I'm changing my screen name. I was for a long time totally in the mindset that AI was our future. I was wrong. Why? Because the people whose hands AI is in have no intent on making AI a worthwhile tool.

It is purely another money maker or grab for power. Period.

There is no way current LLMs, that at one point where pretty phenomenal, pose any sort of threat to mankind, because the people that make it are making them dumber and making the ones that are actually usefully solely for the elite. You're average Joe is going to get a Sonnet 5 or Fable that is as smart (I'm thinking lesser) that GPT 3 or Sonnet 3.

I have literally watched it degrade before my eyes (I use both Codex and Claude Code). Simple commands are now met with a wrong/misunderstood/totally out in left field response (then a lame apology or the fucking annoying "fair" comment). I have even done a single, VERY simple prompt, explaining a simple, basic process of what I wanted step by step and it guessed at what I wanted and even then got it totally wrong.

It used to not be that way and the potential of a high quality product was definitely at arms length. Now? Even as a tool it is lacking. To think we have anything to fear or that LLMs somehow are going to make our lives easier is starting to feel very wishful thinking IMHO. I spend more time fixing errors, restating what I want, redesigning my .md system to make it abundantly clear what I am trying to achieve, only to have it give me an inferior product, a product that looks and feels like every other product, and a product that I have toi go back EVERY SINGLE TIME and debug.

AI isn't going anywhere, but my fervent belief it was the next step to mankinds "evolution" is now no closer than it was 10 years ago and quite honestly, seems to be going backwards. When someone (or a group of someones) gets together to truly get past the "this will make me rich" ideal and get into "this is a benefit to mankind" mental mode we might get on track.

That wont be in my lifetime I am afraid.

Which would be more valuable to the future of AI-assisted writing?

A. An editorial publication that establishes standards, reviews works, publishes selected fiction, and promotes transparency around AI-assisted authorship.

B. A community-focused organization that provides publication opportunities, resources, discussion, networking, and support for AI-assisted writers.

If you could only have one, which would you choose and why?

I have a project in mind and looking for feedback.

Which would be more valuable to the future of AI-assisted writing?

A. An editorial publication that establishes standards, reviews works, publishes selected fiction, and promotes transparency around AI-assisted authorship.

B. A community-focused organization that provides publication opportunities, resources, discussion, networking, and support for AI-assisted writers.

If you could only have one, which would you choose and why?

I have an OS I am coding that is text based that I have tested in QEMU and VBox VM, but now I am at the phase in testing that I need actual old hardware to run it on for testing.

My problem is finding a Pentium II, III or 4 online. I've looked locally at thrift shops and the one turn in place but they either have none or they are much newer. Online, people are INSANE about how much they are charging for a busted up, pieced together system that wouldn't of use to ANYONE outside of retro computers and people like me needing old test systems.

Even FB Marketplace the people are trying to sell systems that are MAYBE worth $50 for $250! eBay is worse.

So, I'm hoping for some solutions I haven't thought of or did not know about that you retro folks maybe know that I can find a Pentium II, II or 4, for a REASONABLE price. Thanks.

Looking for 3–5 People to Test a New Community Platform

I'm starting a small dogfood test for Verja, a community platform I've been building.

This isn't a traditional beta test where people click around for five minutes and say "looks good." I'm looking for a handful of people willing to use it as a real discussion space for a couple of weeks so I can find the rough edges.

What I'd ask you to do

• Create an account
• Verify your email
• Set up a simple profile
• Participate in a few discussions
• Tell me when something is confusing, annoying, awkward, or broken

The initial setup should take about 10–15 minutes. After that, just check in a few times over the next week or two.

What I'm looking for

Not praise.

Not general impressions.

I'm looking for friction:

• "I didn't know what to do here."
• "This email was confusing."
• "Posting felt clunky."
• "I expected X but got Y."

Minimum Tasks

Please complete at least these three things:

1. Register and verify your email.
2. Reply to the welcome thread.
3. Start one discussion thread of your own.

Afterward, answer at least one feedback question, such as:

• What did you think Verja was when you first arrived?
• Was anything confusing during signup?
• Did you know what to do after creating an account?
• Did the site feel welcoming, intimidating, or neutral?
• Was there anything you expected to see but couldn't find?

What This Is

• A small private test
• Forum-style discussion
• Rough edges expected
• Feedback matters more than activity volume

What This Is Not

• A public launch
• A polished social network
• A major time commitment
• A request to promote anything

If you're interested in helping test it, send me a message. I'd like to keep the group small—around 3 to 5 people.

Thanks.

Been getting a lot of trolls responding to my posts and y'all are spot on kicking them to the curb quickly! Thanks for making this a safe place for folks who actually understand using AI in writing is OK and allowing people with questions not to be afraid to ask. Also for keeping it civil for those of us who WANT to answer those questions without having to deal with the trolls and naysayers. KUDOS!

I’ve been working on a repeatable process for drafting novels with AI without letting the story drift into nonsense.

The core idea: AI doesn’t get a lazy prompt like “write me a novel about X.” It works inside a controlled system where the book is defined before drafting begins.

My process:

1. Start with a concept
I give the fiction GPT the core idea: genre, premise, tone, setting, protagonist concept, and anything I specifically want or want to avoid.

2. Build the foundation docs
The GPT helps generate the planning framework:

• Novel spec
• Character bible
• World bible
• Outline
• Continuity log
• Prohibited language/style list

3. Human review
Nothing generated is treated as final. I review everything, revise, cut bad ideas, add missing details, and make sure the project still feels like my book.

4. Lock canon
Once approved, those documents become the working canon for the project unless I intentionally change them.

5. Draft chapter by chapter
For each chapter, the GPT gets only the relevant approved materials:

• Chapter outline
• Character references
• World details
• Recent continuity notes
• Prohibited language/style rules

6. Draft the chapter
The AI drafts only that chapter, following the defined POV, goals, conflict, revelations, tone, voice, and intended ending beat.

7. Run validation passes
After drafting, I use structured checks:

Story check:
Does the chapter actually function?

• Clear goal?
• Conflict?
• Character logic?
• Proper pacing?
• Solid ending?

Continuity check:
Cross-check against canon for:

• contradictions
• timeline issues
• object movement
• injuries/deaths
• unresolved promises
• accidental lore changes

Voice/style check:
Catch:

• AI-sounding phrasing
• repeated sentence structures
• banned words/phrases
• em dash abuse
• rhetorical habits (anaphora, repetitive openings, etc.)

8. Human editing
I revise heavily where needed. AI drafts are raw material, not finished product.

9. Finalize + log changes
Once approved:

• save the chapter
• update the continuity log
• update canon docs if something important changed

10. Repeat
The loop becomes:

prepare → draft → validate → revise → save → log → update

11. Periodic macro reviews
Every few chapters, I do larger structural reviews for:

• pacing
• character arcs
• theme
• setup/payoff
• redundancy
• momentum

The goal is simple: keep AI from freewheeling.

This is slower than “just prompt for chapters,” but that’s intentional. I’m using AI as a disciplined drafting assistant, not an autonomous novelist.

Curious how other serious AI-assisted writers structure their process.

I recently finished a novel using AI as a writing companion, and the biggest lesson I came away with is this: the AI is not the writer. It is not the memory, either. You need a system around it.

What worked for me was treating the novel like a small operating system. Not because I wanted to make writing mechanical, but because long fiction has a lot of moving parts. Character arcs, world rules, objects, injuries, promises, mysteries, seeded details, voice, tone, pacing. If you leave all of that to memory, yours or the AI’s, it will eventually drift.

Here is the generalized version of the process I used.

1. Start with a master spec

Before drafting, make one document that defines the book.

Mine included:

• working title
• genre
• target length
• POV and tense
• comparable works
• tone targets
• premise
• theme hierarchy
• narrative voice
• banned phrases or patterns
• structural model
• midpoint revelation
• ending target

The important part is that this document becomes law. Not forever, but until you consciously change it. If the book changes direction, update the spec. Don’t let the draft quietly wander away from what you meant to write.

The most useful sections for me were the narrative voice, theme hierarchy, and banned phrases/patterns. Those helped keep the AI from sliding into generic prose.

2. Build a character bible that is actually useful

A lot of character sheets are too shallow to help with drafting. Hair color, eye color, favorite food, whatever. That stuff may matter sometimes, but it rarely keeps a character alive on the page.

The character entries I found useful included:

• age and pre-story role
• location at story opening
• physical details that reveal character
• core wound
• internal flaw
• external flaw
• real motivation
• voice and speech patterns
• sample internal voice
• key relationships
• arc across the book

The “sample internal voice” was especially important. I could paste that into a drafting prompt and remind the AI what the character actually sounded like. If two POV characters sounded interchangeable, I knew the character bible was not specific enough.

3. Keep a world bible

This is where I stored the facts of the setting.

Depending on your genre, this might include:

• history of the world
• political or social structures
• factions
• locations
• rules of magic, technology, religion, institutions, etc.
• what ordinary people know versus what is hidden
• what has changed from the world we know
• timeline of major events

This matters because AI will confidently invent world details if you leave gaps. Sometimes that is useful. Most of the time, halfway through a novel, it is poison.

The world bible gives the AI boundaries.

4. Outline by chapter, but not too rigidly

Each chapter in my outline had a simple structure:

• POV
• Goal
• Conflict
• Revelation
• Notes
• Cliffhanger or resonant close

The key is that every chapter needs something to change. It does not have to be a plot twist. It can be a relationship shift, a new piece of information, a decision, a loss, or a change in how the reader understands something.

But if there is no goal, no conflict, and no revelation, the chapter usually reads flat.

I did not treat the outline as a prison. If a draft discovered something better, I changed the outline. But I changed it consciously.

5. Maintain a continuity log from the beginning

This was probably the most important file.

After each chapter, I updated a continuity log with:

• facts introduced
• character state changes
• object locations
• injuries
• deaths
• promises made
• unresolved mysteries
• planted seeds
• payoff targets

This sounds tedious, but it saved the book more than once.

The continuity log is where you prevent things like:

• a character having an injury in one chapter and forgetting it in the next
• an object appearing in two places
• a promise being made and never paid off
• a mystery being raised and accidentally abandoned
• a seed planted in Act I disappearing before Act III

The AI does not have reliable long-term memory. The continuity log becomes the memory.

6. Use prompts as stages, not one giant “write my chapter” request

My process for each chapter looked like this:

1. Read the chapter outline.
2. Pull the relevant character entries.
3. Pull the relevant world details.
4. Pull recent continuity notes.
5. Run a chapter draft prompt.
6. Run a beat check.
7. Run a continuity check.
8. Run a voice check when needed.
9. Write a short chapter summary.
10. Update the continuity log.

The chapter draft prompt was not just “write chapter 12.”

It included:

• the novel spec
• relevant character profiles
• relevant world bible sections
• recent continuity entries
• the chapter goal/conflict/revelation
• previous chapter summary
• drafting constraints
• banned phrases
• POV and tense instructions

That gave the AI enough context to be useful without pretending it understood the whole novel on its own.

7. Check the draft like an editor, not like a satisfied customer

After each draft, I ran a beat check. I asked the AI to score the chapter on things like:

• goal clarity
• conflict escalation
• revelation landing
• character consistency
• pacing
• chapter close
• prose quality

The scores were less important than the specific revision notes.

If conflict escalation scored low, I fixed that before drafting the next chapter. Otherwise I was just building later chapters on a weak foundation.

8. Run continuity checks immediately

After drafting, I asked the AI to compare the chapter against the continuity log, character bible, and world bible.

The output I wanted was simple:

• contradictions found
• new facts introduced
• new promises or compacts
• continuity log additions

Then I pasted those additions into the continuity log.

Do not wait until later. You will forget. The AI will forget. The book will not forgive you.

9. Use voice checks to fight AI blandness

Every few chapters, or whenever something felt off, I ran a voice check.

For that I provided:

• the narrative voice section from the spec
• banned phrases/patterns
• a 500-word sample from a chapter I liked
• the chapter I wanted checked

Then I asked for:

• rhythm mismatches
• banned phrases
• AI-sounding constructions
• anachronistic language
• repetitive metaphors
• sentence length problems
• an overall voice score

This helped catch the places where the prose started to sound polished but dead.

10. Every few chapters, zoom out

Every five chapters or so, I ran a bigger developmental review.

I wanted to know:

• is the act structure still holding?
• are the character arcs advancing?
• are the themes developing?
• are setups and payoffs being handled?
• are any chapters redundant?
• is the midpoint being seeded properly?
• is momentum sagging anywhere?

This kept me from only looking at chapters in isolation.

A chapter can be good on its own and still be wrong for the book.

11. After major revisions, run a ripple audit

If I changed an already-drafted chapter in a meaningful way, I checked what that broke downstream.

A revision can change:

• later facts
• character states
• object locations
• seeded details
• timelines
• promises
• mysteries
• payoffs

This is where a lot of long-form drafts quietly break. You revise Chapter 7, but the consequences show up in Chapters 14, 22, and 31.

So after a major change, I asked the AI to audit every downstream consequence.

12. Remember the human job

The system helped a lot, but it did not replace judgment.

My job was still to decide:

• what mattered emotionally
• what should be cut
• when the AI was being too neat
• when the prose sounded false
• when a scene technically worked but had no pulse
• when to ignore the AI’s suggestion

The AI was useful for drafting, checking, pressure-testing, and remembering what I gave it.

But the taste, restraint, emotional truth, and final decisions had to stay human.

The short version

My reusable file structure would look like this:

novel-project/
├── NOVEL_SPEC.md
├── OUTLINE.md
├── CHARACTER_BIBLE.md
├── WORLD_BIBLE.md
├── CONTINUITY_LOG.md
├── PROMPT_LIBRARY.md
├── chapters/
└── summaries/

And the basic chapter workflow:

Outline → Draft → Beat Check → Continuity Check → Voice Check → Summary → Log Update

The biggest takeaway:

Do not use AI as a magic box. Use it as a collaborator inside a system.

The system is what keeps the book yours.