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- i just use track changes for that + a "trash" doc, or an entirely new story if it needs more space, but go off.
i also made an app for my writing process and quickly realized it was a distraction from the actual work of writing
- Saw your edit. Yeah I had that too. But I wanted something more ai driven because I'm not a trash writer. I want that lowtech holodeck feel where I tell the model to take the story and it writes a chapter for me. Plus wanted to keep branching trees of different versionsby refsab
- The UI looks beautiful,I like its style.by BrucecarlL
- I went down this road six months ago with tool called Lantern though specifically for writing text adventure games.
I had it working and then realized that no matter how hard I put walls up between my artistic abilities and the llm was impossible.
The llm’s interference would eventually corrupt my own thinking process.
I tossed it and know anything I write will stand apart from GenAI.
by ChicagoDave - > context window: 32,768
Seems a bit low to me. Yeah, I know that's way bigger than a book, but surely there is conversation, iteration history, etc
by drbscl - Context window depends on the model used. I used gemma4 I think and set it to 32k so startup is faster. I think even gemma supports up to 200kby refsab
- Makes me curious. What context is sent? Whole story, including later chapters? Just up to that paragraph? Planning and character description documents? Any way to control all of that?by jtbayly
- Whole story up to the context limit. Then it starts dropping stuff. But I didn't want auto dropping or auto summaries like what other tools do.
I like to be strategic summarize the correct places when the context gets full.
There is a request inspector that shows everything that is sent.
I'm experimenting with prompt ordering strategies as well. this is surprisingly complext when you take into account the different model providers.
For example local models usually do a different form of prompt caching than for example openai and anthropic
by refsab - There are a lot of negative comments already - many are not in-keeping with the HN guidelines. Hopefully this won't end up getting your Show HN post flagged.
The strength of feeling in those comments - such as this one - is really interesting:
>"you've missing [sic] the entire point of writing fiction."
Some would argue that if art makes you feel anything this strongly, it's 100% doing its job. Maybe you're not missing the point at all!
I'm interested to try it out, and perhaps build some features on top of what it's doing already. I've been using trees a lot for the novel I've been working on for the last couple of years, but haven't managed to find the best way to visualise them in a UI, so I'm excited to see what you settled on. Trees can get really unwieldy really fast, with basically infinite combinations - especially if you're working at a very granular level.
I'm curious about anyone else here who has run into the same or a similar problem, and how they approached it. There are more plausible paths through this manuscript than I can personally hold in my head, which is quite different from approaches I've used in the past, where structures have been more formalised and deviation from them was thus quite limited.
Thanks for sharing this!
- > Some would argue that if art makes you feel anything this strongly, it's 100% doing its job.
It's pretty easy to invoke disgust and pain. That doesn't make public toilets and getting shot pieces of art 100% doing their job.
by newsy-combi - I agree with your sentiment and all kudos to the author for being so creativity in creating such tool. I like the idea of having a list of "facts" to keep track of characters in the story.
Even if I won't use it since I dislike using the terminal, I still think its very creative tool for writing.
Strangely I can also understand all the hate but what are you going do? For all those that hate, don't shoot the messenger - the author of the tool is only using those tools that everyone else is also using.
We are collectively going down a very sloppery (pun intended) slope and the author of the tool is just being creativity for their own purposes. Hate the companies pushing this slop down our throats, not those that make use of the existing tools and pushing them to new uses - that's called learning.
by Towaway69 - >but haven't managed to find the best way to visualise them in a UI, so I'm excited to see what you settled on
yes exactly. My main motivation for writing this was to try my hand at it. I'm not happy yet. First started looking at loom interfaces but all have the same problem of how you visualize it.
My try is a in the map (m) if you want to check it out. I feel like the path view works reasonably well but tree and mass not so much.
This is really difficult to solve.
Happy to hear your ideas or see your solutions
by refsab - This is really cool! I've started building a similar tool with some different ideas based around the way I like to ideate with LLMs and write. Debating whether to open source it because it's so tied to my process.
Will be interesting to see where you take this. I'd love to see more experimentation around AI tooling and UX to support creativity.
by Stwerner - This was also tied pretty much to my process. Just publish it. Would love to exchange ideas.
The only thing I would avoid is calling it an AI writing tool haha. I didn't realize this was such a sore topic. Probably naive of me
by refsab - They say to throw away the first page. It needs to hurt a bit as we go.
For 'context priming' I'd like to see an interface that supports this. Not just alts and variations, but an assistant or companion that challenges what's already on the page, and sometimes doesn't even look back at what's been thrown out.
Forgetting can be just as effective as capturing.
by dleeftink - So... You don't write with language models... You have a language model write for you... You can spend all the time you like developing structure and ideas, but if you don't actually do the writing you haven't written it.
This is spectacularly wrong headed. If you want a book with your name on it for adulation or career reasons, but lack the interest, time or talent to produce one - hire a ghost writer. Writers are affordable and plentiful.
Similarly if you have a hyperspecific interest, kink or genre preference - use your position as a presumably well remunerated tech person to hire a writer to cater to it. Trust me, we need the patronage.
If you're looking for the pleasure of writing, you will unfortunately have to undergo, as all writers have through history, the process of suffering and discovery that we call writing.
by dbspin - Downvotes are disturbing and ideologically motivated rather than bothering to engage with the point.
You're not a musician if you hop onto Suno and generate a song. You're not a filmmaker if you open Gemini Omni and prompt some video. And you're not a bloody writer if you have an LLM do it for you. Talk about wheelchairs for the mind...
by dbspin - Hm, I want something like this, except it doesn't write for you at all, instead it helps you build out your storyline, gives you writing prompts and feedback, maybe sometimes suggests ideas if you feel stuck, helps keep your character/story bible in order and text aligned with it, and gives you encouragement and visual feedback as you go along.|
Maybe add in some different "AI reviewer" type things, one to read broadly for enjoyment and give feedback, another as an editor to fine-tune particular sections. Even with these it should provide feedback, not re-written sections.
But I love the TUI approach and keeping things simple and organized for you, so you don't have to bother with all that. Bonus if it had some nice LaTeX / epub / PDF / html reader output.
by thegagne - what you are describing is exactly what i built (or tried/am trying to). it's called enough: github.com/0gsd/enough. it is difficult to evangelize because most LLM tools for writers generate prose. i suspect eventually an audience will come around to it, but who knows.by 0gs
- I did add an aside mode that I use for this. Where I ask questions about the storyline, remind me about characters, give me feedback or generate a prompt for the next chapter.
Would be interesting to split this out into a separate app that only does this
by refsab - Agree, the application of LLM often feels too literal. I like when LLM inform the UX but a layer or two removed for example like you said by giving feedback on things produced by the user or combining multiple things that happened over time and acting on that. That's where the magic lies and where I see users actually be happy having AI in their workflow.by barbazoo
- Why would you want to write fiction with language models? Serious question.
What you would become, in effect, is the fictional Soviet 'writer' from Sam Kriss' 2011 short story 'The Machine'.
https://samkriss.com/2011/10/01/the-machine/
I do not think there is anything to aspire to in that.
by DC-3 - World building, story boarding/ story arc building, etc are great uses for an LLM in fiction.by spott
- My friend was absolutely obsessed with writing character backgrounds and world setting stories using ChatGPT for a while. It took almost a year for him to come up for air and realize all the stories were effectively the same, and the hooks/tricks/twists were all very generic.
it can be addictive to tell stories with friends or world-build, so why not a 'friend'?
by jvanderbot - You might be interested in language models the same way lots of great artists in the past have been interested in generative art. Burroughs would be an example.
More broadly, you might be interested in language models because they are new, and you don't want to discount the value of new, constantly-evolving tools for your art form until you have explored them and understood their strengths and limitations.
I personally have not found language models very useful at all for serious work thus far. I am curious, though, about why many people are openly dismissive of the potential artistic value of what is an extremely new tool, and - maybe more importantly - those who choose to use it.
How other writers write doesn't strike me as any of my business, beyond what I can learn from their methods.
- It's a form of low tech holodeck. You write the stories you want to read. I love these vintage pulp detective novels but no one writes them anymore so I write them myself for myself, and a few of my fellow weirdos on weird discords.by refsab
- This is so depressing for me. The drip will be everywhere.
- This is not a slop book producer. I mean it is but mostly for a niche of off grid weirdos like me. We are not writing for the public. It's like fanfic. On off grid forums and discords.
I think if someone wanted to produce a slop book for amazon with 1667 there are easier tools for that.
by refsab - I think I am going to move into a rural area and be a glassblower. I'll never be Chihuly, but my work will be my work.by sesteel
- AI feels like a Faustian bargain that has been struck on my behalf by others who do not know me.
"Tools" like this make me feel nothing but a profound sense of sadness and despair.
by codeduck