NovelAI Review: Best AI Writer for Authors & Scriptwriters?

NovelAI is an online service for AI-assisted story writing. It is a powerful tool that can make the process of creating highly captivating stories faster and easier for authors, scriptwriters, and playwrights. 

So how good is NovelAI at writing stories?

What are its features, pros, and cons? And how much does it cost to access the service? These are questions I aim to answer in this NovelAI review.

Who Can Use NovelAI?

NovelAI is built for creative writers, and it can be useful to writers of varying levels of experience—from newbies to experts with decades of experience. These include:

1. Writers of fictional novels, novellas, short stories, and others.
2. Poets.
3. Playwrights.
4. Scriptwriters.

While NovelAI may be immensely useful to writers of fictional works, writers of nonfiction may find NovelAI unhelpful as the AI is trained to write fictional stories and myths.

If you’re looking to write nonfiction content, you may have more luck with Jasper, Writesonic, or Growth Bar.

How Does NovelAI Work? 

NovelAI is an AI platform that is based majorly on artificial intelligence models developed by EleutherAI. 

EleutherAI is an artificial intelligence research group considered an open-source version of OpenAI. It was launched on Discord in 2021 and started as a discussion to replicate GPT-3. The replication was successful and EleutherAI created several GPT-based AI models afterwards.

The AI models used on NovelAI have been further finetuned to be able to write prose literature in the form of adventure and fantasy stories to help authors write more captivating stories.

These models function like any other AI model out there. They generate texts based on the context you provide or continue writing based on previous input.

NovelAI Features 

NovelAI has a lot of things stuffed on the platform that it may be somewhat challenging to truly grasp them all, but here are the major features of NovelAI you’re most likely to use or need.

Storytellers

NovelAI currently has four AI storytellers powering its creativity. They include Krake, Euterpe, Calliope, and Sigurd. 

• Krake: pronounced /krayk/, this is the most powerful storyteller on NovelAI and is only available with Opus, the highest subscription tier. It was released in March 2022, and it brought 8 new additions to the existing default AI modules, including Viking, Children’s Fiction, Roman Empire, LitRPG, Horror, and more.
  Krake is a better word builder than the other AIs, using prefixes, suffixes, and compounding effectively. It is also less repetitive and features a context window of 1512 tokens and with the Opus subscription, a memory of 2048 tokens. With Krake, the better your context, the better the story you’ll get.
• Euterpe: before Krake, Euterpe was the best storyteller on NovelAI, but that ended in March 2022. It is based on the Fairseq 13b AI model and is available only to users on the Scroll and Opus subscription tiers, and among its notable features is Co-writer, a preset that was created by several members of the community to help it generate better texts.
• Sigurd: Sigurd is the second AI model introduced on the NovelAI story writer platform. It is based on GPT-J 6b, an AI model made by EleutherAI. It follows the architecture of GPT-2, but it performs as well as, and in some cases, better than GPT-3.
• Calliope: Calliope is NovelAI’s oldest model and is based on GPT-Neo 2.7b. GPT-Neo is a replica of GPT-3 created by EleutherAI in March 2021, and it functions basically the same way. As a GPT-3 model, NovelAI further finetuned and trained it on novels.

In addition to these, there are also two experimental AI models, namely: 

• Genji, an AI that is finetuned on a Japanese storytelling dataset and can write Japanese fantasy stories. 
• Snek, GPT for Python coding. Snek is rarely seen on the website though.

Although NovelAI allows you to switch between AI models from the editor’s page, it is not recommended to switch to Sigurd and Calliope as they are too weak, compared to recent models.

Text Adventure

Text Adventure is a special AI module (not a model) still in its developmental stage but has already been introduced to users. Basically, Text Adventure is the alternative if you don’t want to use “Storyteller” which doesn’t use any AI module by default.

AI Modules are to NovelAI what templates are to Jasper.

With Text Adventure, you start with a prompt which could be an intro to a story. Once your prompt is logged, you can then proceed using one of three actions: Do, Say, and Story.

For Do, enter the action to be taken, such as “find a shining magical sword” or “evade an attack”. Basically the same goes for Say and Story. The AI will then take this seemingly simple input and turn it into a few lines of marvelous storytelling.

NovelAI Diffusion 

This is NovelAI’s image generator, and it came in two parts: the NovelAi Diffusion Anime and Diffusion Furry. 

The Anime model lets you create anime characters and stories based on your prompts. It has what is known as tags, which work in tandem with prompts to generate detailed and consistent images.

On the other hand, the Diffusion Furry is in its beta stages and there’s still work to be done to make it better. However, it is perfect for generating Furry and Anthropomorphic Animal themed content. This means you can use it to generate animal animations that may have human attributes (think about Puss in Boots and the Donkey in Shrek).

Generating images on NovelAI is based on pricing, using a currency called Anlas. How much you’ll spend depends on the image resolution, the number of diffusion steps used, and how many images you generate at a go.

On the Opus tier, there is potential for unlimited image generations, but that is restricted to resolutions of 768 x 512 and lower. For Scroll and Tablet subscriptions, the default monthly allowance is 1,000 Anlas.

With NovelAI Diffusion, you can:

• Upload an image file into the editor, then combine your uploaded Image with a text prompt to tweak its appearance or use it as a guide for color schemes or image generations.

• Paint a new image on the NovelAI Canvas to serve as a guide or concept, or define a color scheme for the AI. Then you can describe your desired outcome in the text prompt, fill in your tags, and generate!

• Edit a previous generation or an uploaded Image. This tool can be used to fix or modify anything that seems off or to add something you want in the final composition.

• Refine an image you’ve generated by running it through the model alongside your text prompt to get an enhanced version of that image.

• Generate more variations of an image generation if you’d like to explore more versions or renditions of a concept or idea that the AI came up with.

Text-to-Speech

NovelAI offers a text-to-speech service that you can use to record voiceovers to your animated and non-animated stories and videos at the click of a button.

You can access this feature from your dashboard by scrolling to the bottom of the page after you log in to your account. You’ll find it right next to NovelAI Diffusion, but unlike the image generator, you do not need a special subscription to use the TTS tool.

On the text-to-speech prompt, you can choose between “Streamed” and “Local”. Streamed lets you use NovelAI’s remote TTS service and give you access to its features, while Local will let you use the browser’s Speech Synthesis API. 

The major difference is that the voices on “Local” will sound more robotic than those on “Streamed”.

If you’ve selected Streamed, you should be able to see the settings for it:

NovelAI’s Streamed TTS has various male and female voices as well as a gender-neutral voice named Ligeia.

It lets you adjust the volume and speed of the voiceover as you wish. There is also a feature called Seed, which lets you generate a completely unique voice different from the existing ones.

While making sound clips within the text generator window, you can leverage the IPA alphabet to control how the AI pronounces words using this format: {{ipa.alphabetgoeshere}}. But this requires that you know the IPA chart and can type the special characters.

The major advantage of this feature is that it lets you control accents. For example, you can use the Russian IPA alphabet to type English words, so that the output sounds like a Russian was speaking English.

Other NovelAI Features

There are a host of other features on NovelAI that are connected to the operation and/or usage of other features. They include: 

• Retry, Undo, and Redo: “Retry” lets you regenerate the result of a prompt if you’re not satisfied with the AI’s output.
  “Undo” lets you revert to the previous output if it was better than the result you got from “Retry”.
  “Redo” lets you redo an action you undid. Useful if you want to compare the result of an original generation and the result from “retry”. You can undo and redo as many times as possible.

• Retry, Undo, and Redo Highlighting: in all of the editing tools I’ve used, it is impossible to see which text will be affected by an undo/redo action. NovelAI has now launched this feature on its platform. Hover on any of the three options to see which texts will be affected.

• Import Story from Other Storytellers: when you export stories from AI Dungeon or KoboldAI, NovelAI permits you to import them to its platform and continue working where you left off.

• Lorebook: Lorebook is like a diary where NovelAI stores information that is consistent about specific elements in your story, thus it will have more information about them. They include characters, places, items, and more.

How to Use NovelAI for Story Writing

Using NovelAI is a pretty straightforward affair. Follow the steps below to use the tool.

• Login to your Dashboard and tap on “+ New Story”.

• Choose Storyteller to load the canvas.

• On the right-hand pane, click on Advanced, at the top. Look for “Ensure completion after start” and check the box in front of it to make sure sentences are always completed.

• Switch back to Story and select the AI module that best describes your story. Also, change the “Config Preset”. Morpho and Pro Writer usually work best.
• In the Memory box, input tags and a short note on what your story is about,

• In the Author’s Note box, input information about the writing style.

• Now move your cursor to the canvas and type in some input to kickstart the story.

• Once you’ve written a few sentences, click on Send at the bottom of the page to let the AI take over. If you don’t like the output, click Retry to generate new results.

After filling in my prompts, here’s what NovelAI generated after a series of taps on Send:

Icarus woke up to an unexpected visitor from the palace. It was Meridius, the king’s emergency messenger. When his captain informed him of the messenger’s arrival, he already knew why he came. He was, after all, the general of the army. He knew about how the tension between Sparta and Eragur, a smaller kingdom 52 miles to the north, has risen over the past few weeks. Meridius’ unexpected arrival at such an odd hour meant only one thing: it is time for battle.

Icarus left his tent and walked to the palace, where he was informed by the king that he needed to assemble his army within two days. They were to march toward Eragur at once. The king also informed Icarus that the region had been under siege for two weeks now and thus needed to be relieved soon.

Icarus gathered his men and began training them on how to use their weapons. He also gave them some basic philosophy lessons, as he was convinced that knowledge not only helps in battle but also helps one win at love. After a few days, he was pleased with the progress of his men and felt confident that they would be ready to fight by the time they reached Eragur.

Icarus had a personal problem too. His heart was torn between his loyalty to Sparta and his desire to win this woman he had met a few weeks back. Unfortunately, he had no idea why she had such an effect on him or how to win her over.

The day before they were to leave for Eragur, Icarus was on guard duty with his small group of soldiers. As they walked through the deserted streets, he saw a young woman with long blonde hair walking around with a heavy sack on her shoulder. She looked at him and smiled shyly; he returned her smile with interest. They both walked away from each other without saying a word but shared a warm goodbye nonetheless.

It was only when they were back in their tents that Icarus realised what he had just done. He had abandoned his post and left all responsibility to his men. He felt guilty about it but still thought that there was no way he could return to the camp now when it was time for them to eat their evening meal. He resigned himself to just have a light dinner and go to bed early because he knew that they would march the next morning and wouldn’t have much time for sleep anyway.

He walked over to a nearby building and entered through one of the side doors because it looked as if it had been locked from inside. Instead of being alarmed at his intrusion, the owner of the building smiled at him and invited Icarus inside as if nothing was out of place. Icarus looked around the small room and found himself on the top floor with three other unfamiliar faces in it as well.

The first paragraph was my prompt, the rest was NovelAI-generated. The three errors I noticed in this text are:

1. The war was meant to be between Eragur and Sparta (according to the text in the memory box).
2. Icarus was supposed to meet the woman at Eragur, not in Sparta.
3. Icarus’ soldiers were not amateurs or recruits. They were already trained and didn’t need to be taught how to use their weapon.

A possible solution to these problems is to try making inputs after about 3 to 5 AI sentences. Leaving all of the writing up to the AI may result in undesired storylines and incorrect information.

I must mention that I made a mistake by naming the kingdom “Greece” in the memory box, but “Eragur” in the story. That may have confused the AI a little bit.

NovelAI Review: Pros & Cons

Below are the best and bad parts of the NovelAI platform:

Novel AI Pros

• A free version that lets users test AI story generation and experiment with the text adventure tool.
• It can write in the styles of famous authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, etc.
• It uses XSalsa20 Encryption on its servers and editor to protect your projects and prevent others from accessing them.
• It offers an AI image generator that you can use to generate visuals for your story.

Novel AI Cons

• The free tier is no more than a regular free trial with extreme limitations.
• The AI image generator is not available on the free tier
• The best AI storyteller (Krake) is made available only to the highest tier.
• The learning curve is somewhat steep, and it may take several tries to truly understand the tool. 

NovelAI Price

NovelAI offers four tiers to users who wish to use the platform.

• The Paper tier is the free trial of NovelAI – with 100 free AI generations.

• The Tablet tier ($10/month) includes access to Euterpe and 1024 tokens of memory.

• The Scroll tier ($15/month) includes everything from the previous tier plus 2048 tokens of memory.

• The Opus tier ($25/month) includes access to Krake, everything from the previous tier, and access to new and experimental features!

NovelAI for Mobile 

Although users have been clamoring for mobile versions of NovelAI for over two years now, there still isn’t an official app for the AI both on Google Play Store and Apple Store. 

Till the mobile apps are released, users may only access the platform through their mobile web browsers. Despite that, however, the UI is better accessed from a PC.

How to Use NovelAI for Free

NovelAI offers a free account named Paper. It serves as NovelAI’s free trial and although it offers 2048 tokens of memory which is the highest available, other areas of the AI are extremely limited.

NovelAI Review: NovelAI Alternatives

There are several AI story writers other than NovelAI. They include:

1. Jasper
2. Sudowrite
3. AI Dungeon
4. StoryLab
5. ShortlyAI

Conclusion

NovelAI is a powerful tool that can help you as a story writer to produce more quality work faster and more consistently. As soon as you master the settings and how it works, you will find it quite a prize. I hope this NovelAI review has helped fill your knowledge gap about this tool.