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We've been delighted to see so many authors using Import Novel to bring in their works in progress since launching the beta. The feedback you've provided has been super helpful, and we just shipped the first big round of improvements based on it.
Here are some key updates:
Please continue to share feedback on your experience, and let us know what you think about these improvements by filling out our Feedback Form. We read them all!
A good editor knows that quality work isn't just about what you add, but also what you're willing to remove. Here are some recent improvements we've made to Sudowrite, in pursuit of a calmer more focused writing app.
Farewell to Shrink Ray & Characters - We removed two infrequently-used features from the Plugins dropdown: Shrink Ray and Characters. Both of these features predate Plugins, and authors can now easily find or build even more powerful tools to accomplish what these did (—including using Story Bible's own updated Characters section).
Simplified Story Bible Boxes - Word counts no longer appear for every Story Bible box all the time. Instead, they only appear when you have a box selected. We also removed the ? icons. Those have been replaced with relevant section-specific context, surfaced only when a box is selected (as below).
Advanced Plugin Model Replacements - Several dated AI models were recently deprecated by their providers, including GPT 4 32k and OpenOrca. We updated Advanced Plugins powered by these models to use current equivalents, and communicated the change to affected Plugin creators so they can make further updates if desired.
And there are a handful of other minor improvements:
Here's hoping these improvements bring a sense of calm to your process. 🧘
You told us you wanted a better understanding of the differences between each Prose Mode and AI model. Our revamped Prose Mode Selector gives you detailed model insights, so you'll always know what each option is best for—and you can always choose the right one for the writing at hand.
We've ranked each Prose Mode and AI model according to how well they follow instructions, their prose quality, and even how willing they are to write sex and violence.
You'll notice that a few new Prose Modes (which are model suites featuring a primary model) appear in the updated selector. Premium, a community-favorite powered primarily by Opus, was previously Best Prose v2. Excellent, which uses Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can both write and take instruction incredibly well. And Basic, using GPT 4o Mini, is super fast and credit-efficient. Don't worry! We didn't get rid of any of your favorites either. Retired Prose Modes and experimental AI models all appear under Advanced.
We crunched a lot of data to create these rankings—but it's always possible your experience may differ. If you'd like, you can submit direct feedback on a Prose Mode or Model's performance using this feedback form. The updated Prose Mode Selector is available now in your Write Settings and the Chapter Generator.
Getting pitch perfect prose out of Sudowrite is easy once you've dialed in your Style. But that discovery process is easier with a great jumping off point.
We just added Featured Styles to your Story Bible's Style box.
Featured Styles are not just templates; they're community-sourced Style box prompts that will generate voicey and vibey prose instantly. Use these styles as-is, or as a rock-solid foundation for a custom style all your own.
Each new style option includes a writing sample, allowing you to preview the tone and feel of prose in that style absent other Story Bible influences. Once you find one you like, select "Use" and your Style box is filled with the corresponding 40-word Style prompt. You can then edit as desired, or click the new Star icon in the Style box to reopen the style picker and select a different option.
Whether you're crafting a fast-paced adventure, a spooky mystery, or a refined literary piece, the right style will make all the difference. Try out the new Featured Styles today, and let us know what you think in our Discord.
Don't you hate bugs? Yeah, us too. That's why we're constantly working to squish them. (Sorry bugs.) Here are the latest issues that our team has resolved.
Even More Permissive AI - We've made some improvements to Sudowrite's Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll Engine. The AI is now less likely to refuse to generate spicy or violent prose when using the Write button or Chapter Generator.
Edit Functionality in Brainstorm - We restored the missing edit functionality in the Brainstorm tool, allowing users to once again revise their prompts mid-Brainstorm.
Restored Missing Icons - While fixing the Brainstorm tool, we identified a related issue that prevented some icons from being displayed. We've fixed that, and you'll once again see a reassuring little checkmark next to Saved each time your Sudowrite project is auto-saved.
Fixed Chapter Generator's "Continue" Option - Several models would not properly "continue where the text leaves off" when resuming from a paused Chapter Generation. We've fixed that, so all models now respect the toggle selection.
Generate Character and Element - We fixed an issue that caused the Generate Character and Generate Element buttons to be unresponsive. All buttons across the Story Bible sections now once again work the way they should.
We're also currently tracking a few issues specific to the Import Novel beta, such as an inability to create folders or rearrange documents on projects that were created from an Import. We'll let you know as soon as we've resolved those issues—and in the meantime, keep the bug reports coming folks.
This powerful new tool will automatically populate your Story Bible for you based on a completed manuscript, work-in-progress, or even a huge pile of notes.
To get started, just click the new Import button in the upper lefthand corner of your Sudowrite homepage. We recommend first reading our beta documentation which explains how to use the feature and what we're hoping to learn from your experience with it.
Import Novel is free while in beta—we only ask that you use the submission form in our documentation to flag any feedback or bugs to our attention. You can also drop into our Discord with questions or comments. Now give it a whirl, and let us know what you think!
We've added the ability to pause the chapter generator at any time.
This means when you click Generate to create prose from your beats, pausing that process no longer requires the beat to complete its generation. And when resuming, you can pick up right where you left off.
Here's a short video demonstrating how it works. Please note that, just as before, pausing and resuming is considered starting a generation from scratch (which means the full context is necessarily passed in again to the AI). The only difference is that now you have much more granular control about where exactly you do that.
The update is available now, but you may not see it until you refresh your browser (and of course, attempt to pause a generation).
We're reporting in with a few recent fixes, including one priority fix that we just rolled out.
Character and Element Generation - Several users reported that the Generate buttons in the Characters and Worldbuilding sections of Story Bible would not open the instruction box as expected. We just resolved this issue, and the ability to generate both characters and elements has been restored.
Resolved Write Errors - A small number of Sudowrite power users would occasionally encounter a NetworkError message after several successive uses of the Write button. We identified the issue and fixed it, meaning heavy users will not encounter that error under similar circumstances in the future.
Shrink Ray Issue - When selecting the Shrink Ray option from the Plugins dropdown, users may have been met with a blank page. We've fixed that, and it now directs to the Shrink Ray tool as expected.
Improved Story Bible Rewrites - The Rewrite Synopsis and Rewrite Outline sections of Story Bible have been updated to remove length constraints and improve their capacity to follow instructions.
Quick Chat Improvement - We received feedback that Quick Chat would sometimes respond with probing questions rather than completing a requested task. We've corrected this behavior, and Quick Chat should now be less likely to unconstructively ponder.
That's all for this week. Thanks as always to those of you who reported bugs. Please continue to use the Report a Bug button inside of Sudowrite to flag these issues to our attention.
Ever since we made the Write button smarter by giving it access to your Story Bible, authors have asked which parts of Story Bible it looks at when clicked. We just added a new section to Write cards in the History column that should help make this clearer.
Each time you use the Write button, the results will now include a Looked at section, listing data points that the AI took into consideration when generating its response. You can even click these little chiclets to hop straight into that section of Story Bible.
You won't see the Looked at section on older cards—only Write cards that have been generated since this feature launched on Wednesday. This extra visibility into what the AI is seeing will be coming soon to Plugins as well.
It's a great day to make Sudowrite better! Here's a roundup of some of the latest fixes and improvements that our team has made.
Worldbuilding Trait Name Erasure - We fixed an issue specific to trait name fields on Worldbuilding cards, where typing too fast could cause lag that resulted in erased input.
Dark Theme Legibility - The action (•••) menu on projects and History cards was not visible in dark themes. Likewise, the card deletion confirmation prompt was illegible in dark themes. All menus and text should now be clearly visible across themes.
New Document Creation Flow - When creating a new document, you should always be put directly into that new document. This was not the case if you selected Add New and chose a specific chapter from the dropdown menu. We resolved that issue, and all new document creation flows now work as expected.
Too Many Lightning Bolts - We fixed the credits estimation that appears on a Plugin description page for any advanced plugins using GPT-4o Mini. It previously showed 3 lightning bolts in the "Credits use" box, but now correctly shows only 1. (GPT-4o Mini is really cheap!)
Rewrite Way Too Intense - After some work on the Rewrite button, it was brought to our attention that the More Intense rewrite style was being applied to all available options. We fixed that, so the available options (including Custom) once again work as expected.
Increased 3.5 Sonnet Output Limit - We increased the maximum output token limit for Claude 3.5 Sonnet (from 4096 to 8192) to match the new maximum available via Anthropic. (This may be most relevant for those building advanced plugins with 3.5 Sonnet.)
Selection Menu Improvements - We fixed both the font and the icon rendering in the selection menu. The font is now consistent across platforms, and icons appear properly even when using dark themes.
Action Menu Improvements - If you have eagle eyes, you may have noticed the icon sizing in the action (•••) menu on project cards was not consistent. They are now uniformly sized and spaced.
Settings Menu Nudge - We shifted the Settings menu that you open using the upper righthand gear (⚙️) down ever so slightly. Now the gear remains visible and can be clicked to close the open Settings menu.
Thanks as always for bringing these issues to our attention!
The various AI models available today all have different strengths. Some write prose with flair, some have the ability to take instructions well, and some are simply brilliant. Others are fast and cheap and reliable enough, like a No. 2 pencil.
On Thursday OpenAI launched GPT-4o Mini, an incredibly cost efficient mini model. It's fast, cheap, and beats both GPT-3.5 Turbo and Claude 3 Haiku in OpenAI's benchmark testing. In our testing it used half the credits of Haiku and 10x fewer than GPT-4o proper. As for the quality of its prose, well, that's for you to decide.
GPT-4o Mini is now available in your Write Settings, Chapter Generator, and Plugins. Give it a spin, and let us know what you think of it in our Discord.
Here are this week's bug fixes and improvements!
No More Unwanted Auto-Scrolling - When toggling into a document, you'll always be returned to wherever you were last working—but sometimes that's not your intent. The editor will no longer auto-scroll away once you've placed your cursor in the document, making for a smoother editing experience.
Title Documents Without Interruption - Pasting content into a blank document and then titling it could sometimes lead to the auto-titler jumping in and interrupting your work. This has been fixed, so manually titling documents is now more consistent (and less aggravating).
Quick Chat Shortcut Fix - We've updated the behavior of the Command-Enter shortcut. It now submits your Quick Chat (or Quick Edit) instead of closing the window.
Add Chapter Dropdown UI - The Add Chapter dropdown menu inside of Story Bible could occasionally become occluded by other interface elements when you had a bunch of chapters. We've resolved the bug responsible for that.
Restart Chapter Generation from Any Beat - While Chapter Generator still allows you to continue from wherever you may have paused, you now also have the option to restart from any beat, giving you more control over your process.
Improved Link Readability in Dark Themes - Specific links inside of the Plugin editor were difficult to read in the Charcoal and Cauldron themes. We've improved the contrast and readability of these links in dark themes.
Keep the great feedback coming, here or in our Discord community. Thanks, folks!
The team has been on a roll with fixes and improvements to Sudowrite this week. Here are two of the latest features we've delivered.
Export Characters - The Characters section of Story Bible can now be exported. Just click the three dots (•••) in the Characters section header of Story Bibe and select Export. You'll receive a CSV file tidily organized with all of your characters and traits. (This same CSV format makes for an easy Character import too!)
Quick Chat Session History - You can now scroll back in your Quick Chat conversations to read previous messages in your exchange. This history is not currently saved and dismissing the window will reset the conversation—but the entire conversation thread can now be copy/pasted out if you'd like to save it for later.
Are there other features on your wishlist? Let us know in the Discord.
We've got a whole bunch of fresh fixes and improvements as of yesterday. Here's what's new!
Quick Chat Loading Fix - Several users reported that Quick Chat was hanging indefinitely after they'd initiated a chat. The issue was isolated to larger projects, but we've fixed the underlying problem and you can now use Quick Chat in projects of any size without issue.
Character Trait Defaults - When adding a Trait to your default character traits, the button to "Add Trait to Current Characters" was not working properly. Traits can now be applied to current characters when adding a default.
Document Dragging Alignment - If you had a whole bunch of documents, and tried to drag one of them, you may have noticed that document was not aligned with your cursor in the process. We've resolved this issue, and docs drag the way they ought to.
Better Document Duplication - Duplicating a document will now also copy the beats and linked chapter.
Alignment Fixes - The tooltips for 'Collapse Menu' and 'Find and Replace' were ever so slightly misaligned. The mouseover state of the Trash was too! We fixed these alignment issues.
Border Radius Consistency - Similarly, Story Bible and Canvas each had a different border radius in the left bar. We made them the same so Ryan can sleep at night.
Extra Document Real Estate - Collapsing your toolbar now expands the document all the way up to the top of the page. (That means you can now fit even more words on your screen!)
Cursor Retention in Quick Edit - Rejecting a Quick Edit selection now leaves your cursor or selection just the way it was, so you no longer need to use the mouse to click back into where you'd been working.
Thanks so much for bringing these items to our attention! Remember that you can always use the Report a Bug feature in the (?) dropdown menu on Sudowrite to put things on our radar.
Last week the Anthropic team unveiled their most advanced AI model yet: Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Our team hustled to add 3.5 Sonnet to Sudowrite, and it's now available as an Experimental model.
In benchmarks, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is proving more capable than Claude 3 Opus and even OpenAI's new GPT-4o model. But what does that mean for your prose? Here are some early reviews of the model from members of the Sudowrite Discord community:
"I LOVE Sonnet 3.5, personally, and it's awfully cheap for what I get out of it. ...Sonnet 3.5 will actually $#!%ing finish sequences and when I tell it that I want things to happen 'over the next several days' it will actually pay attention to it." - Brett
"I adore the new Sonnet 3.5 and havent had any trouble with it repeating." - Stacy
"Sonnet 3.5's ability to understand logic is remarkable - compared to every other model, it nearly NEVER gets logical details of my scene wrong. It's consistent with past details in the scene, and with the characters personality and past emotional reactions to similar situations. I'm shocked by that aspect of it, personally. It just 'gets' what is happening without needing explanation or lots of direction (vs other models)." - SnowBloom
"I am loving Sonnet 3.5." - Christina
You can try Claude 3.5 Sonnet right now by selecting it in your Write Settings, Chapter Generator, or Advanced Plugins.
One other note regarding available models:
Our team has confirmed that support for Airoboros has been discontinued, and as such we've had to remove it from the Write button and Chapter Generator's Experimental models section. If you previously selected Airoboros to power a Plugin, you'll need to edit that Plugin and select a different model to keep it functional.
We'll do an audit in the near future to delist any Plugins that are still using Airoboros, to decrease the chances of folks finding a broken Plugin—but in the meantime, you can use the 🚩 Report function to flag those to our attention.
This week we shipped a handful of features that make building and using Plugins an all-around better experience.
Plugin Menu Organization - You can now organize your Plugin dropdown menu to sort and order the Plugins you use on a day-to-day basis. No more hunting for the right tool for the job—just click the Customize button at the top of the dropdown.
Report a Plugin - Reporting a broken Plugin is now effortless. Just use the flag 🚩 button on a Plugin's description page. Doing so opens a form with all of the relevant context pre-populated—just let us know whether the description is incorrect, it's broken, or otherwise before submitting.
Custom User Text Input - As a Plugin creator, you define the instructions that are passed to Sudowrite—but sometimes you want to include input from the Plugin users in those instructions. This new feature in the Advanced Plugin editor allows you to (optionally) enable the {{ user_text_input }} variable. When enabled, the Plugin will open an input field with instructions of your choosing—so you can ask the people using your Plugin how spicy they want it, for example.
Thanks to everyone who requested these features. Keep 'em coming!
Here's a quick roundup of some improvements we've made to the Sudowrite user experience, including one notable tweak to make the AI more permissive.
Improvements:
Bug Fixes:
Our thanks to everyone who took the time to report these issues!
Our recent Story Bible 2 launch introduced Worldbuilding—so you can finally document settings, items, lore, and beyond—and dramatically improved the way Characters work, removing limits and adding structure. Now that all projects on Sudowrite are using Story Bible 2, there's a couple of additional features we'd like to share.
Smart Character Import - You can now import your characters from anywhere! Upload a file that contains your character notes, a chapter, or your whole manuscript. You can even paste your work-in-progress (up to 60,000 words) into an open text field. Sudowrite's AI will detect and create your characters, even populating your defined trait fields for you.
Generate and Rewrite Traits - Sometimes you add traits after generating a character. In those cases, you can now get help from the AI filling in blank trait fields. Just click Fill this in to populate an empty trait field on either Character or Worldbuilding cards. You can also now quickly Rewrite the substance of existing fields.
These features join Story Bible 2's recently-announced visibility settings, which allow you to hide a card or trait from the AI entirely. Now you can effortlessly pull in your Characters, fill them out, and control which of them the AI considers at any given time, for the best prose generation experience yet.
While the Saliency Engine that launched with our Story Bible 2 update helps the AI stay focused on relevant details, sometimes you still want control over which details should be considered.
Today we launched a new feature that allows you hide an entire Character card or Worldbuilding element from the AI, to ensure that it's not used in any generations. This hide feature also extends to individual traits at the card level, in case you want to hide your murderer's motive field from the AI so that it doesn't prematurely spill the beans, for example.
The new Character and Worldbuilding visibility options are available now, and can be found beneath the three dot (•••) menus at the card and trait level.
We've got a few other new features to share as well:
That's all for this edition, but we've got even more features in progress. Want to make sure you stay up to date on those? Join our Discord community here!
Here's a small but mighty update for you: The projects page now loads faster than ever, especially for folks with lots of projects!
Our team has added pagination to the projects page. That means older projects that you haven't touched in a while no longer need to load before you click into your current work in progress. Instead, projects further down the page will load only as you scroll down to them. Looks like you'll have to start a new project to use all those reclaimed seconds. ;)
We've made some improvements to Plugins, and fixed some user reported bugs as well. Here's what's new!
The Plugins test panel now displays Credits Used. Testing a Plugin before publishing it allows you to confirm its functionality. Now it also gives you context on how many credits it may cost to use once it's live. (Make note that the number provided in testing is for reference, and based off of your inputs specifically. It may not be representative of what it will cost other users—since credit use depends on both inputs and output.)
Basic Plugins can now receive Worldbuilding context. When building your basic Plugin, you'll now see a checkbox that allows you to optionally pass in Worldbuilding elements. Use this feature when you want your basic Plugin to consider a user's Worldbuilding elements when it's run. (Note that Worldbuilding variable options were already available in the Advanced Plugin builder.)
We've also resolved a couple of noteworthy issues.
The Claude 3 models available in the Experimental section of your Write Settings were not receiving Story Bible context. We've resolved that issue so that the Write button now receives Story Bible context regardless of which model is selected (when Story Bible is enabled).
Scrolling down to wherever you left off in a document can be annoying—and as it turns out, that's not the way things are supposed to work. We fixed the bug causing that issue, and now when you open a document you're automatically returned to the last place you were inside of it.
Depending on your workflow, you may wind up with an abundance of cards in the History column on the right. While cards can be collapsed and will always display the most recent up top, folks have often asked for the ability to delete them entirely.
Now you can.
Just click the three dots on the right side of a card and select Delete. Note that deleted cards are gone for good!
Here's a selection of some product refinements and bug fixes that we've recently shipped.
Plugins Directory Pagination - With over 1,000 published plugins, the load time on the directory was getting longer—especially on slower networks and lower-spec devices. We added pagination to the plugin directory to improve load times.
Quick Chat Context Fix - Quick Chat should understand what you're looking at in your current document, even when you don't have anything selected. It was not receiving that context, but Quick Chat is now aware of the text preceding your cursor.
Linked Chapters Dropdown Menu - Too many chapters and too little screen real estate previously resulted in a lengthy linked chapters menu that could overflow the page. We capped the menu height and made it scrollable, so you'll no longer have to scroll your entire document to select later chapters.
Worldbuilding Trait Addition Confirmation - When you add a custom trait to an existing Worldbuilding template, you're supposed to receive confirmation it has been applied to your existing elements. That was not the case. But now it is!
As always, thank you for raising these issues to our attention. Keep them coming folks!
Last week we launched Story Bible 2! In the days since launch we've been tackling priority issues as they've been flagged to our attention.
So far, we've:
Thank you to our earliest adopters for bringing these to our attention!
If you're ever uncertain about whether something is working as expected, you can get in touch with us (or other helpful members of our Sudowrite community!) in our Discord server here.
Last week we launched Story Bible 2, a huge update for Story Bible which addresses Sudowrite's most requested features of all time. Story Bible 2 officially adds:
Add your story's lore, settings, clues, magic systems, and much more in the brand new Worldbuilding section of Story Bible. Worldbuilding elements are stored on cards, which can be customized, templatized, and generated with Sudowrite's AI. This new Worldbuilding section not only helps you stay organized, but it makes the AI smarter and more story aware than ever.
You can finally add as many characters as your story requires in the revamped Characters section of Story Bible. Generate characters individually or all at once, and customize your desired traits with additional details (such as motivations, core wounds, Enneagram types, etc.) Traits can be customized individually, or added to all existing characters in one go.
To make the best use of all that additional context, we've also updated the AI behind Story Bible. Our powerful new Saliency Engine helps Sudowrite stay focused exclusively on details relevant to what you're working on. This means rather than micromanaging what the AI can see, you're free to focus on writing.
Availability
Story Bible 2 is available now, and all new projects have immediate access to all of these features.
All existing projects have already been updated with the Saliency Engine and Worldbuilding, but the new unlimited Characters format is available on an opt-in basis (per project) for the next 30 days. (All projects will be updated thereafter.)
If you don't see these updates, just refresh your browser!
Read the updated docs for Characters and Worldbuilding here.
We're working on a bunch of improvements to Sudowrite that required us to move the editor and all of your projects from /app to a new domain at editor.sudowrite.com. We made that change last week, and it went off without a hitch!
Meanwhile, our team has been giving some time and attention to the less obvious corners of the app as well.
Keep the feedback and requests coming!
When you have lots of documents or folders in your left bar and Story Bible enabled, the Story Bible menu will collapse to allow you to navigate your files. It's designed to expand again only when you hover over it, to allow you to navigate sections of Story Bible instead. Recently it was brought to our attention that this menu was repeatedly collapsing and expanding if someone tried to access a document or folder right on the cusp.
We've fixed that issue, and it once again works as intended—so Story Bible's menu will stay out of your way, unless you're explicitly trying to access it.
Here's a handful of user-reported bugs that we resolved this week.
Thank you for continuing to raise your issues to our attention. Keep them coming folks!
The default option in Sudowrite's Chapter Generator is Balanced, a Prose Mode powered by GPT-4 Turbo and designed to be both smart and cost-effective. Using roughly 60% the credits of Most Accurate, Balanced has become many users' preferred Prose Mode.
But Balanced was not available as a Prose Mode option in the Write button's settings... until now. You will now find Balanced in the Prose Mode dropdown of your Write Settings. Alongside this change, GPT-4 Turbo has been removed from the Experimental section of that menu.
We love Fix-it-Friday so much that sometimes we can't even wait till Friday to tackle the bug fixes and improvements you've requested. Here's a look at some recent upgrades and updates we've made to Sudowrite thanks to your feedback!
We continue to make incremental updates to Story Bible in advance of our planned Characters and Worldbuilding launch. Most recently we upgraded the model powering Synopsis to Claude 3 Sonnet, which has been recognized for its sense of humor, reasoning capabilities, and writing craft.
Meanwhile, the Characters tool (available under the Plugins dropdown) has been upgraded to use GPT 3.5 Turbo. This resolved an issue where it would refuse to generate characters.
We've officially taken the Feedback feature out of Labs. Everyone can now find Feedback under the Plugins dropdown.
Given that, and our improved beta processes, we've removed the Labs icon and page.
We've deprecated the old Tweetstorm tool, which previously appeared under Labs, in favor of a first party Tweetstorm plugin. (You can find that official Tweetstorm plugin here.)
We tweaked the interface so that clicking the Write (Guided) button will close an open Write Settings window in favor of the Guided Write menu. These previously overlapped.
Finally, we fixed an issue where the plethora of Experimental models available in the Write Settings Prose Mode selector could make that menu way too long. The Experimental section of that menu is now scrollable... which means we can add as many exciting new models as we want. :)
Keep 'em coming!