More Final Thoughts on Sudowrite & Other AI Tools – an update

Okay, I lied. The last post wasn’t the final post. It’s been a few months since I delved into AI, and I’ve branched out from just using Sudowrite into trying some other tools, so I thought I’d give an update. Sudowrite I still use it, but not nearly as much as I used to. It’s much more useful at the beginning of a book than in the muddy middle or ending, but it’s also really dedicated to what it knows—and I sense it didn’t read a whole lot of funny books. Describe tends to produce sentences and descriptions that are more flowery, metaphoric, and serious. Since my writing tends toward concise (I aim for easy reading) and funny, quippy, and so on, it produces things that don’t fit with how I write more than I’d like it to. I also don’t tend to get writer’s block—sorry—so it’s not as useful to me. I do still subscribe to it and will continue to keep it around, but other tools have moved into the “it girl” position. I’d love to see checkboxes that give the AI direction – simple, descriptive, non-descriptive, dialog, first-person, past-tense, and so on. I know Sudowrite is still in Beta, and I know there are text directives I could give it that would probably produce better suggestions—but honestly, I’m not that patient. I don’t want to learn a new tool’s language. I just want it to do what I want it to do simply, easily, and without a whole lot of curve on my part. I think for some styles of writing, though, this would work great. Quillbot Quillbot is probably my current it girl. I have Quillbot Premium, though I barely use it at the length allowed. Quillbot is a paraphrasing tool that utilizes machine learning and ai to rewrite the text. It has multiple modes, but the one I use the most is Fluency. Fluency mode is used to fix grammatical mistakes and punctuation and doesn’t modify the meaning of what you give it much at all—I gotta tell ya, this thing is top-notch at whacking out passive sentences. Yes, Grammarly does that and I do have Grammarly Pro. But I find Quillbot’s sentences have a much better flow than anything “corrected” by Grammarly. Its phrase and word thesaurus options are great. The tool itself is very easy to work with. You can edit what it gives you in the app, click a button to copy the whole thing or individual sentences, and it shows you which parts have thesaurus-like options. The learning curve is almost non-existent. Cons? Dialog can confuse the hell out of it. This has helped me get the first rough draft down fast because I don’t have to stop and find a way to say something in a new way every time. My character can look up ten times in a chapter and I can edit/change it later with Quillbot super fast to say that ten different ways. Copy.ai and Jarvis.ai So, …

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Initial Sudowrite Observational Tweets

Initially, I’d planned just to tweet about my AI-Augmented Author experience, but a few days in I was struggling with questions that needed far more than a tweet or two. Tweets started this off, though, so I wanted to put them here. Holy crap. @sudowrite is seriously impressive. "Nutmeg’s hair is red, but her bright green eyes show that she has more in common with creatures of the night than with day." Knew she was a pixie, picked up it was night. This is seriously cool. — Leanne Leeds 🦉⭐🧙‍♀️ (@LeanneLLeeds) June 2, 2021 Finishing up Book 2 and played around with #sudowrite last night. Chapter 17's ending got quite a bit better, I think. Definitely involves the human picking, choosing, and polishing up, but it also definitely gave me ideas on the scene I hadn't had. (Spoiler white out.) pic.twitter.com/bSkCOtnwuc — Leanne Leeds 🦉⭐🧙‍♀️ (@LeanneLLeeds) June 2, 2021 So, first dictation chapter (OSW:B2:CH18) with #sudowrite today, and used "Wormhole" 9 times, and "Describe" once. Tomorrow, I edit the chapter. I'm curious if I'll use it more or less during editing or creation. — Leanne Leeds 🦉⭐🧙‍♀️ (@LeanneLLeeds) June 2, 2021 #sudowrite wrote" "Meryl's voice flew like a flock of crows onto Amethyst's head and perched there, half a dozen or so, squawking and uttering a few warning caws." Not my style, but man, I want to use this so bad. — Leanne Leeds 🦉⭐🧙‍♀️ (@LeanneLLeeds) June 3, 2021 Lest you think all I do is sing #sudowrite praises, there are some times where I look at what comes out and wonder if the robot brain's been nipping at the brandy a bit too much. pic.twitter.com/S5dFfuaFA0 — Leanne Leeds 🦉⭐🧙‍♀️ (@LeanneLLeeds) June 3, 2021 Ok, D2 with #sudowrite. Edited Chapter 18, and used Expand 1 time, Wormhole 2 times, and Describe 6 times. Am starting to get a feel for how to get the best results from it. Some things I give more text to, some less. Will write up some observations later. — Leanne Leeds 🦉⭐🧙‍♀️ (@LeanneLLeeds) June 3, 2021 Ok, a few thoughts on my first day with #sudowrite. (A thread.) It was very easy to use while dictating, but I'm used to having two monitors (three, actually, but don't judge me.) I did not write in it, just cut and pasted sections into the app and used whichever button I wanted. — Leanne Leeds 🦉⭐🧙‍♀️ (@LeanneLLeeds) June 3, 2021