I was browsing AI tools for novel writing - there are quite a few to choose from, and some charge upfront, so it's risky.

I've actually become quite addicted to Microsoft CoPilot because it can write content (blogs) just so much better than I can.

So was curious if there were any fiction writing tools that make writing come alive.

Anyone played around with these tools?

If AI does the writing, doesn't AI own the work?

I've tried Sudowrite, but I can't say it's anything special. I've also used Grok, ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Copilot. All are okay for proofreading. Can't say I'm impressed with them for doing more than that. I'd also tried another that I can't remember the name of, but it stunk. It wasn't being updated, and it kept changing the gender of some of my characters.

VedaDalsette posted at 1:20 PM Fri, 10 April 2026 - #4505186

If AI does the writing, doesn't AI own the work?

For me, at least, it's not doing the writing, but proofreading and sometimes helping refine what I wrote. 

Here's a sample that I was testing in Grok

Mine:

Nicholas glanced at the woman sitting a couple of seats down the bar from him. She didn’t appear to be drunk yet. She also seemed to be alone. She was texting someone but didn’t act like she was waiting for anyone.

“Is he not showing up?” He asked anyhow.

“She couldn’t make it,” the woman said, not looking up from her phone.

“My mistake.” Nicholas started to turn his attention elsewhere. It was more fun to seduce them first.

“My friend was supposed to meet me here but she got stuck at work. We were going to have a girl’s night out. Her boyfriend is out of town, and mine dumped me last week.” She finally put down her phone and looked at him, taking in his long hair and clothes that bordered on goth, what most of the regulars wore. “What about you? You didn’t come alone, did you?”

Grok's

Nicholas leaned against the bar, his sharp eyes flicking toward the woman a couple of seats down. She sat perched on her stool, legs crossed, a faint flush of life in her cheeks that told him she wasn’t drunk—not yet. The dim light of the vampire bar caught the sheen of her dark hair as it spilled over her shoulders, and her fingers danced over her phone, texting with a focus that suggested she was alone. No nervous glances at the door, no expectant tilt of her head. Just her, the phone, and the faint hum of the bar’s undercurrent—laughter, clinking glasses, and the occasional low growl from the shadows.

“Is he not showing up?” His voice slithered out, smooth as velvet but with a jagged edge, testing her.

She didn’t look up, her thumbs still tapping. “She couldn’t make it.”

“My mistake.” Nicholas let his lips curl into a faint smirk, turning his gaze away as if disinterested. Seduction was a game, after all—a slow hunt, more thrilling when the prey didn’t see the teeth until it was too late.

“My friend was supposed to meet me here,” she said, finally setting the phone down with a soft clack against the bar. Her eyes lifted to him, taking in his long hair, black as a raven’s wing, and the clothes that clung to him like a second skin—leather and dark silk in a goth style, the uniform of the regulars who haunted this place. “She got stuck at work. We were going to have a girls’ night out. Her boyfriend’s out of town, and mine dumped me last week.” She paused, her big brown eyes appraising him. “What about you? You didn’t come alone, did you?”

As I said, I was testing things out. AI is a tool. How you use it or if you use it is up to you.

AI and copyright: It's in the terms. On the free versions they retain certain rights, they tend to give you exclusive, commercial use on the paid plans.

The Grok difference is interesting. It includes some cliches which can be fixed (Word is good at pointing out cliches). It does add interesting details I wouldn't add in (because I simply wouldn't even think of it). It's a discussion I had with an Uber driver - he was talking about car types and I said I don't really know car types - can't recognise them unless there is a badge or name. He asked how I identified my Uber driver and I replied - I memorise the license plate and match that to the cars pulling up. That's the problem when I write - I've only noticed the license plate - can't describe the car or the person inside. AI, on the other hand, could describe the missing details for me.

The one I was considering is Atticus, because it's a one-off cost and can apparently format the book too.

CoPilot I've only tested on content marketing blogs. I give it a page of my technical documentation (day job - I write manuals for software) - and ask for a marketing blog on that subject matter and it's really good at that. I can ask it to write a title - and it can say - this is the best title for your web page - this is the best title for LinkedIn. I can refine it - like rewrite the title without the word 'why'. And it will do that.  

My interest in AI was that I have the outline of the book, the chapters, the stories - and was thinking about running it through AI to see if they could flesh it out into a book.

I have the same problem. I forget the details that make the story flow. I use the AI as examples of what I can do, and I'm working to improve that part of my writing. 

Well, if you're on Renderosity that must mean you have a reasonably powerful graphics-card, and that means you can do it locally on your PC. And do it all for free, bar the electricity costs.

1. Install the free Jan.ai, and have it update to the latest Llama.cpp framework it runs on.

2. Then get the Cydonia 24B v4.3 GGUF (the 11Gb Cydonia-24B-v4zg-Q3_K_M.gguf if you only have a 12Gb card, or a higher/larger version if you have a 16Gb or 24Gb card) https://huggingface.co/TheDrummer/Cydonia-24B-v4.3-GGUF/tree/main

3. Open Jan and import the GGUF. You only do this once. In Jan, you then adjust Cyndonia's basic settings ('Temperature' etc) to those of Mistral Small 3.2, and also increase its 'Context Size' up from the basic 8k. These settings then persist from session to session.

4. Run Jan and use Cydonia 24B as a normal chatbot. "You are a helpful creative writing assistant. Write a story about X in the style of the author Y Z. The story should be approximately X,000 words and contain A B C" and so on.

Raw sample, generated just now:-

In the cosy heart of a country cottage lived a little mouse named Pipkin. One sunny Tuesday afternoon, while tidying his nest of fluff and all sorts of bodkins and oddkins, Pipkin discovered something most peculiar: a lost thimble, gleaming like a tiny silver star.

“Oh, what fun!” he squeaked to his sister, Petal. “I shall have some excitement in returning it to the kind Lady of the House.”

He tied the thimble to his tail, then scampered off and shot up the great, dark chimney, his whiskers twitching with intent. The chimney was a fearsome thing, a hollow pillar that roared and coughed when the fire was alight. But Pipkin was young and brave.

He strained to climb the old bricks, his little paws finding purchase in grimy nooks. Higher and higher he went, past the soot-stained hands of a walled-up clock and a curious stone like the grinning face of a gargoyle. At the top, he encountered the obstacle of all obstacles: a large, fat cat named Marmalade. She was dozing, sprawled on the roof-ridge, her whiskers twitching in her purring sleep.

Pipkin froze. The cat’s great purr rumbled across the roof like a distant thunderstorm. He held his breath, holding the silver thimble over his head with a curled-up tail. Then, with a courageous leap into the blue, he leaped past on the ridge, a silver flash against the tiles. It was the bravest thing the little fellow ever did.

Then off he went, down the leafy trellis on the side of the house. In he popped through the sitting-room window. The white table was laid for afternoon tea, and sun was glinting on the silver spoons. Pipkin dropped the thimble safely in an empty teacup, then ate a large iced bun down to the tiniest crumbs. Then, not noticing his sooty little paw-prints left on the white linen, he scampered off home to Petal.

On his return Petal asked, “Oh how brave you are, but... did you succeed?”

"Indeed I did" squeaked Pipkin, patting his round tummy which was full of delicious bun. "Thankfully Marmalade had slipped off the roof into the shrubbery, by the time I made my return journey. And now, I believe it’s time for my afternoon nap.”

I haven't installed Cydonia yet - but just the results from Jan.ai are interesting. I gave it only this prompt: Write me a story about a dog that gets stuck behind a fence.

And got this story:

---

Once upon a time in the sleepy hamlet of Briarcliff, nestled between rolling hills and a whispering forest, lived a golden retriever named Pip.

Pip wasn't just any dog; he was the neighborhood's unofficial mayor with an obsession for chasing squirrels and occasionally stealing hats from passing tourists. His fur was as warm as spring sunshine, and his tail wagged so hard it made the porch swing wobble.

One crisp autumn morning, Pip decided to take a grand leap of faith. The wind carried through his floppy ears like music, and he spotted a magnificent squirrel building its den in a tree on the property line. This wasn't just any squirrel; this was Mr. Nutkin, who had been declared "Most Important Squirrel" by a local committee of three.

Pip barked once—a deep, resonant sound that echoed off the old stone walls—and charged forward with purpose.

He didn’t stop until he reached the edge of Mr. Nutkin’s territory—the very spot where the neighbor's garden met the woods behind their home. There stood an ornate wooden fence topped with ivy and a rusted chain-link gate labeled "Keep Out - Private Property." It wasn't just any gate; it was old enough to be carved by ancestors, and its lock had seen better days.

Pip tried barking again—but nothing happened. He tried digging under the roots of the garden shed, hoping for some hidden tunnel entrance or secret passage (a common tactic among dogs with dreams). Nothing worked.

Then came the moment no dog should ever face alone: he slipped through a crack in the chain-link near midnight while everyone was asleep and got stuck between two posts.

He wasn’t dead; just... suspended mid-air like a statue of hope waiting for someone to notice him.

By morning, only his tail remained visible above ground. His paws dangled awkwardly from one side of the fence as if trying to say "Help!" in Morse code with his legs. Birds circled overhead, and cats yowled at the sky wondering what kind of creature had chosen to become a monument overnight.

People gathered around soon after dawn when they saw Pip’s body—his entire frame now caught behind the bars like he’d been turned into a piece of art by nature itself.

Some called it tragic. Others thought it poetic—a dog refusing to let go even when hope seemed impossible.

But then, something extraordinary happened.

A young boy named Leo found him at exactly 6:45 AM on April 12th, 2026 (the exact date we’re living through). He didn’t know what he was looking for—he just saw a golden retriever stuck behind a fence—and immediately knelt down to pet him gently. "You okay?" Leo asked softly.

Pip let out one soft whimper—a sound like wind chimes catching on glass—and slowly lifted his head slightly, eyes wide and wet with exhaustion but full of courage.

Leo didn’t hesitate. He used a shovel he’d borrowed from the neighbor’s shed to dig carefully around Pip's back until there was enough space for him to slide out safely without breaking anything important or damaging himself further than necessary (which turned out to be very little damage overall).

When they brought him home, Leo gave Pip a new name: "The Fence Hero."

They posted pictures online—tagged #FenceHeroDay—and local media picked up the story. Even though it began as pure chaos born from curiosity and bad timing, by noon everyone knew about Pip’s bravery.

And so lives were changed that day—not because of grand events but simply because one golden retriever refused to accept defeat even when everything told him otherwise.

In truth? That dog probably just wanted more squirrels. But somewhere deep inside his soul, he realized being stuck behind a fence wasn’t failure—it was freedom waiting for permission to be found again.

---

BUT, I also searched the web and found the story or some variation of it. And I guess that remains the real problem with AI and any 'creative' work.

Unfortunately, Cydonia won't work on my device.

But here is an interesting experiment:

Prompt: Rewrite this paragraph to make it more interesting. The person, Don, is an arrogant know-it-all:

In reality the shadow economy for high-end devices was huge. Don could make more money from selling one top-of-the-range Squire device than he could earn from his day-job in a month. In contrast, it seemed stupid to be at work for eight hours a day, 20 days a month. It had been too easy, and Don had become careless. He stopped doing his homework, staking out the places, investigating their security systems, and he’d gotten caught. Next time he wouldn’t become complacent, and they wouldn’t catch him again. 

Copilot: In reality, the shadow economy for high end devices was massive—so obvious to Don that he could barely believe anyone still pretended otherwise. One top of the range Squire device could earn him more than a month of honest work, which made eight hour days and timecards feel like a punchline. Stealing had become trivial, almost boring, and that’s where he’d gone wrong. He’d stopped doing the groundwork, stopped casing homes, stopped caring about security systems because—really—why would he? He didn’t think of it as recklessness, just efficiency. Getting caught wasn’t proof he was wrong, only that he’d been momentarily sloppy. Next time, he’d remind himself not to underestimate the system. And next time, they wouldn’t catch him.

Jan.Ai: Don wasn't just arrogant—he was a man who believed in excess. While everyone else wore suits and pretended to care about spreadsheets, Don saw a different reality: the shadow economy for high-end Squire devices wasn't just thriving—it was a bloodline of profit disguised as tech. One sale? More than his entire nine-to-five salary. Eight hours at an office job felt like watching paint dry while millions vanished into digital wallets under the radar. And slowly, stupidly, Don started believing he didn’t need to check his work anymore—until he realized that complacency wasn't just negligence; it was a fatal flaw in his code logic. He’d stopped staking out the hotspots, ignoring firewall patterns, and treating hardware security like common sense instead of engineering warfare—and now, he'd been caught trying to sell what shouldn’t even exist in the first place. Next time? He’d be invisible before they found him. Because arrogance isn't just ego—it's the only way to survive when you're building something no one else wants to touch but everyone needs anyway

My opinion on this:

1. I suck at creative writing.

2. CoPilot understands my idea and sticks to it, while making it more interesting. (Also offered to make it sound more smug, or more delusional).

3. Jan.Ai writes its own story based on my information - and didn't quite understand the paragraph. But is much more creative.

I downloaded and installed Jan. I tried adding the gguf, but it's not going well. There is no import in the current version, and Jan doesn't know enough about itself to help me shoehorn it in. 

RedPhantom, yes, there is GGUF import in the current version of Jan. It's just a touch tricky to find. Settings | Llama.cpp | check you have the latest version | Import GGUF model | cog: tweak the model's settings to the proper config.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

Here's what I got when I used Cydonia with the same prompt that I used in Grok

Nicholas's gaze slid over to the woman sitting a few seats down—casual, appraising. She wasn't drunk yet. That would come later if he decided she was worth the effort. Alone too, from what he could tell. She was absorbed in her phone, thumbs flying across the screen.

 

"Is he not showing up?" He asked, voice smooth as silk dragged over broken glass.

 

She didn't look up immediately, still tapping away at whatever trivial human drama played out on that glowing rectangle. "She couldn't make it."

 

"Ah." Nicholas turned his attention back to his drink, swirling the amber liquid in the glass. The ice clinked softly against the side—a small sound that might have seemed innocent to anyone else. He wasn't interested in her friend. He was interested in her now.

 

The woman finally set down her phone, and for a moment their eyes met. She took him in—his long dark hair cascading past his shoulders like a raven's wing, the black shirt that seemed tailored to his frame, the deliberate aesthetic that marked him as different from the regulars who came here for the atmosphere without understanding its true nature.

 

"My friend was supposed to meet me here but she got stuck at work. We were going to have a girl's night out." She paused, studying him with those wide, vulnerable eyes. "Her boyfriend is out of town, and mine dumped me last week."

 

Nicholas's lips curved into something that might have been sympathy on anyone else. On him, it was more like the expression of a wolf deciding which sheep to separate from the flock.

 

"Rough timing," he said softly, his voice carrying an undertone that made her lean in just slightly, unconsciously drawn closer. "What about you? You didn't come alone, did you?"

 

The question hung between them—not quite threatening, but edged with something sharp and hungry beneath the pleasantries.

 

He knew she hadn't come alone. She'd said as much. But Nicholas was no longer asking about her friend.

 

He was asking if anyone would notice when he took what he wanted from this lonely woman at the bar.

 

And from the way her breath caught, just barely perceptibly, she could feel it too—the subtle shift in air pressure, the way his presence seemed to fill the space around them both.

RedPhantom's story is an interesting comparison: Grok fleshed out the writing and leaves you with the question: Will they hook up? In contrast, Cydonia added a sinister tone to it - like a horror story - what is he going to do to her? Perhaps with Cydonia one would have to prompt it to be "friendly".

Part of the prompt was to have him be a little sinister. The prompt was to make him seem a little like a predator. He's a vampire, but that doesn't come out until later in the chapter. 

VedaDalsette posted at 1:20 PM Fri, 10 April 2026 - #4505186

If AI does the writing, doesn't AI own the work?

If AI does the writing, no one owns the work. It's not copyrightable. It doesn't matter what claims the AI company makes, or their terms of use, they can't claim a copyright that doesn't exist. https://www.copyright.gov/ai/

If AI contributes but you make meaningful contributions, you can obtain the copyright. In practice, the dividing line is vague and could be a fight in court.

RedPhantom posted at 2:05 PM Fri, 10 April 2026 - #4505188

VedaDalsette posted at 1:20 PM Fri, 10 April 2026 - #4505186

If AI does the writing, doesn't AI own the work?

For me, at least, it's not doing the writing, but proofreading and sometimes helping refine what I wrote. 

Here's a sample that I was testing in Grok

Mine:

Nicholas glanced at the woman sitting a couple of seats down the bar from him. She didn’t appear to be drunk yet. She also seemed to be alone. She was texting someone but didn’t act like she was waiting for anyone.

“Is he not showing up?” He asked anyhow.

“She couldn’t make it,” the woman said, not looking up from her phone.

“My mistake.” Nicholas started to turn his attention elsewhere. It was more fun to seduce them first.

“My friend was supposed to meet me here but she got stuck at work. We were going to have a girl’s night out. Her boyfriend is out of town, and mine dumped me last week.” She finally put down her phone and looked at him, taking in his long hair and clothes that bordered on goth, what most of the regulars wore. “What about you? You didn’t come alone, did you?”

Grok's

Nicholas leaned against the bar, his sharp eyes flicking toward the woman a couple of seats down. She sat perched on her stool, legs crossed, a faint flush of life in her cheeks that told him she wasn’t drunk—not yet. The dim light of the vampire bar caught the sheen of her dark hair as it spilled over her shoulders, and her fingers danced over her phone, texting with a focus that suggested she was alone. No nervous glances at the door, no expectant tilt of her head. Just her, the phone, and the faint hum of the bar’s undercurrent—laughter, clinking glasses, and the occasional low growl from the shadows.

“Is he not showing up?” His voice slithered out, smooth as velvet but with a jagged edge, testing her.

She didn’t look up, her thumbs still tapping. “She couldn’t make it.”

“My mistake.” Nicholas let his lips curl into a faint smirk, turning his gaze away as if disinterested. Seduction was a game, after all—a slow hunt, more thrilling when the prey didn’t see the teeth until it was too late.

“My friend was supposed to meet me here,” she said, finally setting the phone down with a soft clack against the bar. Her eyes lifted to him, taking in his long hair, black as a raven’s wing, and the clothes that clung to him like a second skin—leather and dark silk in a goth style, the uniform of the regulars who haunted this place. “She got stuck at work. We were going to have a girls’ night out. Her boyfriend’s out of town, and mine dumped me last week.” She paused, her big brown eyes appraising him. “What about you? You didn’t come alone, did you?”

As I said, I was testing things out. AI is a tool. How you use it or if you use it is up to you.

RedPhantom, I like your version more than Grok's. Grok's has all kinds of filler crap that I just gloss over when reading. I hate filler crap. Tell me what I need to know when I need to know it. "His sharp eyes flicking" and "fingers danced over her phone" sound stupid. I hate stupid verbs. "No nervous glances at the door" and the rest is just extra crap. Your POV character already told us it didn't seem like she was expecting anyone. We don't have to know how he surmised that. We know how that works IRL. If he's wrong, we'll find out later. I really hate all the filler crap. I could follow your story. I was bored in the first paragraph of Grok's.

I can understand that, too. Grok did get a little wordy at times. I have a tendency to be the opposite. Too often, my stories feel like the characters are just standing around talking, often practically in empty space. I'm working on finding a happy medium. 

I know what you mean. I haven't been writing lately (except for my comics, where I get to use Poser!), but long swaths of convo are annoying. Within the convo, I try to have the characters perform an action that might indicate their feelings, without using silly verbs or decorative modifiers. For example, (just pulling this out of my butt): She tapped her pen on the desk as he spoke. You don't have to say how she tapped it or why. The action indicates impatience. Okay, at least, I've TRIED to do that when I was writing.

Anyway, I still like your version more. Grok's sounds like a teenager wrote it. Of course, if you're writing for a teen audience, then….

I only really started writing after retirement and only for my own entertainment. I don't try to sell my books. I just throw them up on Amazon. Maybe I should take them down and throw them up on Wattpad. I did that recently for a silly short story I wrote a while back. For the past few years, every time I get the urge to write a novel/novella, I end up doing some other comic instead. Oh, well. Keeping the brain happy before the dementia hits.

I have a couple of books on Amazon, but most just get posted here. Then I can make "pretty" pictures for them and play with Poser. I have a couple on Wattpad. I might put a few others there. My son posts a lot there and likes it. He does a lot of fanfic work.

You're quite prolific. Cool. I wish I were a fan of something enough to write fanfic. I like old films from the 30s/40s/50s. Melodramas and noirs. That's the time most of my stories and comics are set in. Right now, I'm working on a comic set in 1960. A super-sudsy soap opera.

Good luck. You're a much better writer than Grok. Nice and clean without all the unctious goo. :)