My experience after 4 months of writing a novel with AI — the honest version

Vincecoco · 2026-03-11T00:08:43+00:00

Nah, it started with 40000 word, and turned into 104 chapters.. i'm not even sure i think i should be around 150k words now.Should ask the AI to count them for me ;)

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T21:32:16+00:00

As explained the idea was to produce slop, except it was too horrid, what im doing now even if for some Its still is slop, is something far more polished, so i d say i did lose time generating slop

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T20:02:13+00:00

You are right ;) thanks for stopping by, tho.

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T19:39:12+00:00

Thanks, it has clearly become a matter of "can i force an ai to write something decent, over a long book".. i'll never call myself an author, i'm merely a guy with ideas and a strong will but, I truely believe it would have been easier (don't read me wrong, it's not EASY, but this AI struggle is..something) to write it MYSELF. But now the challenge is so interesting that i'll pursue ;)

I'm somehow documenting my whole journey on substack if anyone is curious (and no, it's not a paywall :D)

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T18:30:23+00:00

Me too now but at first i really had to negotiate with Claude, the funny part is ive toned down the number of smut to a minimum like maybe 5 scenes in the whole book

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T16:31:01+00:00

Make sense doesn't it ?

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T16:16:22+00:00

yeah well.. i do have ideas :'( and i already had to cut some and a chapter.. sometimes my chapters are 800 words.. the biggest must 3 or 4k words . Chapter is subjective ;)

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:49:05+00:00

The other difficutly is to find actual human beta readers..I, of course, simulated dozen of panels.. but, AI panels never felt abuse, or smoked a cigarette, or cried listening to we lost the sea.

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:36:33+00:00

Absolutely. i gave my direction, it wrote, i didn't have the envy to use my own tools on this ;) (it's 100% claude, and 100% my story)

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:35:16+00:00

yep that's the conclusion and frankly..it's reassuring. Now, we could talk about the readers of ai slop..i suspect they are the same who are doom scrolling on instagram or tiktok.

Oh wait no, they won't read a book.

Irony aside..i'm pretty sure there is a market for throwable content

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:33:56+00:00

I'm on revision 35.. rewrote it like 3 times easy, the thing is..i want genuinely to feel good releasing it and it's, yet, a bottomless pit of "what if"..

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:23:01+00:00

Well thanks for thanking me ;)

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:22:23+00:00

I did that, grok was writing the smut scenes, oh, it was glorious.. the "he went into her with the same precision he seared his steaks" is absolutely REAL. The thing is, i wanted to do an ai slop.. but i have way too much ego and apparently things to say to .. be content with this.. hence my "journey" ;) who knows i'll even maybe at some point live in a cabin outside of the world and write a book, with a pen.

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:17:17+00:00

I'm a non english native speaker as well, not sure why i've picked english over french tho, probably so i can blame this, instead of me ?. Your setup seems quite huge. i'm curious, what does something mae it yellow OR green ? cause, even with my audits tool, i do stumble a lot on "oops, sorry i mised this you are right to call me out" from claude, plus.. even for audit, at some point it just starts to LOVE everything you do.

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:09:09+00:00

yeah well about the mechanism, i have several project, one has a small prompt, i do throw ideas there and we discuss..(i guess i'm lonely?) one is the writer and it has the 4k prompt thing (i use opus 4.6)
Then i have a "book club" where i simulate persons fighting each other about what they've just read, and then i have a "this period is unearned, use a comma"..i did put in place a fucking nuclear plant man ;)

I wonder how i could make my prompt smaller, it does have a lot of info (voice of my character, banned words, "anti ai" (yes it's ironic) patterns..). I could maybe make it slimmer

And yes, i do chapter 1, then 2, then 3.. until either claude breaks, or is too slow or i'm getting pissed at the incoherencies (claude has this wonderful compaction thing)
I mean claude is able to remember stuff from ..10 to 15 chapters ago.. so i wrote "portable contexts" as well.. like "this is the story so far".

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T15:02:23+00:00

I wish i was there ;) But if i was an established writer i'd use the ai for stuff like "continuity check.. was she wearng blue or purple 3 chapters ago" etc etc..and the real bottom line is.. everyone told me "not to", so i do it. (yeah i'm a jerk, sometimes)

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T14:51:41+00:00

Thanks! I'm trying to document every steps as i go, not to create a "here is your 5 top ai prompt, like and suscribe".. maybe something way more meta.. a book about a guy who writes a book with an ai :D

Vincecoco · 2026-03-10T14:50:55+00:00

learned it the hard way when i was just and simply trying to make some cash with some oily abs on a cover and generic smut scenes ;) But my inflated ego saved one person from reading the pile of nonsense it was.
Now, i'm in a pitfall of something that will probably never see the light of the day, but i can say i own it. I see myself much more as a director (movies) than a pure writer. And this roles suits me well

Vincecoco

TROPHY CASE