Write a book with ChatGPT or Claude

Why chat alone forgets your book

A chat can only hold so much at once. A novel runs to 80,000 words or more, and with your notes and the conversation on top, the earliest material starts to slip long before you reach the end.

You've probably seen the signs. Names change. A character who died comes back. A subplot is forgotten. The AI contradicts what it told you last week.

Uploading files to a project helps a little, but it's still a pile of documents, not a book. And every useful line has to be copied back into your manuscript by hand, so you end up editing in two places and losing track of what changed.

What connecting changes

Once Claude or ChatGPT is connected to Authr, it doesn't need to remember your book. It reads what it needs, when it needs it: the outline, a chapter, a character's entry in your story bible.

When it suggests an edit, the edit appears in your manuscript, under the paragraph it changes. No copying and pasting. You accept it or reject it.

Connect in three steps

1. In Claude or ChatGPT on the web, open Settings → Connectors and add a custom connector.
2. Paste this address:

3. Sign in to Authr when asked, and choose Allow.

That's it. Start a new chat and ask about your book by name. Custom connectors aren't on every Claude or ChatGPT plan, so if you don't see the option, check your plan.

Good things to ask

• Read my book's outline in Authr and tell me which chapters feel thin.
• Read chapter 7 and list anything that contradicts my story bible.
• Line edit chapter 3. Suggest changes, don't overwrite. Keep my voice.
• Give me three ways the midpoint could go wrong for Mara. Don't change anything yet.
• Add the new characters from chapter 9 to my story bible.

Set your book up first

Your AI can only use what's in the book. Three things make the biggest difference:

1. A synopsis for each chapter or scene. Two lines on what happens and what changes. The AI reads the outline before anything else.
2. Your main characters and places in the story bible. One line each, plus the facts you don't want changed.
3. A style guide. Tense, point of view, spelling, words you never use. Put it in your book's settings and every AI reads it.

A good first session

Start by asking it to read, not write: "Read my book in Authr and tell me what you see. Don't change anything." Check that it understands the story. If it gets something wrong, the outline or story bible probably needs a line.

Then give it one small job, like a line edit of a single scene. Review the suggestions in Authr. Reject the ones that don't sound like you, with a short reason, and ask it to try again. A few rounds of this teach you how to ask.

What still belongs in the chat

Open-ended thinking. "What if the brother is lying?" is a great chat question. You don't need the book to change while you explore. When you've decided, ask the AI to put the decision in the book, and review it there.

Tips

• Name the chapter or scene. "Chapter 3" or the scene's title works better than "the bit with the boat".
• Ask for suggestions on text you care about. Not rewrites.
• Use the chat for thinking. When an idea is settled, ask the AI to put it in the book.
• Write a style guide in your book's settings. Your AI reads it along with the book.

You stay in charge

Your AI can't accept its own suggestions. You do that in Authr, one at a time or all at once. Every change is saved as a version you can go back to. You can remove the connector from your Claude or ChatGPT settings at any time.

Doing this in Authr

Working from Claude or ChatGPT is part of Authr Pro and Studio. It runs on your own Claude or ChatGPT plan, so it never uses your agent tasks.

Prefer not to use an outside AI? Authr's own team of seven agents works inside the app: Lead, Writer, Reviewer, Line editor, Beta reader, Researcher and Continuity. Free includes about 15 agent tasks a month, Pro about 150, and Studio about 600. See pricing.