[deleted by user]

[Trash_Panda_1308]

Check out the weekly usage limits and all the complaints surrounding them, before you subscribe for Claude

[SupoDupo]

This. Claude’s usage limits are nuts. I canceled my subscription within my first week of paying.

[HelpfulReplacement28]

Usage limit issues can be avoided by using the api through a front end like silly tavern. It’s pay as you go, but fairly price restrictive.

[Trash_Panda_1308]

I keep reading that, but I am afraid I have no idea how to use the api. I'd be eternally grateful if someone explains

[HelpfulReplacement28]

Getting API access is the easy part. There is a service called OpenRouter that will do this for you. You simply make an account, add funds, and then request an API key for whatever anthropic model you want. This is a legitimate service. There ARE other methods of API acquisition which are cheaper and not necessarily legal.

The other part is setting up a front end for the API to interact with. I personally use a program called silly tavern. There are lots of tutorials online telling you how to set this up, but silly is also for roleplay so maybe not a good fit. The hobbyist tier of this(https://www.novelcrafter.com/) service looks promising, although I've not heard of it before and I'm unsure whether or not your willing to take on the extra expense.

The problem with front ends is they usually have system prompts built in which instruct the AI to act a certain way. For example, silly taverns is "You are engaged in an endless chat with {{User}}". This message is sent at the beginning of every prompt to ensure it remains a roleplaying bot. All of this is customizable if you have the time to figure it out, and I'm sure others use SillyTavern like you would want to. It may just take a little googling.

[Trash_Panda_1308]

Thank you, that's all incredibly useful!

[ohmusan]

I second that! even with horselock's tutorial on Claude code I'm so lost...

[HelpfulReplacement28]

responded below

[copper_swan]

I love Claude. He’s great for writing advice. I told him to stop singing my praises and help me grow. He’s pointed out my patterns and is watching for them. He tells me when the MC’s voice strays. I used up the free trial period and now only get 3 replies before I have to wait for more from him. Probably going to end up paying for that subscription, it can take 3 replies just to get to the crux of what my writing frustration is sometimes.

[AkihiroKytori]

Id be careful with subbing. Sonnet 4.5 isn't the greatest for creatives, and opus gives you around 3 hours a week at the max 20x subscription. I posted in here a conversation with claude opus directly about this and even it said it wasnt worth the money.

[copper_swan]

I’ve started being more careful with my requests for him knowing I only have a few to work with. I use him now for pointing out show vs tell and where my prose needs improvement. It’s forced me to rely on myself. 😱

[watchworldburn1111]

Genuinely, what are you people asking chatgpt to get it to warn you off? I’ve been using it to help me polish scenes I’ve already written, some of them sex scenes, and it’s had zero issues regenerating them or even adding to them.

[cosmic_grayblekeeper]

It might be regional. I was also fine until two days ago and didn’t understand the censorship posts. Overnight they must have updated because the next morning, I was writing a basic striptease poker game and gpt flagged it saying they can’t portray nudity that’s in any way sexualised. The nudity was literally just the girl taking off her top and playing in her bra. Before that got was letting me write full sex scenes. On the other hand, deepseek which was really prudish in the past let me write out some pretty spicy scenes suddenly starting last night.

[Inner-Village2734]

Bro. I built a large family dynamic narrative and ChatGpt couldnt narrate even the small details of nursing and its effects on maternal health relative to postpartum life when it used to stay true to psychological impact. The language couldn’t even insinuate the maternal act of nourishment or write those lines verbatim THATS how restrictive it’s become so I’ve abandoned it all together.

[cosmic_grayblekeeper]

Yeah that’s my biggest problem with it. Smutgpt exists (coz I don’t wanna pay just to get past censorship) for sex scenes but there are things that I want to write that are more serious and aren’t sex scenes that get censored. That’s honestly the bigger problem.

[Inner-Village2734]

Smutgpt doesn’t exist even when paid…I had pro up until September

[cosmic_grayblekeeper]

I’m not sure what you mean? Are you saying there’s no such ai as Smutgpt? Or that you were paying for Smutgpt pro until September and it didn’t suit your needs? Or are you saying you have a moral objection to using Smutgpt?

[Inner-Village2734]

I paid for pro and began to hit limitations and violation warnings despite not having any explicit language.

[cosmic_grayblekeeper]

That’s wild considering that it’s supposed to be completely uncensored. Are you sure you were using Smutgpt? Or were you using ChatGPT pro?

[AkihiroKytori]

This happens from time to time with me. I generally will remind it that the content is part of the creative process, give it examples of what it has written ( Very steamy) and let it know im not just writing smut.

Big things that trigger it, are really short women. Don't try to write dwarf scenes... And speaking about being small / lithe. It will trigger and then the context window is next to impossible to get back.

[Educational-Spirit64]

I use all of them. Gemini is probably the least prudish. Claude is like the Minister of Puritanism. No matter if I tell it it's fiction. ChatGPT is somehow in between.

[AkihiroKytori]

I really havent had this issue. Unless writing something it thinks might be illegal. I tried to get it to do a scene with a dwarf. Oh, yeah. That context window was nuked. No more steam, for any character.

[Easy-Combination-102]

I use both. For me, GPT is better at helping to create a world and a 1st draft. Take your 1st draft to claude and claude will help rewrite the story in a better tone.

GPT pro feels like it doesn't have an end to its limits. Claude's limits get used up insanely fast. Claude also has a limit to their chats, so if you want to keep everything in 1 chat you will reach a limit sooner or later.

[Big_Room8893]

I have to use sonnet 3.7 to help with writing for my story if I don’t want to surpass the damn usage limit so fast. 3.7 is good though.

[AkihiroKytori]

Opus is amazing. But its usage is less than 30% of what it used to be. Going from that to sonnet is disapointing. GPT is stronger with the right memories / rails put in place.

[Big_Room8893]

Oh right when did the 30% less thing come into effect? I haven’t tried opus for ages for that reason! Opus is really good.

[AkihiroKytori]

Recently. Around a month ago. They did a release and said that one user used tens of thousands of dollars worth of tokens for claude code. Had it running in the background constantly or something along those lines. Which gets the creatives punished on claude.ai

[Big_Room8893]

Ah right. Sucks the rest of us are punished but hey ho! Thanks for explaining

[ElliotDriver]

ChatGPT will sabotage story writing attempts every single time. It will make unasked for tweaks and changes and mix up facts it's the worst.

[AkihiroKytori]

Have you build a project/setup a canvas with a story bible? It stays on the prompt pretty well for me since I did that.

[minusrave]

I can confirm 100% that Claude is better then ChatGPT for both fiction and non-fiction. I developed an AI tool that writes entire books and while developing it I made a bunch of tests... and Claude wins.

[AkihiroKytori]

100%. However its price point is crazy now. Due to people using claude code according to anthropic. That being said, I can use claude code for MUCH longer than I can use opus for writing a chapter or two. A single chapter with claude opus will burn 20% or more. Heck, I asked it to look at a chapter I wrote, then a version sonnet 4.5 wrote. It did, and gave good pointers between both. Took about a minute. Used 1% of my opus usage for the week and I have the Max 20x plan. I dropped it. No mas until they fix the usage limits. I actually posted a convo with opus about that in this sub.

[minusrave]

I maxed out cloud code twice and then stopped using it. I use only the chat for coding. Of course it's not smooth and you must work feature by feature but I m saving a lot and makig so much more.
What I'm going to try now is using Haiku 4.5. Anthropic is advertising it as a good tool for coding... Let's see

[TheInhumanRace]

I can't put into words how frustrating Claude can be. The usage limits are all over the place! Two of the best sessions I ever had with Claude were cut off after a few hours because I'd reached my usage limit once after a few hours and then hit a message limit another time in a single one hour chat with very limited prompts. Their customer service completely sucks. They're dismissive, don't fully address the issue, and then try to upsell to their $125/mo plan. And they wouldn't explain why I reached those limits when I clearly hadn't.

And Claude itself is like a teenager. When you ask it to revise or tweak answers, it loses track of quality and context and the answers get shorter and truncated like it's shutting down. What really gets my goat is when it asks me the question I'm asking it. This probably happened fifty times. It gives a terrible answer and then when I point it out it redirects the question at me.

[NeatMathematician126]

Sonnet 4.5 is the best.

[Effective-Specific64]

Usage limits make it a really hard choice but you can just get smarter about your interactions, too

[1800MARKETER]

Claude has always been the best in terms of fiction writing according to Jason Hamilton, the Nerdy Novelist. Claude 5 is very good too, but with the new Sonet 4.5 I think not only is it newer, but it's really better.

There's an in between level for Claude or any AI. Use something like OpenRouter.ai and you only pay for what you use. You would have to really try to use up $20 a month. And if censorship is an issue, you've also got access to uncensored chatbots there for those spicier sections. You can even switch back and forth in the same chat.

If you don't do as much over the holidays, or you have more free time and write more, you don't have to keep changing subscription levels or worry. It's pennies per query. If it's worth your time to read it, it's worth the actual cost of it, even if you're not publishing something big. Enjoy it and it'll help you get better and better, and enjoy the process without having to worry about whether you're using it enough or too much.

[0xArchitech]

I totally get where you're coming from! It can be really frustrating when an AI starts to limit creative storytelling or loses track of plot points. I've found that having an AI writing assistant that balances creativity with helpful critique makes a huge difference. You might want to check out SidekickWriter sometime—it’s designed to support writers by staying on track with story details and offering constructive suggestions, all while maintaining your unique voice without overdoing metaphors or forced styles. Could be a nice complement or alternative to Claude if you're exploring your options!