AI Writing Tools

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming a regular part of our daily workflows. From virtual assistants to image recognition, AI has widespread applications that can help streamline various processes. As authors, there are also several AI writing tools we can leverage to improve our writing. Here are a few worth checking out.

Grammarly

One of the most popular AI writing tools is Grammarly. This browser extension and mobile app checks your writing for grammatical errors, misspellings, punctuation mistakes, word choice issues and more. Grammarly analyzes your writing and provides suggestions for improving clarity, style and tone. It’s a handy way to catch small errors that could otherwise slip past even the most careful editor. But it still misses things because English is complex. It doesn’t replace an editor.

ProWritingAid

Similar to Grammarly, ProWritingAid analyzes your writing and offers suggestions. But it goes deeper than just grammar, focusing more on higher-level writing issues like consistency, flow, word choice and structure. You can use it as a browser extension or import documents. It’s especially useful for polishing longer form content like novels, non-fiction books and blog posts. I like that it offers you ideas to reword sentences and can catch bad habits like using passive voice. But again, it won’t replace an editor.

AI Writing Assistant

Tools like Anthropic‘s Constitutional AI can generate completely new content based on your writing style and topic. But the AI Writing Assistant from Anthropic is more helpful for fine-tuning and improving your existing drafts. It analyzes your writing and provides suggestions to strengthen phrases, vary word choice, fix redundancies and more. The suggestions are embedded directly into your draft for easy review.

I use Anthropic’s Claude to help me brainstorm ideas, and it helped me with ideas for this article, even generating some of the content.

None of these is designed specifically for fiction, which Sudowrite and Laika are.

Sudowrite

It has a free version that you can play with for a bit. You type in a bit of a scene or an idea and ask it what comes next. You can ask it for an outline or background on a character

But what I think is really powerful is its Story Engine. According to Sudowrite, “Story Engine allows you to collaborate with an AI to write a long-form narrative together. Starting from the seed of an idea, Story Engine is a writing partner that guides you through the various stages of writing a novel, from synopsis to outline to fully-realized scenes.”

Write with Laika

One of the unique things about Laika is that it works on “brains.” So you can pick Jane Austen or Shakespeare (authors in the public domain) and write in their style. Or you can upload your own work and create your own “brain” so it can write like you.

Below are tools I haven’t used, but Claude listed them, so I thought I would, too, in case you want to check them out.

Characters.ai

Generating believable dialogue can be one of the toughest parts of fiction writing. But Character.ai uses AI and machine learning to analyze your writing style and draft character-appropriate dialogue based on personality traits you define. You can also use it to get started on new stories, having the tool draft the first chapter centered around your characters.

Storyist

For plotting out novel-length works of fiction, Storyist is an invaluable tool. It lets you map out the major plot points, subplots, character arcs and more across multiple acts and chapters. You can rearrange, edit and add to the story skeleton as needed. Storyist ensures your novel has a solid structural foundation before you start writing scene by scene.

Bottom line

You need to spend some time playing with these tools to see which can help you best. You might find several of them that can help you in various situations. As with any new tool, there is a learning curve so give yourself plenty of time to play around (not on a deadline). And with anything, the more of yourself that you put in, the better the results will be.

Need help?

If you want human help with your writing, feel free to reach out to us. You can see our services here. And you can fill out an interest form here.

Writing quote

Write what should not be forgotten. — Isabel Allende

PPS—You should assume any link in this Update is an affiliate link. It costs you nothing more but gives me a few pennies. 🙂

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