The ideal tool for novelists: which parts of it six AI apps already have

NovelAI runs on models from its own lineup and continues the text the author started. It has a free tier, but my account didn't get the trial ("not eligible for the free trial"), so from there I went through the plans and the help pages.

Pros

• Unlimited text on any paid plan, from $10 a month.
• Free Paper tier: 50 text generations and 30 images.
• Text Adventure mode: I write what the hero does, the AI moves the plot. Images cost subscription credits and are free on the top plan.

Cons

• The AI sees about 29,000 tokens (roughly 21,000 English words), even on the top plan. It can't hold a whole novel.
• The Lorebook (the record of facts) is kept by hand, and there is no plot outline. A manuscript can only be pasted into the editor: import accepts only NovelAI's own files.
• Only models from the NovelAI lineup: Xialong, GLM-4.6, Erato, Kayra. My guess is that these are hardly top models on the level of Fable 5.2 or GPT-6 Astra.
• No analytics. The book exports only to .txt.

I put my idea into the Story Bible (Sudowrite's name for the book's record of facts), and a wizard walked me through the steps: synopsis, an outline of twenty-odd chapters, scene plans for chapter one. That's where the trial credits ran out, so I never got to the prose.

Pros

• Open to everyone since 2021, with more than 300,000 authors.
• Voice: a mobile app with dictation.
• Book review: Feedback works on a scene, a chapter or the whole book, and Beta Read gives notes from three AI readers. This is analytics in words, there are no charts. You can also ask about the project in chat.
• Dozens of models to choose from, and the Unfiltered scale shows how filtered each one is. You can upload a finished novel in full, and outlines come with structure templates (Hero's Journey, Story Circle and others).

Cons

• Only its own credits: no way to connect a ChatGPT or Claude subscription or your own key. One image costs from 2,500 credits.
• Draft writes one chapter at a time and doesn't write the whole book straight through. The Story Bible updates on request, not by itself.
• Feedback and Beta Read are only on the Professional and Max plans. Export to .docx, no EPUB or PDF.

NovelistAI writes novels and gamebooks. From my list, it lets me choose the model, and getting started is easy. I went through a seven-step wizard: format, model, language, genre, style, length and more. The free plan allows only a short story, the length fields open on Premium.

Pros

• The wizard walks you through every setting, and "Write Full Chapter" finishes a chapter with one button.
• The model is chosen per book (Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok), and a page can be rewritten with another one. It works in many languages.
• Export to PDF, EPUB, TXT and an MP3 audiobook. Entry price $9 a month, billed yearly.

Cons

• You can't upload your own draft: the book starts inside the app.
• Memory is the last 5 pages, more on Premium. No character cards, no timeline, no analytics.
• No scene plan, it runs only on the app's credits, and images cost credits too.

The home page opens with an "idea → book" box. I pasted my idea, and Squibler proposed an outline of several chapters, set up characters and places, and started writing. The free plan was enough for that. Squibler doesn't name the model that writes; judging by the text, it falls short of top models on the level of Fable 5.2 or GPT-6 Astra.

Pros

• It writes the book straight through, following the outline it proposes, and I edit.
• Imports DOCX, PDF, Markdown and TXT; supports projects over 200,000 words.
• Unlimited images on paid plans. On the Plus plan the AI edits the whole manuscript and analyzes its structure (Review).

Cons

• The most expensive entry: $29.99 a month, $15.83 billed yearly.
• The model isn't named and can't be chosen, and it runs only on Squibler credits. Character cards are kept by hand, and outside Review the only analytics is a word count.
• Built for English; reviews complain it slows down after 50,000 words.

I connected an OpenRouter key and got 377 models to choose from. A Claude or ChatGPT subscription can't be connected. The author starts every scene, from beats (short notes on what happens in it). From my list, it has the freedom to choose a model.

Pros

• Models through an OpenRouter or OpenAI key, plus local ones (Ollama, LM Studio).
• A novel outline as a grid, a matrix or a list, and import of a whole novel from .docx.
• The Codex (a wiki of characters and places) shows where each character appears, and there is a character heat map. Entry price $8 a month, a 21-day trial with no card.

Cons

• You need an API key, and the AI is paid per use, on top of the plan.
• No autopilot, and the Codex is kept by hand.
• Building a section of a chapter step by step from beats gets somewhat monotonous. In my view, it limits creativity and makes it hard to keep even one chapter consistent.
• No images or voice. Export to Word and Markdown, no EPUB or PDF.

Here I put my idea into the Draft, set the number of scenes and their length, and turned on the autopilot. After that I didn't click anything: AuthorCAT assembled the canon (cards for characters and places, a timeline) by itself, wrote the novel foundation, the synopsis, the scene plan and every scene in it. Claude Fable 5 did the writing, on my own subscription. From my list, it has the canon and the style, both modes, top models, analytics, illustrations, and voice and finished manuscripts as input.

Pros

• Runs on the AI subscription you already have (Claude, ChatGPT, Google AI, SuperGrok and others) or on your own key. No credits. Top models come with the subscription: Claude Fable 5.2, Claude Opus 5.5, GPT-6 Astra. When you hit your subscription's usage limit, the autopilot waits for it to reset and resumes by itself.
• A team of AI agents assembles the canon from the draft: first what the book is about and its style, then the characters, then how the world works. After every accepted scene the canon updates itself.
• The style guide keeps the style steady: in Style test I can check and adjust it on sample passages, and the guide and voice samples go into every scene.
• Both modes: you can write scenes yourself, let the autopilot follow your plan, or have it plan and write the novel from your draft. The story is built in steps, from the novel foundation (premise and conflict) and the synopsis to the scene plan and a detailed plan of each scene, and every step can be edited by hand.
• Story simulation (in Story): a narrator describes the situation and suggests what the hero might do, I pick an option or write my own and see the consequences. It is essentially a text adventure, and what I play goes into the scene plan.
• Context is set per scene: in Scene context I can see which materials the model receives and change them with checkboxes. Models are assigned by role: one writes the prose, another handles the background tasks.
• Voice: AuthorCAT turns a recording from your phone's voice recorder into text in the Draft, or in the plan as material for a scene. The transcription runs on your own xAI, OpenAI or Gemini key.
• The Assistant answers questions about the book and checks the answers against the canon. Editing, proofreading and polishing are done by a team of AI agents too: Polish works from my notes, and the whole novel gets proofread (style, repetition, scene joins, the logic of the world and of actions).

• Analytics, seven views: a reverse outline, a tension curve, a presence canvas (which character is in which scene), Guns on the wall (plot threads still unresolved before the finale), a metro map (each character's line through the book's places), character paths, and a panorama. The tension curve can be saved as a video.

• Languages: for six languages (English, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese) the prompts are written in the language of the novel, and the canon and drafts are kept in it too. Translation chapter by chapter with one glossary of names. Export to EPUB, DOCX, PDF and FB2.

• Illustrations: first a portrait of every character and a view of every place, then scene pictures with the same faces. There are 20 ready-made styles, each with a preview, and you can make your own. No separate credits for images, but you need a ChatGPT subscription or an OpenAI key.

• Importing a finished novel ("Upload your text" when you create a novel): the app accepts manuscript files up to 100 MB, splits the text into chapters and assembles the canon by itself. The finished book can then be proofread, illustrated or continued. You can also start a sequel as a new book (volume two and beyond): AuthorCAT carries the characters, the world and the style over from the previous book's canon.

Cons

• You need a computer: the Bridge app installs on Windows 10/11 or a Mac with Apple silicon. There is no phone version yet, but the developers promise to launch one soon.
• The model isn't included in the price: you need your own AI subscription or key. Censorship is that of the connected model: whatever it won't write, it won't write in AuthorCAT either.
• It's new: open beta since late October 2026, and the price after the beta hasn't been announced.