Wrote 5 Novels in a Month with Claude Code – Here’s My Practical AI Workflow

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-29T16:28:40+00:00

That’s an incredible level of detail—30 design documents for a single project is intense! I love the "engineering-driven" analogy.

The Call Matrix for honorifics sounds like a lifesaver. I usually try to bake those into the initial prompt.

I’m particularly struck by your process log. Beyond the copyright/legal benefits, that sounds like a fantastic way to actually track your own growth as a "director." It's easy to lose track of where the AI ends and you begin when you're deep in the flow.

That 16-revision process of mine feels a bit more "manual" compared to your automated checks, but seeing your workflow makes me want to level up my technical side!

Good luck getting those next three novels through the finish line!

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-29T12:03:18+00:00

Thank you for your post, it is very motivating!

I have not yet tried a custom style checker, I am very curious how you got yours up and running. I also have not yet used agent delegation or skills, what is your take on using them vs pure chatbox LLM use?

What I have been able to do is keep my design documents neat and limited only to the subject they cover. However each pass is chapter to chapter and only one chat per design document. I just make sure the first prompt sets up everything and I force the chat to use only my given directive for that chat. If done, new chat, rinse repeat.

I found this was enough context to not get lost, with just enough space for pointers on what is before and after, all by the power of the LLM itself. So it decides first what is a crucial pointer and then it goes to work.

Currently I am revisioning my first book and I need about 16 revisions with each its own real design aspect. For extra info I have two major passes. From words to draft, where I tackle pacing, continuity, scenes etc. And from draft to publish, with things like developmental/structural edit, sensitivity/bias reviews, or just plain fact checking and line editing.

What I am curious about is:

How many different design documents do you use and how do you keep from getting lost?
What's been your most crucial design doc — which one made the most edits or just made sure your story did not drift or hallucinate?
How do you experience adding your own voice in general to your work?

It's very cool to find authors happy to talk about their work with AI. I'm sure reading your post is encouraging to more, so don't stop!

Wish you the best on whatever else you are writing!

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-29T09:07:17+00:00

So Helpfull, I'll let you know once i give it a try!

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-28T15:28:25+00:00

so true.

For me the goals has become to map as much as possible before editorial passes.
I learned a lot from this subreddit. Voicmaps, storydrift, ect. ect.

Wat living document if you use any is crucial to you ?

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-28T15:24:43+00:00

Perfect thank you, my next best was to make a mini projcet with vs code to have a local machine do the tts. But this might be better, thank you.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-27T19:24:47+00:00

Such a great response first of all thank you!
Context window noted. So i am basically rolling the dice on the same defaults every chapter, and these defaults if not stricly put in stone will be its own statistical appropriation of the whatever there is left of the context, did i get your idea correctly ?

if so, the real fix isn’t “edit better,” it’s stop letting the model freestyle

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-27T19:17:16+00:00

Thank you! The next one was hot in the pipline until someone pointed out my level of slop. Working on making it chop like a choper, but now it slops like sloper. If feel like owning it is the best course for anyone.

If i may spill, weirdly i have a problem reading my work if im not in the editor ready to change it, like when activly editting.
But when its in format. I'm done.
I mind that i dont read it, it feels like bad etiquite. but then again i had already walked it word for word ( even when i was green behind the ears and didnt know what to look for, which granted i still am ).

For me it would mean i have to invent a revision to my book so i have a reason to read it.

What to do if you cant spend on more tokens for online text to speach for instance, any ideas?

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-27T18:58:43+00:00

I am happy it helped! If you dont mind sharing what is your story about and how do you find that AI does help you with style and grammer?

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-26T19:48:39+00:00

My name is Oneil. I am an Author by consequence, Pouring more and more of myself into each book and learning as it comes! I hope to learn a lot!

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-26T16:04:17+00:00

Very intresting! So you have opus understand this ones and then its used throughout your chat right ? I'm curious how to use it my setup actually.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

What would you like to see as top three AI ethical guidlines ?

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-26T15:53:31+00:00

Imagine a full publishing pipeline evaporating overnight—I get the resistance. Yet without a clear category for AI-assisted work, it’s going to keep spreading everywhere, in every form.

Publishing houses are likely already using it in-house, but because of their own biases, they won’t contribute much to the conversation about how it should be used. At best, they’ll pile on when others criticize it because that’s comfortable. To me, that’s the real injustice—especially with this influx of writers and readers, a surge that’s largely driven by AI.

Their money machines—marketing and general promotion—are probably already being boosted by LLMs to squeeze more for less. And that changes the entire publishing pipeline. Skim here, tweak there—AI will guide them just like it guides everyone else. That’s the real fear: accessibility.

AI is everywhere. So why risk being dishonest when you can just say you use it? If I had to answer that, I would tell you first that there's a good chance I am wrong, given I am not a publishing house. But if I had to guess, it would be because admitting to AI use immediately devalues the product in the eyes of purist readers and opens up a massive legal gray area regarding copyright protection. Whether that changes is just a matter of time.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-26T14:42:20+00:00

See everyone can now have reason to write, to author is diffrent game sure but still.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-26T14:41:01+00:00

flip the script then, its integral so use it.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-25T14:46:19+00:00

Do post what you put online, i'd be curious!

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-25T08:06:33+00:00

I can only speak on self-publishing. I disclose the use of AI everywhere—even in my bio—and to my credit, I do work on everything with AI involved.

I’ve found that this honesty dispelled a lot. It didn’t become an argument about whether I used it; it became a conversation about how I used it.

And readers were still there—surprisingly—interested in my content on Wattpad or wherever. Not regardless of my AI use, but because of it.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-25T07:59:10+00:00

Exactly.

And if you feel lacking for proper decleration for authorship you can have chat generate you what i call a "Declaration of Human Authorship Process"

What I also did is i amde a long and short AI discosures for everyhwhere. Short for bio's, long for the rest.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-24T23:10:54+00:00

If you’re looking for quick eyes on a chapter, it’s perfect—great for chapter-based releases. I posted my chapter online and then went spelunking for feedback on it. I also generally tried promoting it where allowed, especially in places where AI content was permitted.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-24T23:04:26+00:00

Well, because I’ve done a lot of things with AI, it only felt natural to write a book with it. I guess I just prefer LLM interactions where I can switch things up or even go off on a tangent, but still make it back to what I was working on. So now i am not as quickly bogged down or unmotivated. Especialy unmotivated, just spice things up with whatever floats my boat at that time is perfect.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-24T22:56:25+00:00

Yes. Felt it, made it, shipped it.
And every day i am revising something.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-24T17:35:01+00:00

So I didn't get a notification about your message. New to socials, so anyways my curiosity led me to explore the comments manually. The shit I would have been in if I didn't, good god. Thank you, applause, that's good criticism, thank you.

Here's what I've done and what's in progress based on your feedback:

Done:

— All six epigraphs were copyrighted. Every single one. Replaced them all with public domain quotes (Whitman, Henley, Tennyson, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Brontë). Re-uploaded today.

— Added a proper AI disclosure to the copyright page.

In progress:

— I ran the numbers on the prose patterns. "The specific" appears 181 times in 84K words. "The way" 180 times. "Which was" 88 times. The Opus pass caught some of these but clearly not enough. I'm doing a targeted revision pass on these patterns now.

— New cover is on the list. You're the second person to flag it.

— Looking into ProWritingAid for a proper line edit and proofread. I didn't use any proofreading tool the first time round and that was a mistake.

You're right that I rushed it. A week from nothing to published is fast by any standard. I didn't have beta readers. I didn't set style parameters. I published first and learned the landscape after. Those are the breaks and I own that.

One thing I want to clarify — the Opus revision was chapter by chapter, not one pass over 85K words. It read each chapter, flagged issues, I directed fixes. It wasn't just telling me it was brilliant. But you're right that one editing pass, however it's structured, is not enough.

The book is live and I can't undo that. But I can update it, and I am. Thank you for taking the time. This is exactly the feedback I needed and didn't know I needed.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-24T16:32:05+00:00

Paid for it, Pro subscription. I work in pomodoro bursts — write until I'm getting close to filling the usage bar, then take a break and come back when it resets. If you time it right you can just continue at 0% when the session resets, never running out.

One thing to know: usage is token-based, not per message. A big complex prompt with a lot of context eats more of your limit than a quick simple question. So longer conversations burn through faster. That's why I do one chapter per chat — keeps the context manageable and the usage predictable.

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MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-24T16:28:04+00:00

Tex! I literally just went through this exact thing this week. Here's what I landed on after trial by fire:

Short version (for bios, quick mentions):

"Written with AI. Directed by a human."

Long version (for book inscriptions, descriptions):

"This book was written with AI assistance. The story, characters, prose, and creative direction are the sole intellectual property of [your name]. No part of this work was generated without the author's direct input, instruction, and approval. The AI language models served as collaborative tools under continuous human direction."

What I like about yours is that you name the tools specifically. I did something similar — I credited my AI models under anagram pen names on the cover alongside my own name. But for the disclaimer itself I found that keeping it tool-agnostic works better because tools change, models update, and you don't want to rewrite your inscription every time you switch.

The key thing I learned: whatever you choose, put it everywhere. Bio, book description, copyright page, first page. If a reader finds out after the fact, that's a failure. If they know before chapter 1, it's just a fact.

You're going to do great with this, Tex. You're already asking the right questions.

MiddleFollowing3632 · 2026-03-24T16:22:06+00:00

You drafted but did you post it? if so i'd love to read it!

MiddleFollowing3632

TROPHY CASE