Hey Reader,
I took last week’s newsletter off (did ya miss me?). Not sure if anyone noticed, but in my head, it felt like I was flaking on my duties as a newsletter writer. Honestly though, I just didn’t have much to say. I’m sure some of you appreciated one less piece of content cluttering an already overstuffed inbox.
But this week I actually have some cool stuff to share with you.
AI Tools for Writers
Cara and I were having one of those chats—the AI is coming for our jobs kinda chats. She's a copy editor and sent me a podcast with two editors talking about how AI has affected their work. One was skeptical and fearful, the other was optimistic and had pivoted to selling AI for Editors courses. By the end of the pod, the doom-and-gloom gal was an AI-convert, excited about the possibilities of improving her editing workflow.
I went on with my week and forgot about it. But I kept synchronistically stumbling across AI writing and editing apps and sending them over to Cara being like, "Ooh look at this one!" I thought she'd get a kick out of it and maybe try them out for herself.
The first one I came across was ProWritingAid. I sent it to her, but I signed up for the free version to try it for myself. I loved how you could use their editor for free without signing up. Just paste your text in there and have their AI analyze it and provide suggestions.
But then three days later, I was reading on the ProWritingAid subreddit and someone mentioned Fictionary. It was an app geared toward helping you write a full novel from start to finish. Much more comprehensive than PWA.
Naturally, I sent it to Cara, who’s been hinting at writing fiction to get the ideas swirling in her head onto the page. She tells me she’s got these vast worlds and characters in her imagination, but when it comes time to write, she goes blank. The pressure to "make it good" kicks in, and her inner critic takes over.
So I thought, hey, why not brainstorm some ideas with AI and a tool like Fictionary would be perfect!
Bespoke audiobooks for personal use
A day or two later, I was chatting with Claude and ChatGPT about some psycho-spiritual material from a YouTube video I was trying to better understand. I’ve been using AI to break down transcripts and ask deeper questions—mostly for my own curiosity.
A fun trick I like is asking AI to write fictional stories based on the concepts I’m exploring. I’ll tell it to create characters and scenes that illustrate the ideas in a way my right brain can process. It’s like how watching a film or TV show can help you grasp emotional or spiritual truths more deeply than a nonfiction book ever could.
Last month, I experimented with having Claude write me a full ten-chapter spiritual sci-fi novel based on some esoteric theories. I gave it as much info as I could, and it generated the chapters one by one. I’d copy them into Notion, export a PDF, and use an app like Speechify to listen to it as an audiobook.
I didn’t really care how the book turned out since it was just for my own enjoyment, but I was surprised by how coherent it was. There was solid character development, dialogue, plot twists, a climax, and an ending. It wasn’t perfect—repeated motifs, flowery prose, and some predictable moments—but for a 1-2 hour audiobook on a hike? Not bad at all.
Speaking of creating bespoke audio content, have you tried Google's NotebookLM app? It’s a free tool where you can upload documents—even full ebooks—and it will analyze them, summarize the content, and chat with you about it.
However, what I really like is their Audio Overview feature that generates a podcast-style conversation where two voices go back and forth, discussing the material. It sounds just a professional radio How cool is that?
Fumbling my way into fiction writing?
I don't read fiction. Just never been into it. I don’t write fiction either—except when I use AI to work through interesting spiritual and mystical ideas. Creating character-driven stories helps me visualize the concepts I’m grappling with.
Since I was already using Claude and ChatGPT to write these stories for myself, why not try using Fictionary and see if I can write even better ones?
I signed up for a free trial and played around with the interface. I saw you can start from scratch or with an outline template, where they give you a tried-and-true story structure. Huh, I never even considered that before.
What I could create if I actually stuck to a proven story structure? What if I followed their guidance and suggestions?
I spent a day working with it before I stumbled upon a new tool that I find much better and more inspiring. And that is NovelCrafter.
NovelCrafter: A better tool for AI-assisted fiction
NovelCrafter is like Fictionary, but with generative AI tools built in. You can connect it to various large language models (LLMs), not just Claude 3.5 or GPT-4. It works with Open Router, which gives you access to tons of different models—even NSFW ones if that's your thing.
Other tools I know about but haven't tried are Sudowrite, NovelAI, and Dibbly Create. For tutorials, check out the Nerdy Novelist on YouTube. He have some good content on AI-assisted writing.
AI making me a better writer?
What’s really blown me away about NovelCrafter is how it’s forced me to think more deeply about storytelling—structure, pacing, character development. It’s not just about having the AI generate prose, but about crafting the vision in my head and making it come to life.
The cool thing is they have a Codex feature, which is basically where you store info about your characters and lore, and it all gets referenced by the AI when you generate text.
I learned that a good strategy is what's called the Fractal Technique (thanks Nerdy Novelist). You start at the tip of the iceberg or pyramid and work your way down.
Instead of having AI generate an entire book all at once, you start with a logline—a brief, one-sentence summary of your story. Then, you work with the AI to expand that logline into a synopsis, a chapter outline, and eventually scene beats for each chapter. From there, the AI helps you write the actual prose based on those beats.
Is AI writing bad or unethical?
It depends. The default prose that you get can be pretty formulaic and cliche. The initial wow factor fades once you realize how repetitive it can get. But you can fine-tune the AI to write more like you. I’ve been experimenting with giving it samples of my writing to create a style guide. It’s not perfect, but it’s been a fun process.
In the end, though, I’m starting to think I should just write it myself—because that’s where my authentic voice comes through. The AI tools help get your creative juices flowing. They help you get past writer's block. If you let it do everything for you, it will sound like any other AI generated book out there
Is it ethical? I still don’t know. I use AI for my own research and learning, and I love having AI-generated audiobooks or podcasts to listen to while I’m hiking. Would I publish a fully AI-written novel? Maybe—if it were free and I didn’t claim it as my own. But if I had a heavy hand in the writing and editing process, shaping the story and characters, then yeah, I think I’d publish it. Maybe under a pen name.
But that's assuming I actually write a novel. Hah. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here.
Have you tried any of these AI tools for your writing? What do you think of them so far? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
That's all for this week.
Peace✌️
Jeff
The Official Newsletter of Jeff Finley
Designer, Author, Mystic
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