Experiment: This book took me a year to write. I had AI recreate it in an hour.

TL;DR: Compared my year-long novel draft to an AI-generated version (~1hr guided work using Varu AI). AI showed surprising strengths in plot points/twists but failed on consistency, depth, worldbuilding, and structure vs. human effort. Powerful tool for ideas, not a replacement writer. Details below.

Hey, I’m Levi. I’m a writer. I’ve poured tons of time into writing fiction (no AI at all). This specific book took me about a year to write. I’m still editing it, and it’s going well.

Then, as the developer of an AI writing tool called Varu AI, I decided to see what would happen if I fed my baby to the machine. The AI, with my guidance on plot threads, generated a comparable story in about an hour of active work. The results were… a trip.

How I wrote my book (not the AI one)

• Initial idea of some characters I thought would be cool. The idea morphed from there into a story idea.
• Wrote out the main plot outlines
• Discovery wrote my way to the end. I outlined a few scenes ahead, but that’s all.
• Still in the editing phase. The book is unpublished and still needs a ton of editing and revising. But I’m happy with how it’s looking.

How I made the AI book

• Developed an experimental AI writing tool for 9 months
• Wrote the initial prompt describing the book (I’ll post it in the comments). The AI made characters, “plot promises”, and more based off it.
• I edited the character and plot promise data a bit.
• I clicked generate for each scene.
• New “plot promises” got added automatically. I edited them or added my own to fit my vision better. For example: I added the plot about the golden creature; and the romance between Skamtos and Kraz.
• The entire process took about an hour

Quick summary of the book

In magical Africa, Avso Keisid is tasked by his father (Frauza Keisid) to kill Emperor Amud. Avso has golden hair, which is a sign of being blessed by the god Murok (god of mud and rock). Their tribe is incredibly fanatical about the god Murok. Avso is put with a team of others (Skamtos and Kraz) to help.

Excerpts from the AI book

Avso’s breath caught. He glanced at the Emperor’s hands, caked with mud, trembling. “Maybe… maybe Murok tests you.”

Amud’s laugh was low, bitter. “A test? I have slaughtered unbelievers. I have drowned the air-worshippers in their own blood. I have given everything. Why would he test me now?”

Amud’s lips curled. “You think you can kill a god’s chosen?”

“Don’t touch them!” Frauza’s voice cracked, raw as a wound. He knelt in the mud, arms spread over the bodies of his wife and children, shoulders shaking. Blood pooled around his knees, mixing with the sacred earth. The fire’s glow flickered over his face, hollow-eyed and streaked with tears.

He let out a shaky laugh. “I love you, Skamtos. I have for a long time.”

She stared at him, eyes wide, mouth open as if to argue. Then she surged forward, arms wrapping around his neck, pulling him close. Their lips met, fierce and desperate, mud and tears smearing between them.

What Varu AI did well

• A great twist where Avso gets captured by the emperor’s guards when trying to break in. But the emperor sees it as a divine sign instead of the assassination attempt that it is (scene 9)
• It did a great A/B plot of the team trying to rescue Avso, while Avso was in the emperor’s custody. (scene 9-16)
• Showcasing Avso’s fame
• Fleshed out the reasons for why Avso is helping assassinate the emperor
• Reading Varu’s version of Emperor Amud made me realize mine was a bit unintelligent. Varu’s version seems powerful and smart and catches onto things
• Avso gives actually good advice to the Emperor (scene 15). In my version he kinda fumbles around. In Varu’s version, the emperor’s trust in Avso feels earned. Whereas in my version it was a result of the emperor being extremely fanatical
• Had a really incredible fight scene against the emperor (scene 20). I loved it. It really showed the emperor’s strength
• Avso’s arc to becoming stronger was very satisfying
• I loved how the moral ambiguity was explored with the emperor. You didn’t know if he was a good guy or a bad guy. Sometimes he was a friend, sometimes an enemy
• Frauza’s grief was written excellently when his family was killed (scene 45-46)
• The scene where Emperor Amud kills the prisoners (scene 50) was very well done. It showcased his power and brutality, and the prisoner’s fear, in a terrifying way. The aftermath with the scout was done very well too
• I really liked Amud’s character. He seemed terrifyingly powerful.
• The revealing that Avso’s mother is someone from the air-tribe was amazing. (Scene 62)
• I loved the climax with Skamtos and Kraz falling in love (scene 64)

What the AI did poorly

• It was unclear on whether the Emperor was in the same tribe or not
• Slight inconsistency issues. Ex: it kind of repeated the plot in scene 9 and 10
• It didn’t show Frauza’s disdain for Avso enough
• Didn’t address the fact that Avso was broken out of the emperor’s palace when he met with the emperor afterward
• Repeated the plot of Avso getting caught. Though both were rather unique
• Sometimes it lost sight of the main goal of the plot, which was to assassinate the emperor
• It forgot that Skamtos had almost died.
• The promise of “Avso will gain his father’s respect” was progressed so much that it didn’t even seem like his father hated him that much
• I feel like it started to try to do too much (too many plot promises) and then the plot got muddy.
• It didn’t touch too much on the plot where the emperor underwent a ceremony to make him more powerful. In the book I wrote, this was an ever-present source of tension
• In one scene, Avso used magic (through the golden creature), but afterward he couldn’t do that.
• After Avso gets the golden creature, he doesn’t fight that much. He kinda just avoids attacks while the golden creature saves him.
• When Avso killed the Emperor (scene 55) it should have touched on the connection they built more.
• The main climax happened too early in the story. After that, there were a few scenes about Avso uniting the tribes. Those would have been better to come before the assassination

What I did better

It’s a bit hard to judge my own book, because I can’t see my own blind spots. So here are some of the things mine did better.

• My worldbuilding was vastly better. It has tons of small details hidden in the text, lots of history, lots of subtle facts, etc.
• I like my Avso character better at the start. At the start of the Varu one, Avso was a bit whiny. Varu’s got pretty good as it went on, though.
• Mine had way more characters, each with depth to them.
• My characters had more depth, more secrets, more realism.

Where Varu is heading

• Ability to handle more characters – (done. I just added this)
• Varu needs to better handle many different plot promises. This is in planning and will be done soon. It will help a ton.
• It needs to not repeat plot points.
• It needs to have book-ending logic. This is currently not implemented.

Conclusion

It was a really cool experiment to do. It gave me tons of new ideas for what I could do with my book, and was also just a blast to read this new version.

But what does this mean? Is this exciting, terrifying, or both? Is AI coming for our novelist jobs? Honestly, I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway. The human touch in worldbuilding depth, thematic consistency, and overall narrative cohesion is still leagues ahead in my case. But as a tool for brainstorming, busting writer’s block, or rapidly prototyping ideas? It’s mind-blowingly powerful. I felt like an editor and a director more than a writer during the AI process.

I’ll post the original prompt I used in the comments, as I don’t want to clutter this.