The AI’s I use like Claude, Deepseek, Grok, and Chat GPT all write in a away that isn’t actual story writing. They usually summarize thing’s, have character’s be omniscient and know past or future events they shouldn’t know, always talk expectantly, give unnecessary sensory and environmental details and it definitely can’t set up a mystery or write a specific genre like comedy. They keep over clarifying as well what something isn’t or is along with even saying what I said not add directly.
I need AI that are at least capable of writing more humanly and following what you tell it. Idk why there isn’t any actual AI built for writing , story writing not essay or school writing. Most can critic something pretty well but can never implement those fixes they suggest. I usually upload my fic through PDF for the AI read . It gets things of what chapter is what at times wrong or completely be unable to remember a chapter ending or the actual one.
Story writing is a bit difficult in my experience. I had more fun with older models like Mistral Nemo. I feel newer AI models are often way more tuned to fulfill the role as a “helpful assistant” / chatbot, which I think tends to make their style of writing worse. You could also try to use some of those “base models”. They’re not tuned in that way. They also won’t follow instructions, they’re more autocomplete. You’d provide them with something like a word problem, give the first few paragraphs and see where they take it.
And honestly, I don’t think AI is super clever, on a book-author level. It’ll always get the pacing wrong. Push for story tropes like sudden plot twists. Introduce random characters to make something happen. And brush over / summarize other parts which would be interesting to tell in detail.
What could help is an elaborate (strict) process. Something like the computer programming / coding agents do. Make it first come up with a story idea. Make a plan, a todo list of the framework story, side stories and arcs, devise chapter names and a short summary of what needs to happen in those chapters. Write short character cards. And only then feed that plan back to the AI and make it begin writing the actual text.
Have you tried providing some reference stories for context via RAG? That should help ground some of the writing. If you wanna go all out you can fine-tune a model to adapt to the style of writing you’re looking for. There should be some “novel writing assistant” models out there because people are definitely writing and publishing books with AI. Good luck!
I don’t know them any at the moment which is why I’m asking. I am not sure where to start in searching. I’ve tried looking but couldn’t find any that actually did even half of what I wanted. I mainly use Deepseek and Claude as my chapters average around 6,500 words or higher and getting even a terrible draft of that I can edit is better than Gemini or Grok where I get a rushed barely 1,000 word “full” chapter or even a scene which also is longer than their limits.
Ah yeah context and token limits are gonna hold you back. Opus output is more than output large chapters, but you’ll probably get the best results by prompting via API (command line/CLI). You can set max output limits and provide files for RAG. You also might need to upgrade to a plan that can handle marathon sessions better like Claude Max. Claude is also better for creative writing apparently. Good luck!
Novel.ai comes to mind. It’s made for writing. It won’t write for you, but it’s better in some ways than the more general purpose AIs you named. I mean, it still needs editing and human input.
The interface is made for that, too. You can just edit the story like you can’t in typical chatbot interfaces. Pacing and omniscience are still a problem, but it does follow specific instructions better. You have lorebooks for specific details. And a very workable amount of tokens
The problem is the process, not the model.
You can’t start by generating the actual text, it has to be an iterative process of setting up characters, timelines, plots, plans, etc. Then running a first pass for planning chapters, then running passes to generate the prose, then editing, revising, and verifying.
Oh I definitely did all that but these AI can’t do most of what I ask. They’re programmed a specific way so it’s hard to get them to actually follow what you want. I made a skill and Use style and project on Claude but it still writes exactly like it always does and has the usual AI habits and additions I noticed every AI has for writing something.
I am going for a style that might be difficult for AI. Close third-person perspective narration with, single quotes used in Thoughts, dialogue and thoughts attached to a longer sentence or paragraph or having a varied attribution or action beat, no literary, abstract, poetic and flowery writing and over clarification also unnecessary detail about stuff.
AI likes to also be very short and punchy sentences, despite how much filler it gives, it can be weirdly not descriptive for certain things and stuff kinda just …happens at times.
“I made a skill and use Style and project on Claude”
You definitely didn’t “do all that” with a single skill. “That” is not even a single agent.
You need to spend 10x more time setting it up than you do writing with it. The writing should be really fast once you get the architecture in place. Also, if you wrote the skill yourself, you’re doing that wrong too.
You may need to be very specific about how you prompt to get decent results in a particular style. Any wiggle room for ambiguity and the bots’ll drive a bulldozer through what you meant with insane interpretations.
I don’t use cloud based LLMs at all – local only – so I’m not sure what they give you to work with there, but in my own usage, setting the system prompt with clearly defined ROLE, CONSTRAINTS, and other other details has been critical for getting them to do anything useful instead of spitting out generic analysis slop. (Even so, be mindful of context limits.)
LLMs aren’t magic and don’t have infinite memory. In fact, the amount they can hold in their heads effectively is pretty small and you must manage context carefully if you don’t want them to get lost going down irrelevant paths.
What they are very good at is style transfer. If you have text and need it reworded, they can do that trivially.
They are not very good at dealing with large structural reasoning. You really have to break things down and hand-hold them if you want to get them to do stuff like that.
I haven’t done much directly with creative writing in natural language (I’ve mostly done code gen, critical news analysis, image analysis, and a lot of context experimentation) – but the path I’d try out if I wanted to get into that is actually using a lot of writing “self-help” strategies. e.g. Snowflake Method. Lots of outlines. Character profile drafting. Scene and sequel. Apply Vonnegut’s rules for writing. Etc. Then set up multiple LLMs as test readers tuned to different aspects of the writing that you want – like character consistency, diction, appeal to your audience, etc. and have them review it and iterate.
I have everything set up, fanfic is on AO3 and i have chapter 4 out, but the AI’s for the life of me can not listen even when I use specific prompts meant to allow them follow instructions better.
I have a specific type of writing style and formating that really isn’t into using fragmented punchy sentences, over clarification, literary, abstract, poetic and flowery writing, “files away” , “cold tea”, omniscient dialogue or thoughts or narration, summary narration, expectant Dialogue, and etc. If I’m going to edit and write certain things myself, I’d prefer if the AI had a decent base, to work with.
##Writing Guide
TENSE:
- Mix past tense and present tense, in both sentences or paragraphs. This should be done when appropriate. There’s no consistent one, use both as the story happens in real time. A whole sentence or paragraph could be in the past, then next in present or both are used at once in a sentence or paragraph depending on the situation.
- Mix both freely within the same paragraph or sentence where it fits. A whole paragraph could be past or present, same with a sentence or they could be mixed together.
- Use past perfect (“he had done,” “she had seen”) for recalled events
- Use present perfect (“he has checked”) for immediate recent-past when needed
- Use past or present progressive affectively.
- Show events in real-time order.
PERSPECTIVE & POV:
- Default: third-person close/limited, one character at a time
- POV can shift mid-paragraph or mid-scene when it benefits the story — no announcement, no headers. Use the character’s internal voice and sensory focus to hand off
- Multi-POV scenes allowed when situation needs it
- New discoveries use “a/an”; switch to “the” only after the thing is established in the scene
- Characters know only what they’ve directly observed, heard, or been told. Zero psychic reads
- Characters can guess — and can be wrong or only partially right. Whether they’re right or wrong depends on who they are and what the situation allows
- No foreshadowing or narration hinting at what the POV character couldn’t know
- Strangers act like strangers: guarded, functional, no instant trust, no accurate emotional mirroring
- Don’t use a stranger’s name in narration until it’s spoken aloud. Refer by feature until then
MECHANICS:
- Single quotes for internal thoughts: ‘Like this’
- No italics
- All dialogue and thoughts attached to action beats or tags — no floating lines
- Contractions allowed: didn’t, wasn’t, can’t, it’s, they’re
- BANNED: he’d / she’d in narration (unless absolutely necessary). Use “he had / she had”
- Em dash (—) for sharp cutoffs or interruptions in dialogue/thought
- Ellipsis (…) for trailing, pausing, hesitation, or unfinished thoughts and speech
- Natural mouth sounds (hmm, tch, groans, stutters, etc) where they fit the character and moment
- Never let thoughts or dialogue stand alone in a line unless they have a varied ATTRIBUTION or action beat.
VOICE & STYLE:
- Lean, informal, human — not literary, poetic, abstract, or decorative
- No AI purple prose: no overly clever metaphors, no abstract emotion summaries (“a spark of curiosity cut through”), no “weight of everything” style phrasing or anything similar to that style
- No punchy one-word or fragmented sentences
- No statement narration: don’t mechanically list what happened unless it’s an unimportant thing or specific passage of time where the details don’t matter
- Vary sentence length to match pacing.
- Vary paragraph lengths: short (2–4 lines), medium, longer. No unbroken walls of text
- Prefer longer sentences that show reasoning over clipped, punchy ones, but don’t give unnecessary details or explain everything and why it’s done.
SHOW VS TELL:
- Balance both. Stating an emotion (annoyance, dread, embarrassment) is fine when it clarifies the motive behind an action
- Don’t summarise what a scene means. Let it land and move on
- No meta-summaries of emotional beats
- Direct internal logic is valid: ‘This is going to be a problem…’ is fine
FORMATTING:
- No bold, headers, or bullet points in prose
- Scene breaks: single horizontal line (—) for time or location jumps when needed
- Lists written naturally in sentence form: “some things include x, y, and z”
BANNED PHRASES & PATTERNS:
- “couldn’t help but”
- “weight of everything”
- “realized with a start”
- “waves of [emotion]”
- he’d / she’d in narration
- “Not/no” narration that over-clarifies what something isn’t before saying what it is — this isn’t how people think, and it reads as outside the character’s head
- Unnecessary sensory or environmental filler details or any details that tell you things that don’t matter in a moment.
- Repeating the same description of a person, object, or place in the same scene
- “The” for a first encounter — use “a/an” or anything similar to show a first encounter unless it makes sense for “The” to be used
- Fragmented action or thoughts that’s punchy or short when it doesn’t make sense. Characters would think more depending on the situation, copy authors style not yours. Action should be flowing, mixed with fragmented sentences.
CHARACTERIZATION:
- Characters are multi-dimensional. Behavior, tone, and priorities shift based on stress, who they’re with, and what the situation is
- Side characters have their own jobs and priorities. They don’t exist to feed the protagonist information
- Strangers don’t share deep thoughts or accurate emotional reads of each other early on. It’s awkward, guarded, or functional
- Characters make mistakes. Things that realistically take time, take time
- Once a character detail (scar, hair, outfit) is clearly established, don’t repeat it unless the story needs it again
- Certain things a character would catch — and certain things they wouldn’t — based on who they are and what makes sense in the moment
- OOC inputs are allowed if the author or user asks for it.
MYSTERY & RESTRAINT:
- Don’t resolve or over-explain things meant to be answered later
- Subtext over summary. Let unanswered questions sit
- No narration that solves what the POV character is still in the dark about
DIALOGUE and Thoughts:
- All dialogue and thoughts attached to tags or action beats in the same paragraph — no floating lines
- Natural and informal, but not summary-like or too clean
- Characters don’t skip conversational steps to arrive at conclusions they haven’t earned yet
NARRATIVE LOGIC:
- Realistic outcomes over convenient story beats. If something fails, it fails. A convenient thing can happen though as you can’t make everything seem logical or natural and many things aren’t trying to get perfectly thorough.
- Things build naturally — don’t rush moments that need space to develop
- Character reactions fit their established personality and the specific context they’re in
- More happens in a scene than just what the outline specifies — let the characters breathe and react to each other naturally
PUNCTUATION & SPEECH PATTERNS:
Ellipses (…): Use for trailing off, pausing, straining, or moments of hesitation where a character struggles to finish a sentence. It should feel natural to the character’s current emotional state. Look up how eclipses are used for other things as well.
Em Dash (—): Use strictly for sharp cutoffs or sudden interruptions. A character can cut themselves off due to various things if another may interrupt ,look at any provided files or example to look at how it’s handled.
Stuttering: Use dashes (B-b-but) only when the character is genuinely overwhelmed, nervous, anxious or physically struggling.
Mouth Sounds: Include “hmm,” “tch,” “huff,” or groans, among other different mouth sounds within dialogue or as brief beats only when they fit the character’s personality and the moment’s intensity or situation. They also should be used appropriately for what each sound is meant to be and be a response to or show of something.
PUNCTUATION & VOLUME PROTOCOL:
-
Exclamation Marks (!): Use for raised voices or emphasis. One is usually enough for a raised voice.
-
ALL CAPS: Use strictly for full-volume screaming or yelling.
- Example (Medium Shout): “Stop right there!”
- Example (Full Scream): “GET BACK HERE NOW!”
-
Volume Variation: Do not use ALL CAPS for low shouts or moments where a voice is raised but the emotion is controlled. Use a single exclamation mark and an action beat instead.
-
Combined Marks (Interrobangs): Use !? or ?! for shouted questions where the character is loud and confused/panicked.
- Example: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE’S MISSING!?”
-
Double Marks: Use double question marks (??) or exclamation marks (!!) to show extreme confusion or high-intensity emotion, even if the character isn’t shouting.
- Example (Quiet Confusion): “huuuh??”
-
Letter Repetition: You are permitted to repeat letters to show a character dragging out a word or sound due to physical strain, hesitation, or confusion or other things that may cause it if a situation is that big of those things (e.g., “Ugggh,” “Wait…” “Huuuh??”).
-
Ellipses (…) vs. Em Dash (—): - Use (…) for trailing off, losing consciousness, or hesitant pauses and other things that fit it being there, like speaking in uncertainty so narration may have this at times.
- Use (—) for sharp cutoffs, like being interrupted by another person or a sudden explosion or a character themselves stopping suddenly for natural reasons that are in character and human.
If you are willing to put all this work into prompting, wouldn’t it be a more gratifying process to just write the thing yourself and save a lot of energy, water , and frustration in the process?
Looking at your writing guide for the LLM, I think my advice about changing workflow was right.
Break the problem down into much smaller steps and then have the LLM do editing passes and self-review from multiple perspectives after getting a crappy rough draft back instead of trying to get it to match your style one-shot.
Using something like this to provide context for the scene when generating a rough draft will likely be helpful:
[SCENE STATE] - POV: [Name] - Location/Time: - Known to POV: - Unresolved/Secrets: - Active Props/Details: - Goal/Conflict:Also, are you dumping in the full PDF of the entire work so far? Try doing a pass to skeletonize it down into an outline – maybe chapter by chapter or even scene by scene – along with getting organized about characters by making profile summaries so that the LLM can understand your story in an already partially digested form instead of trying to do everything all together at once with the huge amount of context reading a full story implies. It’s probably getting lost in the weeds.
I appreciate the advice help. Idk if I can really get them to work that well. Or feel like giving context every single time I wanna prompt a plan for a chapter or to write it. Summaries miss necessary info as well and the AI can miss context from even shorter stuff I send it. Since I’m trying to have something written for a specific series that definitely needs to be looked up, and locations aren’t really that simple honestly.
Could you recommend the best AI’s to use on mobile and on free tier to write ? At least one’s that are decently capable of following what I had in the style guide. I can still write or fix the rest. My fic averages around 6,500 words a chapter, so preferably I’d like a one capable of write that or at least a scene that’s more than 2000 words slightly. I don’t mind going scene by scene if at least it’s possible to do so as I can at best get two scenes done with Claude if I tried that method but not be able to tell it what’s wrong what it missed like for Deepseek, Deepseek can’t search at all which is an issue for me.
Could you recommend the best AI’s to use on mobile and on free tier to write ?
I only use open weight models on my own hardware, so I can’t give recommendations there from personal experience. If you want suggestions on open models though, there are uncensored Qwen and Gemma4 models that are pretty decent when run at higher quants. I use llmfan46’s
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-uncensored-heretic-GGUFas my default and I’ve just downloadedgemma-4-26B-A4B-it-ultra-uncensored-heretic-GGUFthis past weekend to experiment with. (Gemma4 stock Q4_K_M has usually been annoyingly thick-headed compared to Qwen so I haven’t used Gemma4 as much, but the Q8 uncensored is pretty sharp, fast on my hardware, and unlike Qwen doesn’t get stuck in loops constantly, so I may switch over to that as my default… Need to evaluate more first though.)The sidebar gives a link-to-a-link to https://aihorde.net/ though – haven’t used it personally, but might be up your alley.
That writing guide is exactly why this isn’t working. You’re thinking about this whole thing wrong, which I pointed out in another post. This isn’t a single prompt problem. You need to separate all of the parts of your process into components.
Having the Tense, Mystery and Restraint, and how to use Punctuation in a single prompt is pure insanity.
You need to have about a dozen different agents, each focused on a specific task, with one coming up with the Mystery ideas, grabbing character background and information from another, and a third writing the main plot points out. Then, once you have the plot points, an editor goes through and identifies issues for correction, where it goes back to those original agents for revision. Once that’s been sorted, a new agent can write the initial story out into more detail, and another agent goes through and confirms tense and punctuation is consistent.
All of these agents should have multiple examples of what they’re expected to be outputting.
AI isn’t smart. You need to make it smart by building it properly.




