Sudowrite Review 2025: Best AI for Fiction Writers?

Sudowrite is an AI writing tool created by James Yu and Amit Gupta, who are sci-fi writers themselves. It’s designed specifically for fiction writers, offering features to help with brainstorming, outlining, writing, and editing.

I’ve been using it since launch and am also part of its writer community on Discord. This review shares my honest take from using Sudowrite for real projects.

If you’re an author looking for an AI to help you write and edit faster, here’s the gist:

If you want a detailed breakdown of my experience using Sudowrite, continue reading. Because AI tools change fast, I update this review frequently.

Who is Sudowrite For?

Sudowrite is the right AI tool for you if:

• You sometimes struggle with writer’s block or brainstorming and would welcome an AI assistant to bounce ideas off for characters, settings, or plot points.
• You want help turning your outlines or story beats into actual prose drafts.
• You know your descriptions could be more vivid or sensory, or you struggle with the “Show, Don’t Tell” advice. Sudowrite has tools specifically for that.
• You’re writing a book series and need help keeping character details, world rules, and timelines consistent across multiple volumes.
• You understand that AI provides a starting point or suggestions, not a finished product. You’re ready and willing to edit, revise, and infuse the output with your own unique style.

You might want to skip Sudowrite if you:

• Mainly write non-fiction, blogs, or marketing copy.
• Need a completely free tool. Sudowrite requires a paid subscription after the free trial.
• Require a built-in plagiarism checker. Sudowrite does not include one.
• Dislike the idea of using AI in your creative process. That’s perfectly fine!

What Makes the Best AI Writing Tool?

Here’s what I looked for in the best AI writing tools:

1. Understands Story Basics: Can it follow a plot, mimic character motivation, and generate text with some narrative sense, not just grammatically correct sentences?
2. Good Memory: Can it (or help you) track characters, world rules, and plot points consistently throughout a long piece?
3. Sparks Useful Creativity: Does it offer relevant, interesting ideas for plots, characters, or descriptions, or just generic fluff?
4. Complements Your Voice: Can you easily adapt its output to sound like you, or does it impose a robotic style?
5. Keeps You in Control: Does it allow you to fine-tune and guide the AI’s suggestions? Is the writing experience distraction-free?
6. Offers Fiction-Specific Tools: Does it have features tailored for fiction writers?

Does Sudowrite measure up? Let’s dive into the features.

Best Sudowrite Features

To test Sudowrite, I started by taking completely new story ideas and used Sudowrite to help me step by step—from brainstorming the characters, world, and plot. Then, I moved to writing specific scenes, expanding plots, and refining scenes.

Finally, I checked how easy it was to share my drafts with others for feedback (pretty easy) and to track all my ideas and lore visually (canvas) and in a single place (series folder).

Because I am a new writer myself, I also made sure to include insights and user experiences of published authors like Joanne Penn in this review.

• 1. Brainstorm: Get Inspired
• 2. Story Bible: Finish Long-Stalled Novels
• 3. Canvas: Your Storyboard
• 4. Expanding Plots, Write & Rewrite Features
• 5. Describe Story Elements
• 6. Generating a Story Twist: Expect the Unexpected!
• 7. Feedback on Your Writing: AI as Your Beta Reader
• 8. Shrinkray: Crafting the Perfect Blurb

1. Brainstorm: Get Inspired

Sudowrite offers a comprehensive brainstorming suite that covers every aspect of story writing, starting from a single sentence.

For this test, I asked Sudowrite to brainstorm a character: “a writer who takes help from a robot to write.” The result? Sudowrite’s brainstorming feature provided me with dozens of creative and helpful ideas.

Story #1: A Writer Taking Help from a Robot to Write (how meta!)

2. Story Bible

Story Bible is another useful brainstorming feature for building long-form narratives with AI while keeping the lore consistent. It takes you from Braindump -> Outline -> Prose.

The Worldbuilding feature is particularly helpful for coming up with lore and environment for your story.

Some Sudowrite users reported writing an entire novel in just a weekend!

Others found it to be the push they needed to complete long-stalled projects.

3. Canvas: Visually Plot the Story

Sudowrite’s Canvas feature allows you to organize your thoughts, characters, and story points. One standout feature is its ability to visualize characters. For example, I visualized an antagonist in one of my other stories as a guy with a blue hat and a pointed, evil chin.

Sudowrite now supports book series with Series folders. These folders let you keep all your plot ideas and notes together. Once you add your books and set their order, Sudowrite will remember it and help maintain consistency across your series.

There is also a Series Timeline feature that helps Sudowrite keep track of the order of your books and the events in your story.

4. Expanding Plots, Write & Rewrite Features

One-Click Expansion

I inserted the ideas brainstormed earlier into the editor and reordered the sentences according to my preference. Finally, I clicked ‘Expand’ on the last sentence.

Fine-Tuning Your Story

Sudowrite offers three writing modes: Auto, Guided, and Tone Shift. Each mode provides a different level of control over the AI’s output.

• First Draft: Generates up to 1,000 words from a scene description, offering a solid foundation for further editing.

• Guided and Auto Write: Guided Write lets you input a sentence or two about the next section and generates up to 250 words. Auto Write generates text without any guidance.

• Tone Shift: Allows for easy adjustments to the tone of your story.

In Write Settings, you can choose the AI model to use for writing. The Prose Modes currently available include:

• Premium: Based on Claude Opus

• Excellent - Claude Sonnet

• Unfiltered - Based on Goliath 120B

Additionally, Sudowrite offers a ‘Rewrite’ option that helps you rephrase or revise what you’ve already written. This feature provides options to be more descriptive, rephrase, shorten, add more conflict, and intensify your writing.

Focus Mode: A Clean UI

By the way, the clean UI you see above is called “Focus Mode.” It eliminates all distractions, allowing you to concentrate solely on your writing.

Shareable Links

Sudowrite also allows you to collect comments from your friends, editors, and beta readers. Each reader gets their own clean copy for unbiased feedback.

4. Describe Story Elements

When it comes to storytelling, details matter. Sudowrite understands this and offers a feature that lets you describe critical elements of your plot in full sensory depth.

I put this to the test by asking Sudowrite to ‘Describe’ my robot character. What I got back were five vivid descriptions covering sound, sight, smell, touch, and taste, along with a metaphor.

The word choices were spot-on, and the output was coherent. This feature helps you add layers to your characters, making them more relatable and real.

5. Generating a Story Twist: Expect the Unexpected!

Now, let’s talk about the fun part—story twists! Sudowrite has an experimental feature that generates twists for your story. I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised.

The twist I got? My robot character is apparently plotting world domination and has a knack for stealing my ideas.

Oh, wait. It wasn’t even real! And my protagonist hallucinated everything. Talk about a plot twist!

This feature adds an unexpected layer to your storytelling, keeping your readers on the edge of their seats.

6. Feedback on Your Writing: AI as Your Beta Reader

Feedback is crucial for any writer, and Sudowrite offers an experimental feature that provides just that. The AI goes through your story and gives you insights into its theme, plot, and more.

Story #2: To test this, I used a story where zombies, vampires, and humans co-exist in a city. The catch? Both vampires and zombies have managed to keep their identities a secret from humans. Now, a conflict is brewing between the two supernatural entities.

I didn’t give away the ending or the direction the story would take. Would they annihilate each other, or would they form some sort of unholy alliance?

Regardless, the story was long enough to get feedback on my writing style. After clicking the feedback option, Sudowrite spawned three AI readers who “tried” to read the story as a human would.

The feedback I received was insightful and helped me understand how my story could be perceived by readers. I am adding excerpts of the feedback I got below.

As per Sudowrite, AI readers get better at giving feedback as your story grows. Besides, it is experimental as of now and will continue to improve.

7. Shrinkray: Crafting the Perfect Blurb

Let’s face it, writing blurbs for your novels or books can be a daunting task. But guess what? Sudowrite has got you covered with a feature called Shrinkray.

All you have to do is upload your manuscript, and voila! You get loglines, blurbs, synopses, and even full outlines generated for you. It’s like having a marketing assistant who knows your story inside and out.

This feature is a real time-saver and can help you capture the essence of your story in a way that grabs potential readers.

My User Experience

Features are one thing, but how easy is it to actually use Sudowrite day-to-day? First impressions matter, especially when you just want to get writing.

• Interface & Design: Sudowrite generally nails this. The interface is clean, modern, and surprisingly uncluttered considering how many features are packed in. It feels less like intimidating software and more like a calm digital workspace. The optional Focus Mode strips away menus, leaving just your text, which is a nice touch for distraction-free drafting.
• Onboarding & Learning Curve: Getting started is pretty smooth. Sudowrite offers a quick, interactive tutorial that walks you through the main functions using a sample story. It gets you oriented quickly. However, while the basics are easy, truly mastering Sudowrite takes time. Understanding how best to prompt the AI, how the Story Bible influences output, and which AI model works best for which task involves experimentation. There’s definitely a learning curve beyond the initial tutorial, especially if you want to move past simply hitting “Generate.” Thankfully, there are official tutorials and an active user community (on Discord/Slack) to help.
• Performance & Stability: For the most part, Sudowrite runs smoothly. Generating text is usually quick (depending on the AI model chosen). I did encounter occasional minor glitches, like the AI briefly losing context or a feature needing a refresh, but nothing catastrophic. One reviewer (Review 4 in the initial data) noted potential issues when switching browser tabs during generation – something to keep in mind. Overall, it felt reliable during my testing.

Bottom line: Sudowrite offers a pleasant and generally intuitive user experience, especially compared to some clunkier software out there.

Pricing

Sudowrite typically offers three main pricing plans. I am listing monthly pricing. With annual billing, you get further 50% discount.

1. Hobby/Student Plan: ~$19/month. Offers the lowest number of credits (e.g., ~225,000 credits/month). Good for light use or trying it out longer-term.
2. Professional Plan: ~$29/month. Offers significantly more credits (e.g., ~1,000,000 credits/month). Best value tier for regular writers.
3. Max Plan: ~$59/month. Offers the highest credit limit (e.g., ~2,000,000 credits/month) and credits roll over month-to-month (a key differentiator). Best for power users or those with fluctuating needs.

The Pro plan’s million credits felt ample for regular drafting and experimenting across features for a couple of novel chapters per month.

You learn to be mindful – maybe use a cheaper model for initial drafts and a premium one like Muse for polishing key scenes, or use ‘Describe’ selectively.

Is Sudowrite Worth It?

Compared to a general $20/month ChatGPT Plus subscription, Sudowrite offers a tailored interface, specialized fiction tools (Rewrite, Describe, Story Bible), integrated workflow, and access to multiple AI models (including their custom ones) under one roof. If you heavily utilize these fiction-specific features, the value proposition is strong, especially on the annual Pro plan. However, if you only need basic AI text generation, ChatGPT or Claude directly might be more economical.

Free Trial: Sudowrite offers a generous free trial (usually around 10,000 credits) without requiring a credit card. This is more than enough to test the core features and see if it clicks with your workflow before committing.

Sudowrite vs Alternatives

Sudowrite vs Novel AI

NovelAI appeals strongly to users who want deep control over the AI model itself, including training custom modules on specific styles or genres, and it often has less restrictive content filters. It also integrates image generation.

However, Sudowrite generally offers a more polished, user-friendly interface with superior built-in tools specifically for refining prose (like Describe and Rewrite) and arguably better out-of-the-box long-form consistency via the Story Bible structure. If you want maximum AI tinkering and image gen, NovelAI is tempting. If you want an integrated assistant focused on improving your writing craft, Sudowrite often has the edge.

Sudowrite vs Novelcrafter

Novelcrafter is a fantastic organizational tool built around a detailed “Codex” (similar in function to Sudowrite’s Story Bible) for tracking story elements.

Its main difference is the pricing model: a low subscription fee plus you bring your own OpenAI API key, meaning you pay OpenAI directly for usage. This can be significantly cheaper for heavy users comfortable managing API keys. Novelcrafter excels at planning and organization.

Sudowrite offers more built-in generative features (Brainstorm, Rewrite, Describe), access to more models beyond just OpenAI (like Claude and Muse), and a simpler (though potentially more expensive) all-in-one subscription. If you want the cheaper option, go with Novelcrafter. If you want more diverse AI models and built-in polishing tools without managing API keys, Sudowrite is more convenient.

Final Verdict

For fiction authors looking to strategically integrate AI into their writing process, Sudowrite is currently one of the most powerful and well-designed tools available. Features like Story Bible and the access to multiple high-quality AI models, including the impressive Muse and unfiltered Goliath, within a single, clean interface is a significant advantage.

Have you used Sudowrite? What was your experience? Share your thoughts or questions in the comments below!

FAQ

Let’s tackle some common questions about Sudowrite and AI writing:

Can AI really replace human writers?

No. While AI writing tools like Sudowrite can generate coherent text, they lack what makes fiction compelling: lived experience, emotional depth, and the messy humanity that readers connect with.

Who’s created Sudowrite?

Sudowrite was created by Amit Gupta and James Yu – two sci-fi writers who also happen to have tech backgrounds. They actually ran a writing group (Sudowriters) before building the tool, which explains why it feels designed by people who understand storytelling struggles.

How does the free trial work?

You get around 10,000 credits to test all core features – Write, Brainstorm, Describe, and the Story Bible. No credit card required. Pro tip: Use the trial on an actual stuck scene rather than random tests to really gauge its usefulness.

Does Sudowrite plagiarize?

The short answer: unintentional plagiarism is unlikely. The AI generates original text based on patterns, not copy-pasting. That said, if you feed it famous passages (like “Call me Ishmael”), it might echo recognizable phrasing. Always edit outputs with your own voice.

Is using AI for writing cheating?

It depends how you use it. Most writers see tools like Sudowrite as they would a thesaurus or beta reader – helpful for breaking blocks or refining ideas, not for outsourcing creativity.

Can it handle different genres well?

Surprisingly yes. Because it’s specifically trained on fiction, Sudowrite adapts to genres from cozy mysteries to space operas. The catch? You’ll get better results if you prime it with details from your Story Bible.

What AI models Sudowrite use?

Sudowrite mixes several AI models (including their custom Muse and Goliath models) with standard options like GPT-4 and Claude. This lets you switch between faster/cheaper and more sophisticated/expensive options depending on your task.