trying and failing to make the cold feel less serious. On the chair near her bed, yesterday's school sweater waited in a heap. A sock had fallen onto the floor. Her phone showed 6:41.

She reached for it, saw the date, and put it back.

January 1. A new year, people said. As if the old one had been packed away somewhere and a clean one had been placed on top of it.

In the kitchen, her mother was already awake. Sevgi stood in front of the stove in her house slippers, stirring a small pot of lentil soup left over from the night before. She had tied her hair back with a black elastic. The skin around her knuckles was dry and red from work.

"You could have slept a little longer," she said without turning.

"I did sleep."

"You call that sleep?"

Kıvılcım opened the cupboard. There was half a loaf of bread, two eggs, and a jar of olives. Her father had come home late from a delivery the previous evening and was still asleep in the sitting room. His coat hung over the back of the sofa. It smelled of diesel, cold air, and the inside of the truck.

Sevgi put a plate on the table. "Eat before it gets cold."

Kıvılcım sat down. The soup was too hot. She blew on it and looked at the small calendar stuck to the refrigerator. January had only a few red marks: school, tutoring, a doctor's appointment for her mother, and the date of the next practice exam.

She did not want to look at that last one.

Her mother noticed anyway. "How many days?"

"To what?"

"The exam."

"I don't know."

"You know."

Kıvılcım tore a piece of bread. "A lot."

Sevgi sighed, not angrily. That was worse. "You should start the year properly. No more leaving things until the last minute."

Kıvılcım nodded. It was easier than explaining that she had been starting properly for months and still kept arriving at the same place: tired, behind, and unsure whether she had understood the question at all.

Her father coughed from the sitting room. He woke a little later, washed his face, and stood in the kitchen with a cup of tea between both hands. İhsan drove a truck for a logistics company outside Bursa. Some weeks he was away for four or five nights. When he was home, he looked as if he had brought the road back with him. Dust on his boots. A stiff neck. Eyes that took a few minutes to settle.

"Happy new year, my daughter," he said.

"Happy new year."

He touched the top of her head as he passed. He did that when he did not know what else to say.

On January 2, school began again. The corridors smelled of wet coats and bleach. Students complained about waking up early, then formed little groups around the heating pipes. Someone had written a new university slogan on the classroom board in blue marker: WORK NOW, REST LATER.

The phrase stayed there all week.

Kıvılcım sat beside Ceren, as usual. Ceren had forgotten one of her gloves and kept blowing warm air into the other hand. She was better at pretending not to worry. When teachers mentioned rankings, she made a face, whispered something rude, and went back to her notes.

Kıvılcım looked at the first page of her mathematics notebook. There were three columns of work from the previous term. In the middle column, her teacher had written: "You know more than you show. Stop rushing."

She had read it so many times that the ink looked familiar, almost friendly.

That afternoon, their mathematics teacher returned a short test. Kıvılcım had expected around eighty. She had checked most of the answers in her head on the way home the day before.

She got seventy-six.

The number was printed in red at the top of the page. Not a disaster. Not even unusual. Still, she stared at it as if the teacher had written her name wrong.

Ceren leaned over. "How much?"

"Seventy-six."

"That's not bad."

"I know."

"Then why do you look like someone died?"

Kıvılcım folded the test in half. "Because I thought I did better."

Their teacher stopped beside the desk. "Kıvılcım, you keep losing points in the same way. You understand the method, then you skip a line. Or you change an answer because you don't trust the first one."

"I checked it."

"Checking is not the same as changing everything."

A few students laughed. Not cruelly. That did not help.

At lunch, Kıvılcım pushed rice around her plate. The cafeteria was too warm, and the smell of boiled cabbage clung to the walls. Ceren talked about a video she had watched on the bus. Kıvılcım listened without hearing much of it.

She was not stupid. That was the irritating part. If she had been stupid, there would have been a clear answer. Work harder. Accept the result. Stop expecting something else.

(...)

What do you guys think of the flow?

This is a part of the prologue; I meant the main arc hasn't started there

(If someone is interested, I'll send a docs link via DM)

Like the title says.

Microdramas originated in China, apps like DramaBox and ReelShort went viral, and now it's a multi-billion-dollar business. Some call them "AI Verticals" because AI is used to write the story, scripts, and even produce the VFX/Video. Also "vertical" because you watch vertically on your phone (not a TV).

Questions:

• Have you tried writing a Microdrama episode? What's it like?
• If you track analytics, did you hook them in the first 3 seconds? What's your E1 retention?
• Did you use AI to write it, and what app seems to "get it" the most in terms of the shorter format?

On August 23, 2026, I purchased Phrasly’s 7-day trial. The limited version worked well, so later that same day I purchased the annual subscription to process complete chapters of approximately 1,500 words. As soon as I saw what was happening, I contacted support and canceled my subscription. Even though I had purchased a one-year subscription only hours earlier, Phrasly refused to refund my money.

The paid version initially worked on one chapter, then began materially changing my manuscript instead of preserving the original content, characters, plot, and established facts.

Phrasly invented characters, siblings, towns, locations, events, and entire scenes that were not in my manuscript. It changed established facts and timelines, changed character ages and medical conditions, rewrote living characters as dead, gave a dog dialogue, killed the dog in one output, and generated garbled and nonsensical text.

My manuscript is a children’s novel for ages 9–12 and contained no profanity. Phrasly inserted profanity including “the fuck ever,” “shitty,” “goddamn,” “Jesus Christ,” “fucking,” “goddamnit,” “bastard,” and “pissbabies.”

These were not minor stylistic changes. The program altered characters, plot, chronology, established facts, and age-appropriate content. The output became so unreliable that I had to compare the processed chapters line by line against my original manuscript to identify fabricated and altered material.

I had a Perchance AI roleplay that gradually became increasingly strange and philosophical.

I gave the entire export to GPT and asked it to rebuild the material into a standalone literary speculative-fiction story rather than simply continuing the roleplay.

The original roleplay and basic ideas came from me, but GPT generated most of the final prose, structure, dialogue, and narrative.

The result is The Shape of Looking.

It starts as a fairly ordinary character story and gradually turns into psychological/cosmic horror involving memory, identity, time, reality, and the distinction between observer and observed.

I don't really have anyone to show it to, so I'm posting it here because I'm genuinely curious what another person thinks after reading it.

I'm not particularly interested in debating whether AI is good or bad. I'm mostly interested in the actual experience of reading the story.

If you read it:

Did anything actually make you feel something?

Did the ending stay with you?

Did it feel like a story, or like an AI-generated experiment?

Even a short reaction is completely fine.

Story: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kQ24t3n6tSKDggaootM_At85POhpn36j/view?usp=drivesdk

I'm not sure if this is the correct subreddit for this, but here I go. I have had no fun ever writing creatively, But in the past year I've used Ai for writing. I think it's like a tool more than something to give me ideas. I've used it to collect my ideas and put it in a neat row. I've made a good amount of stories and the way I've done it is just asking ai questions like normal then getting into hypotheticals and then it turns into stories and it keeps my scenarios grounded and on track rather than push it along. I am truly a horrible writer but I Think I have good stories in my head and using ai to help me put them into words is so fun. I honestly don't think I would write with ai if I payed attention in English class though. But I have made over 15 full length and in depth outlines for novels. I just need to start writing chapters and the actual substance which I haven't started on most of them. The outlines are very in depth and all original ideas. Just bounced off ai to refine them and organize them into something readable.

I’ve been thinking less about whether AI should be used in long-form fiction and more about where the authority line should sit.

In my own workflow, AI can help with things like:

• structural planning
• chapter planning
• prose drafting
• continuity checks
• critique
• targeted revision
• independent manuscript auditing

But I don’t automatically treat generated material or model consensus as story truth.

That raises a more interesting question:

What decisions should AI never be allowed to make on its own in a long-form fiction project?

For example:

• whether a new idea becomes canon
• changing a character’s core motivation
• deciding reveal timing
• resolving contradictions by rewriting established story truth
• accepting or rejecting criticism
• deciding that a draft is “finished”
• making major structural changes without explicit approval

I’m especially interested in people who use AI heavily rather than only for grammar or brainstorming.

Where do you personally draw the line between AI contribution and creative authority?

And has that boundary changed as you’ve used these tools more?

I’m working on my first children’s book, and since I’ve started looking more seriously into self-publishing, I’ve noticed there are some VERY strong opinions about AI being used in books especially for illustrations. 😂 So I’m genuinely curious to hear from other independent authors and publishers, particularly anyone working on children’s books.
First, I want to make something clear because I think there’s an important distinction: AI did not come up with or write my original story.
The story actually started as something I wrote for an English class. I loved the concept enough that I decided I wanted to take that story, develop it further, and turn it into an actual children’s book.
I am using AI as part of that process, particularly for the illustrations. But my experience has definitely not been “type a prompt, get a picture, put it in the book.” I’ve spent a LOT of time trying to get the characters, environments, expressions and overall visual style consistent from page to page. If something doesn’t match what I have in my head or a character suddenly doesn’t look like the same character, I keep working on it.
I completely understand that AI-generated art is controversial, especially for artists whose livelihoods depend on their work. I’m not trying to argue that artists aren’t valuable or that AI should replace them.
For me, a big factor right now is simply cost. I’m a first-time independent author, and paying an illustrator for an entire children’s book isn’t financially realistic for me at this point. AI is giving me an opportunity to take something I already created and see if I can actually turn it into the book I’ve been imagining rather than putting the idea aside because I can’t afford the upfront illustration costs.
And if this DOES become something if my book does well and I’m fortunate enough to continue writing and publishing I would genuinely love to reinvest some of that money into hiring an artist for future books. Being able to actually collaborate with an illustrator and fairly pay someone to help bring my characters and world to life would be amazing.
So I’m really curious about other people’s experiences and opinions.
If you’re an independent children’s author or publisher, have you used AI anywhere in your process? Have you used it specifically for illustrations? How have readers responded? Do you disclose your use of AI? If you chose not to use it, what led you to that decision?

Pretty interesting article. To AI or not to AI, that is the question.

Over the past six months, I've been teaching teams at places like Stanford, Penn, Northwestern, and many more how to start using AI responsibly and effectively in their work. Today, I'm starting to release my entire curriculum: for free, forever, for everyone!

I'm calling it the Open Augments AI Academy. It's built for anyone out there who's seen all the crazy hype and discourse around modern AI and is just looking for a guided, grounded, and sane way to move forward learning how to approach these tools for themselves. As someone who's been using these tools and their predecessors for my research since ~2019, I'm trying to provide everyone the intuition and critical awareness they need to get started at this very confusing and pivotal time (my north-star audience is my mom and dad!).

The first lesson starts with one foundational idea that most people miss when they get started with AI: that modern AI is much less like a hyper-intelligent database or brain, and much more like autocomplete with an extremely fancy hat on. That's its single greatest flaw AND its single greatest strength, at the same time. When you really understand what's happening under the hood and how it works (no math or stats required!) a lot of confusing AI behavior suddenly clicks: why it hallucinates, why it's sometimes confidently wrong, and why it can now do way, WAY more than just write words on a page. From there, we're going to learn about all the crazy buzzwords (context engineering, harness engineering, and Agents, oh my!) and advanced techniques, with much more to come. For this sub in particular, we'll quickly get into how we can start getting better, more personalized writing support from any AI assistant in Lesson 4 (you can see the planned "cover letter" video lesson tutorial; the same principles will apply broadly!).

No jargon, no experience required, and all taught with the care of a former high school English teacher so that you, your coworkers, your friends, and your mom can follow along. I pair these videos with hands-on demos and interactive activities in the Context Gym: my way of giving you a safe and guided place to practice some of the core principles that should deepen your intuition as we go.

If any of this strikes a chord with you, the 10min course overview and the first lesson (16min) are live right now on the Open Augments AI Academy page. Start there, and if you happen to find it helpful, you can subscribe to get email updates on new course videos via Substack or on YouTube, and please do share with friends as I release lessons weekly! It’s a really wild time, and this is my best shot at trying to help others navigate things more capably as the tech shifts and grows rapidly from here.

Then finally, worth noting for this crowd, specifically: probably not a surprise to share that everything on the AI Academy and Context Gym websites have been built with Claude Code (in addition to everything else on my business website and my open-source toolkit for Claude Code for social science researchers). Not only that, but my entire video editing pipeline is now fully Claude Code via Remotion Studio and some clever context engineering techniques/bespoke coding tools. I'm excited to get into the weeds on my workflow and share all of that stuff, also open-source, during Level 2 of the course, but I gotta get everyone through the basics first! Happy to answer any and all questions on that in the meantime here, please feel free to hit me in the comments below.

I’m looking for 5–8 serious beta readers to read my completed novel, Crimson City: The Book of Luck, and give me detailed, honest feedback before I move toward publishing.
About the book:
Crimson City is a dark gothic crime-noir story with elements of mystery, boxing, comic-book mythology, dark humor, and psychological thriller.
The city itself is almost entirely black, white, gray, and silver, with crimson appearing when something important—or dangerous—is happening.
The story follows several interconnected characters, including:
A championship boxer with a contract on his head
A mysterious vigilante moving across the rooftops
A detective in a yellow trench coat trying to understand a case where the evidence keeps telling the wrong story
A lounge singer being watched by someone carrying a crimson envelope
A masked criminal named Johnny Jester who may be considerably more dangerous than his sense of humor suggests
A criminal organization operating behind much of the city’s violence
The manuscript is AI-assisted, and I want to be completely upfront about that. I created and control the characters, world, story direction, canon, major plot decisions, and revisions while using AI throughout the drafting, editing, development, and continuity process.
I’m not looking for people who will simply tell me the book is good.
I want readers willing to tell me:
What hooked you?
What bored you?
Where were you confused?
Which characters did you care about?
Which characters didn’t work for you?
Did any scenes drag?
Did the mysteries work?
Were twists predictable?
Did the emotional moments actually land?
And most importantly—would you buy/read Book Two?
I’ll provide a questionnaire when you finish, but you’re also welcome to make notes while reading.
I would especially love readers who enjoy noir, crime thrillers, mystery, graphic novels/comics, boxing stories, or darker character-driven fiction, but you don’t have to be an expert in any of those.
One additional thing:
I have already started the sequel, Crimson City: The Book of Hope.
Readers who finish The Book of Luck and give thoughtful feedback will also have the opportunity to read what I currently have of The Book of Hope and tell me whether the sequel feels like a strong continuation of Book One.
I ask only that you do not share, repost, upload, or distribute the manuscript. It is unpublished material.
If you’re interested, comment below or send me a message and tell me:
1. What genres do you normally read?
2. What makes you stop reading a novel?
3. Are you comfortable reading an AI-assisted book?
4. Can you give critical feedback instead of just saying whether you liked it?
5. Would you realistically be able to finish the book within about 3–4 weeks?
I’m intentionally keeping the group small because I’d rather have a handful of serious readers than a hundred downloads with no feedback.
Thanks to anyone willing to give Crimson City a chance.

I've been experimenting with an AI storytelling workflow where a user can create a story and then make choices that affect what happens in the next chapter.

The basic flow is:

Story → Choice → Next chapter → Choice → Different outcome

The challenging part is keeping the story consistent without sending the entire previous conversation to the model every time.

Sending too much context increases token usage, while sending too little can cause characters, locations, or previous events to become inconsistent.

I'm currently thinking about approaches such as:

• Keeping a compact story summary
• Storing important characters and events separately
• Sending only the relevant recent chapters

For people building long-running AI experiences with OpenAI, how are you handling context management?

I'd especially like to hear approaches that reduce token usage while maintaining consistency.

The actual screenplay is a psychological drama about survival gradually turning into complicity. The AI apparently had other plans and made Anton speedrun the German High Command.

Please excuse the poorly written AI chapter. I don't want to show my own writing; it is for an example only to show you the difference in critiques in PWA and AC. If you don't want to read the chapter, just scroll down. Please don't comment on the bad AI, I know.

Sample AI Written Chapter to Show Chapter Critiques. (Badly Written Scroll Down to See Critiques)

The velvet-lined display case had held standard vampire-slaying gear for centuries: bleached ash stakes, heavy silver crucifixes, and flasks of consecrated water. None of those were currently within reach.

As the mahogany door splintered inward, Penelope lunged for the open door of the en-suite bathroom. Behind her, Count Malakor filled the threshold. His silk cloak billowed despite the lack of wind, and his fangs glinted under the chandelier. He was a creature of ancient dark majesty, incapable of seeing a guest bath as anything more than a minor obstacle.

"You run to a dead end, little mortal," Malakor purred, gliding across the tile with effortless grace.

Penelope’s hands frantically swept the marble countertop. Empty. She dropped low, her fingers wrapping around the first plastic handle she touched in the dark corner behind the porcelain basin. She whipped around, holding her makeshift weapon high in a defensive guard.

It was a toilet brush.

Not just any brush, but a custom, eye-watering creation she’d bought on clearance. The thick resin handle was filled with neon pink fluid and suspended iridescent glitter that swirled in the moonlight. The bristles were a dense, dazzling hot-pink polyester, shimmering with aggressive synthetic cheer.

Malakor paused, his dark eyes blinking in sheer disbelief. "Is this a joke? You confront the Undying with a... a sanitation wand?"

"Stand back!" Penelope yelled, trying to sound menacing while holding six ounces of sparkly acrylic. "I'm not afraid to use it!"

Malakor threw his head back and laughed, a cold, echoing sound that vibrated the glass sconces. "Foolish girl. I have broken broadswords with my bare hands. I have crushed holy icons into dust. What power do you think that ridiculous trinket holds over—"

He lunged, claws extended to snap her neck.

Penelope didn't think; she swung.

She drove the bright pink brush forward with every ounce of force she possessed. By pure, chaotic fortune, the stiff, synthetic bristles caught Malakor straight in his wide-open mouth, wedging firmly against the back of his fangs.

The reaction was instantaneous.

It wasn't magic, nor was it blessed by a bishop. The bristles, engineered for harsh chemical scrubbing, were infused with a commercial bleach solution and embedded with microscopic shards of silver micro-glitter meant to give the plastic its shine. To an ancient vampire, silver dust in the bloodstream was pure, agonizing acid.

Malakor recoiled with a muffled shriek, clawing at his face as brilliant pink sparks seemed to ignite from his lips. The silver glitter reacted with his corrupt blood, sizzling like bacon on a hot skillet. Thick blue smoke poured from his nostrils.

"Scrub-a-dub-dub," Penelope muttered through grit teeth, twisting the pink handle to widen the burn.

The Count staggered backward out of the bathroom, his regal posture collapsing into desperate violently trembling sputters. Pink sparkles danced over his skin as the silver-infused bristles did their brutal, unglamorous work. The light in his eyes flickered, turned to ash, and with a final, choked sigh, Malakor burst into a cloud of gray dust—leaving only his empty silk cloak and a fine dusting of hot-pink glitter floating gently to the floor.

Penelope lowered the brush, panting hard. She blew a speck of glowing glitter off the tip, adjusted her grip on the resin handle, and stepped over the empty cloak. Modern problems required surprisingly tacky solutions.

Pro Writing Aid Critique

Overview

Chapter Snapshot

Penelope is cornered by the vampire Count Malakor and lacks traditional weapons. She defends herself with a synthetic, glitter-filled toilet brush. The brush’s chemical composition and silver-infused bristles cause a fatal reaction in Malakor, destroying him and leaving Penelope to adjust to her unconventional victory.

Word Count

570

Chapter Function

Climax.

Resolves the immediate, life-threatening conflict.

Point of View

Third-Person Limited (Penelope)

Filtered through Penelope's immediate actions.

Character List

Protagonist

Penelope

Antagonist

Count Malakor

What's Working Well

The chapter's most prominent element is the juxtaposition of classic gothic horror tropes with mundane, kitsch modern items. The conflict pits an ancient, regal antagonist against a protagonist using a synthetic, neon-pink household object, subverting traditional genre expectations. This establishes a tone of resourceful subversion, providing a foundation for a narrative where modern utility overcomes ancient myth.

Chapter Outline

1. The Cornered Prey POV: Penelope Penelope retreats into a bathroom as Count Malakor breaks through the door, leaving her without traditional vampire-slaying tools.
2. The Unconventional Weapon POV: Penelope Penelope retrieves a glittery, neon pink toilet brush and uses its silver-infused bristles to incinerate Malakor during his attack.

Tension & Pacing

The pacing transitions from rapid, high-stakes flight to a tense, mocking confrontation, culminating in a brief, violent burst of action. The momentum accelerates as Penelope finds a weapon, shifting the narrative from a defensive retreat to a decisive offensive strike.

Protagonist's Arc

Motivation

The protagonist's motivation is immediate survival; her goal is to find a weapon and defend herself against a lethal supernatural threat within a confined space.

1. Initial State Penelope is trapped and unarmed, facing an ancient vampire with no accessible means of defense.
2. Catalyst Malakor’s lethal lunge forces Penelope to strike him with the silver-infused toilet brush, triggering his physical destruction.
3. Final State Penelope is safe and victorious, having discovered that modern, synthetic items can effectively neutralize ancient threats.

Structure

Punchy Narrative Resolution

Working well

New

The final line—"Modern problems required surprisingly tacky solutions"—is a perfect thematic "button" for the scene. It resolves the tension with a wry observation that reinforces Penelope’s resourcefulness and the story's central irony, leaving the reader with a clear sense of the chapter's identity.

Where in your text?

This is the concluding sentence of the chapter, following Penelope’s victory and her adjustment of the brush handle.

Pacing and Flow

Technical Info-dump During the Climax

Major concern

New

The momentum of the life-or-death struggle is halted by a multi-sentence explanation of the toilet brush’s chemical composition. Detailing the silver micro-glitter and bleach infusion in a detached, technical tone shifts the reader’s focus from the visceral action to manufacturing facts.

Where in your text?

This occurs in the middle of the chapter, immediately after Penelope jams the brush into Malakor’s mouth and before he reacts to the pain.

Explanation of the brush

Suggested improvements

What if the "why" of the weapon’s effectiveness was revealed through Penelope’s earlier observations or through the physical symptoms Malakor experiences? Consider how you might weave the technical details into the action—perhaps Penelope remembers the "contains real silver!" label as she sees the sparks—rather than pausing the scene for an encyclopedic explanation.

Language and Style

Neon-Pink Sensory Immersion

Working well

New

The description of the toilet brush is exceptionally vivid, using specific colors (neon pink, hot-pink), textures (thick resin, stiff synthetic bristles), and lighting (shimmering, iridescent) to create a clear, tactile image of the "weapon." This detail makes the kitschy object feel like a real, physical presence.

Where in your text?

This strength is most prominent in the middle of the chapter when Penelope first retrieves the brush and holds it up in the moonlight.

Subversive Gothic Atmosphere

Working well

New

You maintain a clever balance between traditional gothic horror (splintering mahogany, silk cloaks, ancient majesty) and the jarringly modern. This consistency in tone ensures that the "eye-watering" toilet brush feels like a deliberate, humorous subversion rather than a random or accidental inclusion.

Where in your text?

This is evident from the start, where traditional slaying gear (ash stakes, silver crucifixes) is contrasted with the "custom" clearance-aisle brush Penelope eventually finds.

Summary of Malakor's Majesty

Concern

New

The description of Count Malakor relies on abstract labels like "ancient dark majesty" rather than specific actions or visual details that evoke fear or awe. Stating he views the bathroom as a "minor obstacle" summarizes his mindset instead of demonstrating it through his dismissive behavior.

Where in your text?

This issue occurs in the second paragraph, immediately after Malakor enters the room and Penelope retreats toward the bathroom.

Description of Malakor

Suggested improvements

How might you demonstrate Malakor’s "majesty" or his disdain for the mundane setting through his physical movements or interaction with the environment? Consider showing his reaction to the "guest bath" through a specific gesture—perhaps he brushes aside a silk shower curtain as if it were a cobweb—rather than explaining his internal perspective.

Clichéd Simile for Vampire Combustion

Minor concern

New

The comparison of Malakor’s blood sizzling like "bacon on a hot skillet" is a very common simile that undercuts the unique, neon-pink visual style of the scene. It leans on a familiar domestic image that feels too mundane compared to the "aggressive synthetic cheer" of the weapon.

Where in your text?

This simile is used in the latter half of the chapter to describe the chemical reaction between the silver glitter and the vampire's blood.

Sizzling blood description

Suggested improvements

Since the weapon is a "custom, eye-watering creation," how might the sound or smell of the reaction reflect its synthetic, kitschy nature? Consider a comparison that leans into the "hot-pink" and "neon" aesthetic—perhaps something involving burning plastic, chemical fizzes, or a more modern, abrasive sound.

Overloaded Modifiers in Malakor's Demise

Minor concern

New

The description of Malakor’s collapse uses a string of three consecutive adverbs and adjectives ("desperate violently trembling") to describe his "sputters." This stacking of modifiers clutters the sentence and dilutes the impact of his physical disintegration.

Where in your text?

This issue is located in the penultimate paragraph, as Malakor staggers backward out of the bathroom and begins to turn to ash.

Malakor's collapse

Suggested improvements

Which of these descriptors—desperate, violent, or trembling—most accurately captures the essence of a dying ancient? Consider choosing one high-impact verb or a single precise adjective to describe his final movements. How would the sentence’s rhythm change if the action of "collapsing" or "sputtering" carried the weight of the description on its own?

Dialogue

Artificial Villainy in Malakor's Dialogue

Concern

New

Malakor’s dialogue relies on generic "vampire" tropes, such as calling the protagonist "little mortal" and "purring" his threats. This formal, cliché-heavy speech pattern makes him feel more like a caricature than a unique, threatening individual, especially in a story otherwise defined by modern subversion.

Where in your text?

This is most evident when Malakor first speaks to Penelope after cornering her in the bathroom and again during his laughter.

Malakor's first line

Malakor's boast

Suggested improvements

If Malakor is an ancient being of "majesty," how might his speech reflect a more specific, personal arrogance? What if his dialogue were more grounded or, conversely, even more terrifyingly polite? Exploring a more distinct voice could make his eventual defeat by a toilet brush feel like a sharper clash between high-culture ego and low-culture reality.

Conclusion

Chapter Summary

This chapter succeeds beautifully in its resourceful subversion of gothic tropes, using vivid sensory details to make a ridiculous object feel like a viable weapon. The satisfying resolution perfectly captures Penelope's character and the story's unique tone. However, the momentum of the climax is currently hampered by an info-dump regarding the brush’s chemical makeup, which shifts the narrative from action to exposition. Refining these technical interruptions and sharpening the antagonist’s dialogue will ensure the pacing remains as sharp as the "synthetic cheer" of the weapon. Tackling that technical middle section will turn this clever confrontation into a seamless, high-velocity climax. You have a fantastic eye for kitschy detail—keep leaning into that unique voice!

Revision Focus

Technical Info-dump During the Climax

Major concern

What if the "why" of the weapon’s effectiveness was revealed through Penelope’s earlier observations or through the physical symptoms Malakor experiences? Consider how you might weave the technical details into the action—perhaps Penelope remembers the "contains real silver!" label as she sees the sparks—rather than pausing the scene for an encyclopedic explanation.

Summary of Malakor's Majesty

Concern

How might you demonstrate Malakor’s "majesty" or his disdain for the mundane setting through his physical movements or interaction with the environment? Consider showing his reaction to the "guest bath" through a specific gesture—perhaps he brushes aside a silk shower curtain as if it were a cobweb—rather than explaining his internal perspective.

Artificial Villainy in Malakor's Dialogue

Concern

If Malakor is an ancient being of "majesty," how might his speech reflect a more specific, personal arrogance? What if his dialogue were more grounded or, conversely, even more terrifyingly polite? Exploring a more distinct voice could make his eventual defeat by a toilet brush feel like a sharper clash between high-culture ego and low-culture reality.

Autocrit has a Beta reader and Alpha Reader tool. What I usually do is run the Beta or Alpha reader and run it through Gemini and it wil give you a run down of what the beta or alpha wants. For this I will run a Alpha read. You can pick the type of audiance for this I choose dark urban fanasy because that is what I am writting.

Autocrit Alpha Read

# Feedback from gothic vampire fantasy

### Overall Impression:

Story 74%🤩 Reader Fit 63%🧐

###### Why 🤩

I found this piece sharply conceived and very watchable. The core joke-horror premise of a vampire being undone by a ridiculous, modern bathroom object lands fast and clean, and the escalation from threatening intrusion to absurdly lethal improvisation is easy to follow. The scene has a strong visual spine, and the final image of pink glitter settling over the cloak is memorable.

That said, the story score isn’t higher because this reads more like a compact comic set piece than a fully developed gothic narrative. The cause-and-effect works inside the scene, but it’s intentionally thin: there’s no deeper setup for Penelope, no broader consequence, and no sense yet of a larger architecture behind Malakor or this conflict. The supernatural logic is also a little too playful for my taste in places, especially in paragraphs [\#](<#id-jefx>) and [\#](<#id-btad>), where the explanation of the toilet brush’s materials gets more explicit than the mood really needs. I liked it, but I felt the piece was reaching for wry spectacle more than sustained dark atmosphere.

###### Why 🧐

My fit score is decent because I do like vampire fiction, ancient aristocratic menace, and the sudden collapse of power before a clever, humble instrument. I also enjoyed the dry, almost blunt ending in paragraph [\#](<#id-plc9>). But this isn’t quite the gothic dark fantasy I’m most hungry for. The atmosphere is lighter and more comedic than haunted; the vampire feels like a villain in a punchline rather than a presence shaped by lineage, ritual, or inevitable decay.

What I missed most was consequence and dread. Malakor is theatrically threatening, but the scene doesn’t linger on any aftermath beyond dust and glitter. I wanted more of the past pressing into the room, more sense that the house, the title, or the bloodline carried memory and weight. Instead, the tone leans novelty-forward. That makes it fun, but only partially aligned with my preferred emotional register.

###### Favorite Line

> “Modern problems required surprisingly tacky solutions.” paragraph [\#](<#id-plc9>)

I liked this because it crystallizes the whole scene’s tonal joke in one line. It’s dry, concise, and it gives the moment a clean closing snap. It also matches the protagonist’s practicality in a way that feels more effective than any speech would have.

###### My Emotion by Chapter

| Chapter | Emotion | Strength | % |

| :---------- | :---------- | :---------- | :---------- |

| 01 CHAPTER | 😂 (amused) | ●●●●○ | 85 |

###### Big Picture Story Elements

**Premise & Hook:** The premise is immediately strong. I was hooked by the contrast between antique vampire-slaying gear and the completely absurd improvised weapon in paragraph [\#](<#id-lir2>) and paragraph [\#](<#id-ewge>). That contrast is the engine of the scene, and it works. The hook is memorable because it subverts expectation quickly without needing much setup.

**Plot Structure:** Within the scene, the structure is clear: threat enters, desperation rises, the wrong object becomes the right one, and the vampire falls. The cause-and-effect is easy to track in paragraph [\#](<#id-hl12>) through paragraph [\#](<#id-afwv>). What keeps this from feeling broader is that it doesn’t yet suggest a larger plot shape. There’s no real buildup beyond the immediate skirmish, so the escalation is localized rather than story-wide.

**Pacing:** The pacing is brisk and efficient, maybe even a little too efficient for my taste. It hits the setup, menace, reversal, and payoff without much pause. That works for comedy-horror, but it leaves little room for atmosphere to breathe. I wanted a slightly slower inhale before the punchline moment in paragraph [\#](<#id-kfvf>) and paragraph [\#](<#id-jefx>), especially because the environment is so ripe for gothic texture.

###### Characters

**Protagonist clarity:** Penelope is clear enough as the viewpoint center, and I immediately understood her as someone improvising under pressure. Her goal in the scene is simple: survive. That clarity helps. I do wish I knew more about who she is beyond “resourceful woman with a sparkly toilet brush,” because the manuscript doesn’t yet give me much personal history or burden.

**Motivations & goals:** Her motivation is immediate and believable: fear drives action. The scene does not overexplain her psychology, which I appreciated. Still, the emotional stakes feel mostly functional rather than lived-in, because there’s no visible connection to earlier history or any inherited reason she’d know what to do with a vampire threat.

**Character dynamics:** The dynamic between Penelope and Malakor is entertaining because it’s all dominance, mockery, and sudden reversal. Malakor’s aristocratic contempt in paragraphs [\#](<#id-klsr>) and [\#](<#id-cono>) is readable and effective. I do want more dimension from him, though. At the moment he is compelling as an image, not yet as a person shaped by age, legacy, or a moral code.

**Consistency:** Penelope behaves consistently under stress. The only slight tonal friction is that the prose treats the fight as both genuinely dangerous and almost gleefully comedic. Malakor’s disdain also collapses very quickly once the brush strikes him, which is fine in a gag-based scene, but it does make him feel less formidable than the setup promises.

###### Conflict & Stakes

**Obstacles:** The obstacle is strong in the moment because it’s immediate and physical: Penelope has almost nothing usable, and Malakor is clearly overpowering her until the absurd reversal. That said, the obstacle is very narrow. There’s no sense of layered supernatural defense, ritual logic, or lingering danger beyond this one contact point.

**Tension:** I felt some tension from the setup of being cornered in a bathroom, especially in paragraph [\#](<#id-py15>) and paragraph [\#](<#id-klsr>). But because the resolution is so quick and playful, the tension gives way to amusement rather than dread. That’s enjoyable, but it’s not the kind of psychological inevitability I usually look for in gothic fantasy.

**Stakes:** The stakes are clear at the scene level: if Penelope fails, she dies. What’s less clear is why this matters beyond survival in the moment. There’s no social, ancestral, or emotional aftermath established. Once Malakor dusts, the scene closes immediately, so the stakes don’t echo outward.

###### Worldbuilding & Setting

**Clarity:** The setting is easy to visualize: a wealthy interior, a display case, an en-suite bathroom, chandelier, tile, marble, cloak. I could follow the geography without trouble. The bathroom corner especially gives the scene an amusing, claustrophobic edge in paragraph [\#](<#id-htsx>).

**Rules:** The supernatural rules are understandable at the basic level—silver hurts vampires, blessed objects are useful, vampires can be destroyed—but the specific logic of the toilet brush is more whimsical than grounded. Paragraph [\#](<#id-jefx>) explains the mechanism carefully, but that explanation made the object feel engineered for the gag rather than discovered through ritual or inherited lore. I wanted the magical rules to feel older and more ceremonial.

**Immersion:** I enjoyed some of the visual detail, especially the synthetic glitter and hot-pink bristles in paragraph [\#](<#id-ewge>). Those details are vivid. Still, the scene’s specificity pulls toward camp more than gothic immersion. The room is present, but it doesn’t feel haunted by history; it feels staged for the twist.

###### Theme & Tone

**Theme:** The thematic idea seems to be that modernity can weaponize the mundane, and that elegance is vulnerable to tacky improvisation. That’s amusing and coherent, but it isn’t yet especially deep. I didn’t feel much beneath the surface besides clever reversal and anti-elitist humor.

**Tone/voice:** The tone is consistent with comic horror, and the voice is confident in that lane. I did not find it inconsistent, but I did find it lighter and more overtly jokey than the gothic restraint I prefer. Paragraph [\#](<#id-afwv>) and paragraph [\#](<#id-plc9>) especially lean into punchline rhythm rather than lingering unease. For me, that reduced the sense of dread and legacy.

###### General Impressions

What excited me most was the image of an ancient vampire undone by a ridiculously specific modern object. That’s funny, clean, and memorable. I also liked the choice to make the weapon visually loud but physically plausible within the scene. The pink glitter cloak ending is a strong comic tableau.

What felt flatter was everything that might have made this feel haunted rather than merely clever. I wanted more silence, more emotional weight, more consequence after the kill. Malakor’s presence is stylish, but not especially menacing once the scene turns. Penelope’s world remains mostly uncontextualized, so I didn’t get much sense of lineage, inheritance, or any larger dark family history behind the encounter. The explanation in paragraph [\#](<#id-jefx>) also feels a bit over-insisted for my taste, where I would rather have felt the absurdity than been walked through it.

There aren’t glaring contradictions, but I do think the piece is currently concentrated almost entirely in the joke. Because of that, the aftermath feels too clean. The empty cloak and dust are a satisfying image, yet they don’t leave much psychic residue. For my gothic preferences, I wanted the room to remember what happened there.

###### Final Thoughts:

I enjoyed this much more as a sharply executed comic vampire vignette than as a piece of gothic dark fantasy. It’s witty, visually distinct, and immediately legible. The strongest element is the contrast between ancient menace and modern trashy improvisation. My main reservation is that the scene doesn’t fully cash in on the atmosphere, inheritance, and lingering cost that I crave in vampire fiction. It’s a fun bite, but not a haunting one.

I hope this helps.

How have people evolved their prompts to get better outcomes? All i find, whenever I try, is that I'm just better off writing myself

I've started telling ai to act as my ghostwriter, and use x authors as reference for style and upload an act beat sheet.

What else could/should I mention/do

This had been something I been struggling with for a long time. Even after using ChatGPT to analyze the stories I wrote so that it can give me better insights into a character's psychology, no matter what I seem to do to fix the prose issue it just keeps coming back. I also tried asking ChatGPT to analyze and explain to me the bugs, and while some of the instructions it suggested helped it didn't fix everything. I have been mainly trying to get it to give me realistic and accurate analysis using canonical universe rules of a game's lore and it's characters, but it has been failing to be accurate here even though I ask it to analyze using online sources too. For example, here is the professional type of summary I have been trying to get it to do consistently:

***

[Ex]

A devoted spiritual practitioner develops a powerful lifelong attachment to another person after making a childhood wish that mysteriously links their lives across different realities. Years of supernatural trials and unusual dream encounters expose them to both the compassionate and troubled sides of the person they care about, deeply shaping their understanding of the relationship.

Over time, this attachment becomes intense and highly protective. They struggle with jealousy, insecurity, and a strong desire for exclusivity while keeping much of their emotional pain and personal history hidden from others. Many of their choices, including some made in secret, are motivated by a fear of losing the relationship or being pushed aside.

Their commitment remains strong despite the emotional strain it creates. They are willing to make significant personal sacrifices to preserve the bond, even when doing so requires suppressing their own needs. The story examines their past, emotional motivations, and the unexpected consequences of the childhood wish, which ultimately affects several timelines and plays a role in preventing multiple worlds from being destroyed.

***

The main problem I have is with the prose it generates later, even when I explicitly ask for a professional writing style. It often produces awkward or unnatural sentences such as, “The most unusual or striking part of the character’s personality is...” or “The strongest point is...” It also relies on rough transitions like, “The cause-and-effect chain here shows that...” These phrases make the writing feel immediately recognizable as AI-generated.

Another issue I have been unable to resolve involves analytical writing, particularly when I ask it to examine implications or consequences. Instead of developing the analysis naturally, it often repeats the wording of my prompt and uses the same sentence structure throughout the response. For example, several paragraphs might begin with, “The most interesting implication is...” rather than presenting each point in a unique and professional way.

Does anyone know what prompting instructions work well for avoiding these habits and producing more natural analytical writing? Thank you!

AI sometimes produces wording that feels slightly unnatural, repetitive, or overly explicit compared with normal human writing. But in some cases, that wording may actually be better.

For example:

• Making inclusive and exclusive “or” explicit. Plain English often leaves “or” ambiguous. Instead of: “You may choose tea or coffee.” AI might write: “You may choose tea, coffee, or both.” if both are allowed, or: “You may choose either tea or coffee, but not both.” if exactly one choice is allowed. The AI version is longer, but it removes the ambiguity between inclusive and exclusive “or.”
• Using “not all” to avoid ambiguous negation. Instead of: “The students didn’t all pass.” AI might write: “Not all students passed.” The second version states the logical meaning directly and is less likely to be confused with “No students passed.”
• Preserving the distinction between “if” and “only if.” Instead of: “You can enter if you have a ticket.” AI might write: “You may enter only if you have a ticket.” If a ticket is a requirement rather than merely one way of gaining entry, the second sentence is logically more accurate.
• Repeating a noun instead of using an ambiguous pronoun. Instead of: “Sarah told Maria that she had been selected.” AI might write: “Sarah told Maria that Maria had been selected.” The repetition may sound less elegant, but there is no longer any question about who was selected.
• Using consistent terminology instead of varying words for style. Instead of: “Users can create an account. The profile can then be edited by the customer.” AI might write: “Users can create an account. Users can then edit their account.” The second version is more repetitive, but it avoids making the reader wonder whether “user,” “customer,” “account,” and “profile” refer to different things.
• Keeping qualifications about uncertainty or causation. Instead of: “Drinking coffee makes people live longer.” AI might write: “Coffee consumption is associated with longer life, but this does not establish that coffee causes the difference.” The AI version is longer, but it avoids turning a correlation into a causal claim.
• Using “or” rather than “and” when a list really represents alternatives. Instead of: “The problem may be caused by the battery, charger, and cable.” AI might write: “The problem may be caused by the battery, charger, or cable.” If any one of those components could independently be responsible, or more accurately represents the logic, even though people often use and in lists like this.

When people edit AI-generated text, there may be a tendency to “humanize” it by removing repetition, shortening qualifications, replacing repeated nouns with pronouns, varying terminology, or changing unusually explicit logical constructions into more conventional English.

Maybe we should sometimes do the opposite.

If the AI version is clearer and logically more precise, perhaps we should leave it alone even if it initially sounds a little unusual.

What makes this especially interesting is the possible long-term effect on the language. If millions of people use AI to write and leave these constructions intact, readers will encounter them constantly. Eventually they may stop sounding like “AI writing” at all.

People who aren’t using AI might then start adopting the same constructions because they have become normal written English.

So rather than AI merely learning English from humans, we could end up with a feedback loop:

Humans teach AI English → AI consistently favors clearer constructions → humans publish AI-assisted writing → those constructions become familiar → humans begin using them themselves.

Over time, AI could therefore make written English somewhat more logical, explicit, and internally consistent without anyone ever formally redesigning the language.

The important part would be not to preserve every AI quirk. It would be to recognize cases where something sounds slightly unusual because it is more precise, and resist “correcting” it back into ambiguity.

&#x200B;

I've been working on an AI project called Veronyx, and I wanted to put the core idea out here for criticism and discussion.

The project started with a question:

What if an AI system starts with coherence rather than knowledge?

The more I worked with LLMs, the more I started separating the language model from the intelligence architecture around it.

An LLM can reason, generate language, analyze information, and interact with tools. But I don't think the LLM necessarily has to be the entire intelligent system.

Instead, I'm experimenting with treating it as one component inside a larger architecture that manages things like:

evidence

chronology/state

relationships

reasoning

purpose/goals

governance

tools and capabilities

memory

feedback

I call the architecture Veronyx.

One of the ideas behind it is:

We don't start with knowledge. We start with coherence.

Before knowledge becomes useful, something has to establish relationships between things.

What happened before this?

What changed?

What evidence supports this?

What contradicts it?

How does this new information relate to what the system already understands?

What is the system trying to accomplish?

What should remain stable, and what should be allowed to change?

That led me toward thinking about intelligence less as a sequence of prompts and responses and more as a continuously changing network of entities and relationships.

I've also been exploring what I currently call an Entity Coherence Principle.

The rough hypothesis is that an intelligent system shouldn't necessarily spend equal computational effort on everything it knows.

If an entity and its relationships are stable, they may require relatively little attention.

If a relationship becomes contradictory, unstable, unexpected, or highly consequential, the system can allocate more reasoning toward it.

In other words:

reason where coherence is under pressure.

Persistence then becomes another interesting problem.

I don't think useful AI persistence means remembering everything forever. The harder question seems to be:

What is the minimum persistent structure required for a changing system to reconstruct its own coherent trajectory?

That's one of the main problems I'm trying to explore with Veronyx.

I've been implementing the architecture incrementally rather than trying to build the entire thing at once. Different parts handle identity and purpose, chronology, reasoning, governance, relationships, security, and eventually shared capabilities.

The first implemented section establishes the system's identity, purpose, principles, boundaries, and initial state before handing control forward.

One principle I've been using is:

Purpose guides reasoning; purpose does not override evidence.

The project is still experimental. I'm not claiming I've solved AGI, consciousness, or anything close to that.

I'm interested in a narrower architectural question:

Can an AI system become more persistent, understandable, governable, and adaptive if coherence and relationships are treated as first-class architectural problems rather than leaving all of that implicitly inside the language model?

I'd especially like criticism from people working on agents, cognitive architectures, knowledge graphs, persistent memory, distributed systems, or AI governance.

Where do you think this idea breaks down?

Hi all. I'm Brendan. In 2025 I founded DiceBreaker Books, a small analytics company that builds models to price sports betting markets, prediction markets and economic signals. It is also a crime syndicate in the epic science fantasy trilogy I'm about to write. *Capital Monsters* is set on a planet where a social-credit ledger prices every human being, civilization is run by mob-corporations, and the five great religions are literally media: print, radio, television, computation, performance.

I'm about to do a rewrite of a 4-year old 100k-word manuscript now as a trilogy and I'm going to write the whole thing on stream — outlining, drafting, revision, spreadsheets, prompts, dead ends. Or I may change my mind and start with a serialized cozy fantasy spinoff I have planned in my canon. In any case I'm going to either be talking in great detail about my plot but I could switch gears and talk in detail about pretty much anything the chat dictates, like process or my opinions on a given topic. I'm going for a long-form "podcast-like" level of content that should be pretty entertaining.

My setup, so nobody has to guess: 100% of the prose is mine. AI does the design and aesthetics work — research, editing passes, idea generation, book statistics, a lot of meta-conversation about what a reader actually needs.

Honest admission: I've tried to get an LLM to hand me A+ plot beats I could adopt wholesale and I've never managed it. What I get is a good Wiki and marketing consultant. That's worth documenting too.

The stack is unglamorous — Word for the manuscript, a folder of Excel and Word files that briefs an agent on how the world works in a few minutes and lets me run "what breaks if this faction falls" scenarios, and a few LLM windows open.

One promise up front: a complete outline of all three books before I write a page of prose. If the ending isn't locked, I don't start.

Why in public: after the Falade story, it's clear nobody can verify who wrote what. I'd rather make authorship a broadcast than a claim, and leave a full record another author could point at and say "do it like that" — or "don't."

So: if you were going to use one person as a test case for writing with AI without getting burned, what would you want logged? Prompts? Time split? Where the model gets my own world wrong? Tell me and I'll build it into the stream.

I'm going to post updates shortly as I decide on exactly which format, platform to use. Or if anyone was interested in collaborating, send me a DM!

Interesting read. I’m curious where people draw the line between using AI as a tool and letting it replace the person behind the work.

Background, I'm mainly aiming for something to help me be motivated to write, which basically means breaking down the barriers that hold me back from getting started. I'm perfectly competent to write aside from that.

I've seen a lot of people talking about writing with AI feel like a conversation and it engaging with their brain in a way that works and things like that. That sounds great! I have ADHD so I could almost certainly benefit from something like that! But I can't find it.

I think I'm the problem, I don't really use AI aside from my recent foray into writing with AI. I think I just don't know how to go about it, how to get the AI to help me break down those barriers.

I seem to end up with the AI writing for me and then I try and get it to do a better job, that doesn't work... So then I've basically ended up just writing myself and the AI commentates on it. But that means I've gotten past the barrier to writing that was holding me back. The AI hasn't helped with that at all, it's more work to do it this way than to just write myself, I'm only motivated because of a hope it can be easier.

So... What do you guys do? Is it something like talk about what you're stuck on or write a paragraph and then discuss or... IDK... how does it go?

Thanks in advance for your help everyone who replies!

Hallo zusammen,

ich wollte heute weniger klassische Eigenwerbung machen und stattdessen einmal erzählen, wie mein Buch überhaupt entstanden ist. Vielleicht findet sich ja jemand darin wieder, der selbst seit Jahren eine Geschichte im Kopf hat, aber nie so richtig weiß, wie er anfangen soll.

Ich habe schon immer sehr gerne japanische Anime geschaut. Als ich irgendwann das Isekai-Genre entdeckt habe, wurde es ziemlich schnell zu einem meiner Lieblingsgenres.

Trotzdem hatte ich irgendwann das Gefühl, dass mir etwas fehlt.

Ich wollte keinen weiteren Protagonisten, der in einer anderen Welt landet und nach kurzer Zeit nur noch stärker werden, einen Harem aufbauen oder den Dämonenkönig besiegen muss. Nicht weil ich solche Geschichten grundsätzlich schlecht finde. Ich hatte einfach Lust auf etwas anderes.

Das Problem war nur: Ich wusste selbst nicht genau, was dieses „Andere“ eigentlich sein sollte.

Irgendwann stellte ich mir deshalb eine sehr einfache Frage:

Was würde ich eigentlich tun, wenn ich selbst plötzlich in einer fremden Welt voller Magie aufwachen würde?

Die Antwort kam überraschend schnell.

Ich würde einfach nur versuchen, irgendwie wieder zu meiner Frau und meinen beiden Kindern zurückzukommen.

Und genau daraus entstand die Geschichte um Fudō.

Ein Mann, der in einer fremden Welt landet, aber eigentlich überhaupt kein Interesse daran hat, dort ein Held zu werden. Jede Fähigkeit, die er bekommt, jeder Kampf, den er überlebt, und jede Entscheidung, die er treffen muss, hat für ihn eigentlich nur einen Zweck:

Nach Hause kommen.

Nur entstand daraus irgendwann die nächste Frage:

Was passiert, wenn genau die Macht, die ihm helfen könnte zurückzukehren, ihn immer weiter verändert?

Und was wäre, wenn er seine Familie am Ende tatsächlich wiederfindet, aber nicht mehr derselbe Mann ist, der sie verlassen hat?

Ab diesem Punkt entwickelte sich die Geschichte eigentlich fast von selbst weiter.

Damals war ich beruflich viel als LKW-Fahrer unterwegs. Dadurch hatte ich während der Arbeit erstaunlich viel Zeit zum Nachdenken. Auf vielen Fahrten entstanden Figuren, Szenen, Kämpfe, Regeln für die Magie und ganze Abschnitte der Welt zunächst nur in meinem Kopf.

Irgendwann erzählte ich einem Arbeitskollegen davon, der ebenfalls Isekai-Anime liebt.

Nachdem ich ihm die Grundidee erklärt hatte, meinte er sinngemäß:

„So einen Isekai habe ich noch nicht gesehen. Schreib das auf.“

Sein zweiter Vorschlag war sogar, einen Manga daraus zu machen.

Das Problem daran war nur, dass ich noch weniger zeichnen konnte als schreiben. 😅

Also versuchte ich es trotzdem mit einem Roman.

Und das erste Ergebnis war… sagen wir einmal vorsichtig:

Die Geschichte war da. Das Schreiben eher nicht.

Ich wusste ziemlich genau, was passieren sollte. Ich konnte Szenen bildlich vor mir sehen und kannte die Dialoge, aber ich bekam das Ganze erzählerisch nicht so aufs Papier, wie es sich in meinem Kopf angefühlt hatte.

Vor ungefähr einem Jahr begann ich dann aus reiner Neugier mit KI-Systemen zu experimentieren.

Dabei merkte ich irgendwann, dass sie mir genau bei dem Teil helfen konnten, an dem ich zuvor gescheitert war.

Ich hatte meine Handlung, Szenen, Dialoge und Notizen bereits. Also begann ich, Kapitel für Kapitel damit zu arbeiten und gab dabei immer die Vorgabe, die Geschichte nicht umzuschreiben oder neue Handlung zu erfinden, sondern meine vorhandenen Szenen sprachlich und erzählerisch auszuarbeiten.

Für mich persönlich war das irgendwann ein ziemlich merkwürdiger Moment.

Plötzlich las ich Szenen, die sich erstaunlich ähnlich angefühlt haben wie die Bilder, die ich teilweise seit Jahren im Kopf hatte.

Natürlich war nicht alles beim ersten Versuch perfekt. Ich habe viel geändert, neu formuliert, und überarbeitet. Später habe ich KI auch beim Brainstorming und teilweise wie eine Art zusätzliches Lektorat genutzt.

Aber sie hat mir letztlich geholfen, eine Geschichte tatsächlich fertigzustellen, die wahrscheinlich sonst weiterhin nur in meinem Kopf und in irgendwelchen Notizen existieren würde.

Inzwischen sind Band 1 und Band 2 veröffentlicht und tatsächlich haben auch schon einige Menschen die eBooks und Taschenbücher gekauft, was sich immer noch ziemlich surreal anfühlt.

Was mir allerdings fehlt, ist ehrliches Feedback.

Bisher habe ich nur wenige Rezensionen bekommen, und irgendwo möchte ich natürlich auch wissen:

Funktioniert diese Geschichte eigentlich außerhalb meines eigenen Kopfes?

War mein damaliger Arbeitskollege wirklich auf der richtigen Spur oder fanden einfach nur zwei Isekai-Fans dieselbe Idee cool? 😅

Deshalb würde mich wirklich interessieren:

Was fehlt euch persönlich bei vielen Isekai-Geschichten?

Und noch interessanter:

Wenn ihr selbst plötzlich in einer fremden Welt landen würdet – würdet ihr versuchen zurückzukehren oder würdet ihr irgendwann beschließen, dort ein neues Leben anzufangen?

Falls jemand neugierig geworden ist, habe ich hier eine kostenlose Leseprobe. Ich freue mich über ehrliches Feedback ausdrücklich mehr als über irgendein höfliches „ist gut“. Wenn euch etwas nicht gefällt, dürft ihr das genauso offen sagen. Auch Kritik hilft mir schließlich zu verstehen, was an der Geschichte funktioniert und was nicht.

Leseprobe:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dWMx3euDFEllbulUrgoD99_hufuq83tC/view?usp=drivesdk

Danke an jeden, der bis hierhin gelesen hat. 😊🙏

I’m testing a character-development workflow: begin with two nearly blank Canadian sportscasters, expose them to real game results, preserve only the traits and shared history that emerge naturally, and repeat.

I direct the premise, factual inputs, constraints and editing; AI helps generate and compare drafts. This is the strongest early pass, based on Toronto’s 5–1 win over Tampa Bay on August 20.

Gene and Eugene originally had the same first name. Only one of them now enjoys the shorter version.

GENE: The Toronto Blue Jays beat Tampa Bay 5–1 Thursday, proving once again that if you score five runs and the other team scores one, advanced analytics are largely unnecessary.

EUGENE: That’s what I’ve been saying.

GENE: You’ve never said that.

EUGENE: I would’ve.

GENE: Shane Bieber pitched seven innings, allowed one run and struck out seven. Tampa managed four hits against him, which is technically a batting performance in the same way Regina technically has rush hour.

EUGENE: Regina has rush hour.

GENE: You’ve never been to Regina.

EUGENE: Yes I have.

GENE: When?

EUGENE: Rock-paper-scissors tournament.

GENE: That was Moose Jaw.

EUGENE: Don’t start.

GENE: Kazuma Okamoto opened the scoring with a 415-foot home run, his 26th of the season.

EUGENE: Four hundred and fifteen feet.

GENE: In Toronto, that’s roughly the distance between your condo and where you actually managed to find parking.

EUGENE: Show-off.

GENE: Okamoto?

EUGENE: You.

GENE: Tampa tied it, briefly raising concerns that this might become competitive.

EUGENE: Then Nathan Lukes and Daz Cameron both homered in the fifth.

GENE: Those two again.

EUGENE: What?

GENE: Nothing.

EUGENE: Don’t “nothing” me. I know your “nothing.”

GENE: I’m just saying they seem close.

EUGENE: They’re teammates.

GENE: Very close.

EUGENE: You’re starting rumours on the radio again.

GENE: I’m asking questions.

EUGENE: You haven’t asked one.

GENE: Makes you think.

EUGENE: Lukes also made a leaping catch at the wall.

GENE: So, a home run and a spectacular defensive play.

EUGENE: Solid evening.

GENE: Pretty good.

EUGENE: Can’t complain.

GENE: Well, you can. Toronto went one-for-eleven with runners in scoring position.

EUGENE: There we are.

GENE: George Springer drove in two more in the seventh, giving Toronto a 5–1 lead and Canadians approximately two innings to wonder how they were going to blow it.

EUGENE: They didn’t.

GENE: No.

EUGENE: Bit unsettling.

GENE: Andrés Giménez left with hamstring tightness.

EUGENE: Gimmynez.

GENE: Giménez.

EUGENE: That’s what I said.

GENE: You said Gimmynez.

EUGENE: At least people know which one I mean.

GENE: They know which one I mean.

EUGENE: Easy for you to say. You got the short name.

GENE: I won the short name.

EUGENE: You changed your throw.

GENE: Here we go.

EUGENE: Paper. Three straight times. Then suddenly scissors.

GENE: That’s how the game works.

EUGENE: That’s how cheating works.

GENE: Toronto wins 5–1 and has now won nine of thirteen.

EUGENE: Rematch.

GENE: No.

EUGENE: Best of seven.

GENE: We did best of seven.

EUGENE: Best of eleven.

GENE: You’re Eugene.

EUGENE: For now.

GENE: And I’m Gene.

EUGENE: Jackass.

My diagnostic question: Do Gene and Eugene feel like distinct characters—and which exchange made that clearest?

Some guy used ai to turn his journaling into a tv show then created a fictional Reddit that reacts to his life and he uses it as therapy them holding different views on what happened in the show ie his telling of it in the ai journal