Technology. It’s always moving, always shifting, always morphing into something new, but if you know when and how to harness it, you can tame the beast and use it to help you thrive as an author.
Writing a book is not for the faint of heart. Where do you start? How do you know if what you’re writing is good enough? How do you manage your time?
These are just some of the questions that can surface before typing a single word on the page.
Below we’ll review AI writing tools that can help you write your next novel more efficiently and with less stress.
Whether this is your first book or 5oth, the AI writing tools we share in this article will help alleviate some of the stress associated with writing so you can focus on the parts of the process that you love.
Start here.
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities. – IBM
Before AI exploded onto the writing scene, common writer complaints included:
- “I can’t get through this writer’s block”
- “There’s not enough time to write.”
- “Outlining is the hardest part of writing”
- “I feel like I’m running out of ideas.”
If you’ve spent any time in front of a blinking cursor on a blank screen, then these frustrations are familiar.
Artificial intelligence as a tool is not a cure-all, and it can certainly be abused, but it can also offer flexibility and breathing room for authors looking for inspiration, and a nudge (or kick in the pants) to be the best version of themselves.
Some of the benefits of AI for authors include:
- Helping authors tap into their creativity – with the right prompts, machine learning models like ChatGPT can supply authors with a stream of ideas to stir up their imagination.
- Helping authors work more efficiently – AI can offer alternative words, help with SEO optimization, and reduce writing time.
- Helping authors with editing – AI grammar checkers like the free version from Ahrefs offer grammar, spelling, and punctuation support taking some of the burden of the smaller details off of the author.
- Helping authors outline – Getting ideas out of your head into an organized format that makes sense on paper can be tough. From blog posts to full-length books, AI can easily outline content you already have or suggest an outline based on what you want to write.
- Helping writers translate work to other languages – AI can translate content into multiple languages with a simple prompt.
Top AI Writing Tools for Fiction Authors
Fiction writers need tools that support the creative writing process. From outlining and editing to character and plot development, creating stories can be a taxing process. The right AI tools can give authors the space they need to create more freely without the added burden of the minutia of the writing process.
Here are some popular tools for fiction writers:
1. Sudowrite
Site description: “Sudowrite is based on GPT-3 and GPT-4, 175+ billion parameter Transformer models, which learn general concepts from their training data…The model generates text by guessing what’s most likely to come next, one word at a time. “
Benefits:
- Low percentage of opportunities for repetition. One of the concerns of machine learning is plagiarism. Sudowrite has protocols in place to limit opportunities for machine learning plagiarism.
- Can write words in an author’s style to help create stories in minimal time.
- Can help build out story pacing to keep the flow consistent
- Can rewrite content
- Offers feedback to help authors improve
- Helps with plot points, titles, and character arcs
Price: $10-$44/month
2. Verb.ai
Site Description : “…the writing tool that reimagines the blank page. With just a simple toggle, unleash a suite of intuitive tools designed to take your writing to unparalleled heights.”
Benefits:
- Minimalist editor to limit distractions
- Generates plot points
- Filters out poor content development patterns
- Blocks suggestions that may be a duplication
- Responds to natural language prompts (plain language)
Pricing: Free trial during Beta
3. Rytr
Site description: “Rytr’s AI generates original and compelling content that sounds like you, not a robot.”
Benefits:
- Languages – supports more than 30 languages
- Tones – 18+ tones to choose from
- Input – prompt responsive
- Variants – offers up to 3 variants per prompt (input)
- Creativity Level – from minimum to maximum creative control. You decide how much help you want AI to provide
- Plagiarism checker – offers plagiarism support powered by Copyscape
Pricing: Free
4. ProWriting Aid
Site description: “ProWritingAid is the most comprehensive editing tool out there. With over 20 writing reports, ProWritingAid goes way beyond grammar. Check your writing for sticky sentences, repeated words and phrases, readability, structure issues and so much more.”
Benefits:
- Helps eliminate surface errors (e.g. sentence structure, grammar)
- Custom critique to help improve your story
- Sensory reports and pacing improvements to make your content more engaging to your reader
- Repeated word capture
- Dialogue tag support
Pricing: Free to $12/mo billed yearly
5. Grammarly
Site description: “From email threads to comment threads, from texts to theses, you want to put your best writing out into the world. Grammarly helps your ideas shine with instant writing guidance, delivered intelligently, whenever you need it.”
Benefits:
- Catch common grammar mistakes
- Adjust the mood and tone of your writing
- Streamline complicated sentences for clarity
- Ideate through simple prompts
Pricing: Free to $15/month
6. Wordtune
Site description: “Wordtune is a Generative AI platform for work productivity. By using reliable Generative AI, you can rephrase sentences and paragraphs, adjust your tone, generate text, and much more! Whether you’re writing emails, creating documents or sending instant messages to colleagues or clients, Wordtune perfects your writing while streamlining your work using AI.”
Benefits:
- Rewrite – whether a little or a lot, this tool allows you to rewrite without sweating the small stuff like grammar.
- Create – write with authenticity with your style adding in important statistics or relatable content to make your reader feel more engaged.
- Summarize video or written content for research and faster consumption
- Ask questions – create a database of important information by asking AI for the answers you’re looking for.
Pricing: $0-$114.99/mo
AI Writing Tools for Non-Fiction Writing
Like fiction writers, non-fiction writers also build stories—within the realm of reality. AI tools can be just as powerful for a non-fiction writer as a novelist by helping them streamline their writing process and write more productively.
The following tools can offer non-fiction writers the support they need to write more effectively.
7. ChatGPT
At this point, who hasn’t heard of ChatGPT? It’s made a huge splash in recent years and turned the entire writing industry upside down. With the right prompts, you can get the learning model to generate almost anything in a short amount of time.
Despite some of its limitations, like editing previous responses and limitations in understanding the nuances of context, it offers writers a free flow of brainstorming content to spark their creativity.
Pricing: Free to $25 per user/month billed annually
8. Writesonic
According to its website, Writesonic is a “Generative AI Platform for Content Creation, SEO, and AI Chatbots.” With its built-in SEO optimization and style branding support, you can create everything from informative articles to full-length books. It is especially useful for developing marketing collateral to support your book’s growth and author brand. It also integrates with Google, WordPress, and Zapier.
Pricing: Free to $25/month per user billed annually.
9. CopyAI
CopyAI like other tools is great for brainstorming story ideas and creating marketing copy. If you’ve ever struggled with getting all of the ideas out of your head onto paper, asking CopyAI to generate some ideas could be a good jumping-off point to get you moving in the right direction.
Pricing: Free to $36/month
10. Jasper
Although the Jasper AI company is focused on marketing teams, its strength lies in producing quality blog posts and marketing assets. As an author, creating marketing materials is a critical step in any successful marketing strategy. Jasper AI supports everything from brand voice, positioning, and strategy to project management and imagery with only a few words of input.
Pricing: $39-$59/month
11. Frase IO
If you want to stand out online, there’s no substitute for search engine optimization.
It’s the language of the internet that any author who wants to be found should learn.
Frase, like many of the other AI tools mentioned in this section, specializes in creating optimized SEO content that makes articles stand out in a sea of content.
The site lists the following benefits of its SEO capabilities:
- “Analyze SEO competitors’ content easily via an intuitive research panel.”
- “Visualize key SERP metrics like word count, domain rating, and heading count.”
- “Use AI to generate full-length, optimized content briefs in 6 seconds.”
What’s more, the AI tool also offers an intuitive editor to create posts, project management support, and templates.
Pricing: Free to $45/month
Overall, AI tools for non-fiction writing can be used for more than writing books. Think marketing collateral like blog posts, ads, landing pages, and social media posts as well as researching and planning.
Specialized AI Writing Tools for Authors
Beyond AI tools that walk you through the mechanics of writing, there are also supplemental AI tools that support the writing process. These include dictation, developmental editing, and copyediting.
- Dictation tools like Sonix.ai, and Otter.ai allow you to voice your thoughts through recording and have them transcribed automatically.
- Developmental editing is one of the first stages of the editing process. It is the act of analyzing content from a broad perspective to ensure that all of the necessary pieces are in place to create a cohesive overall message.
- Authors.ai offers high-level critiques of novels using AI. The analysis focuses on story development pieces like character traits, narrative arcs, pacing, and dialogue. Sentence statistics and readability scores offer authors insight into what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve their writing to make the story impactful.
- Copyediting is part of the book development process that cleans up the rough edges of a manuscript to improve readability. This includes correcting grammatical and factual errors. It’s the final polish added to a manuscript before it is formatted (typeset). While tools like Prowriting Aid and Grammarly can be used for copyediting, other tools like Scribendi were designed to provide copyediting support.
All-in-One AI Writing Tools
Most of the AI tools mentioned above are focused on specific areas of writing; however, there are some AI tools available that are like a one-stop shop for all things writing. Instead of using a lot of different tools, you can use one tool for everything. While the individual tools can be good for a deep dive into different areas of writing, all-in-one tools can offer authors a more budget-friendly solution.
- Autocrit offers story structure and editing support through an intuitive online editor that includes a contextual thesaurus, story analyzer, sentence starters, productivity tools, and even has Grammarly built in. If you don’t want to spend your time jumping from tool to tool, Autocrit has almost everything you need to develop your book from start to finish.
- Squibler.io offers advanced AI tools for writers of all genres. From plot points and character profiles to goal-setting strategies and quote generators, Squibler’s AI partner offers authors the tools needed to begin their writing journey and propel them to the end. Their services cover books, novels, and screenplays and include formatting for print and ebook publication and live training.
Conclusion
For many authors, AI has become a trusted partner in the book development process. As with any tool, care should be taken when deciding how to use it. If you are serious about becoming a better writer, AI can provide direction and suggestions to help you strengthen your writing muscle and increase your confidence.
On the other hand, if you abuse the use of AI services to plagiarize, pretend you have expertise in an area that you don’t, or hide that you are using AI to write content for you, you can easily risk your reputation as a writer and also nix any chance of developing your writing craft.
Using AI or any technology is always a personal choice. If you think AI is a good fit for you and can help you develop as a writer, explore the many options available and find the best match for you.
Technology is ever-changing and when used properly it can help create more efficient processes and take some of the pressure and stress off of authors looking for more creative freedom.
Are you ready to take the next step in your author journey?
