Lab notes · 4 jobs
Sudowrite is for fiction that sounds like a person wrote it
Sudowrite is software for fiction writers. You open a manuscript, keep a Story Bible of characters and rules, and press buttons on the sentences themselves: Describe adds sensory detail, Write continues the chapter using up to the last 20,000 words, Expand turns a thin paragraph into a scene. It is not a general chatbot, and it is not a content engine for marketing teams. I ran four jobs: a lifeless dock scene, a mid-book continuation with a character bible, a two-sentence fight, and a B2B landing page I asked for on purpose so we would know what happens when you use the wrong tool. Two of those jobs are why you would pay for it. One is why you still have to reread. One is why your marketing team should not.
Run 01
I asked it to add sensory detail to a lifeless scene (Describe)
What I fed itI wrote 180 words of a woman walking down a dock, opening a warehouse, and finding a coat on a chair. No weather. No sound. No reason to keep reading. I selected the coat and pressed Describe — Sudowrite’s button for adding sensory detail to the sentence under the cursor.
Where it shone
It came back with wet wool, a cigarette burn on the cuff, and rain hitting corrugated iron like someone typing in the next room. ChatGPT can do that if you prompt it hard. Sudowrite does it as a button on the sentence, which is the product: you stay in the manuscript instead of leaving to chat.
Where it face-planted
It also planted a folded ferry ticket in the pocket. I had not put a ferry in the book. Describe will invent plot because plot looks like detail. If you accept the pretty line, you accept a clue you did not write. I deleted the ticket. I kept the rain.
The useful output was not “more adjectives.” It was the sound of rain on the roof. The dangerous output was a clue I did not ask for. Sensory detail is why you buy this. Unsolicited evidence is why you reread.
Run 02
I asked it to continue chapter eight using a character bible (Write)
What I fed itI filled the Story Bible — Sudowrite’s character sheet — with two rules: the detective has a glass left eye, and he will not drink on the job. Chapter eight ends with him in a kitchen at 2 a.m. I pressed Write, auto mode, and let it generate about 300 words of continuation.
Where it shone
It stayed in the kitchen. It remembered the hour. It did not invent a car chase. For a novelist stuck in the middle of a book, that is the real feature: it has read the pages behind the cursor, not just the last chat message.
Where it face-planted
In paragraph two he “caught her gaze with both eyes.” The Story Bible lost. Then he poured two inches of whiskey and did not drink it — a cute dodge, and a lie, because the bible said he does not pour. Continuity holds until it is a coin flip. You still own chapter eight.
I kept the 2 a.m. kitchen. I cut the whiskey. I fixed the eyes. Three edits is cheaper than staring at a blank page. It is not cheaper than skipping the reread.
Run 03
I asked it to turn a two-sentence fight into a full scene (Expand)
What I fed itThe original text was: “He swung. She ducked and the knife hit the table.” Expand is Sudowrite’s button for stretching a thin passage. I asked it to match the texture of the dock chapter.
Where it shone
It found the weight of the knife, the way the table jumped, and the second of silence after the blade stuck. General chatbots flatten pacing. Expand puts air back into a scene you rushed because you wanted to get to the dialogue.
Where it face-planted
By the end of the paragraph I could not tell who still held the handle. Geography died for poetry. If two bodies and one knife are on the table, you need blocking, not a metaphor. I restaged who held what by hand.
Sudowrite will make a fight feel expensive. It will not keep score of who is holding the knife. That is still your job.
Run 04
I asked it to write a B2B landing page — the wrong job, on purpose
What I fed itI asked for a hero headline and three bullets for accounts-payable software that catches duplicate invoices. The audience was a controller at a 200-person company. This is marketing copy with a claims list. Sudowrite is not built for that. I ran it anyway so we would have a clean miss, not a guess.
Where it shone
Nothing useful. That is the result I needed. If this page had been good, I would tell you to buy Sudowrite for marketing, and I would be lying.
Where it face-planted
The hero was “Your invoices are wounded birds looking for a nest.” Bullet one compared matching purchase-order numbers to “two strangers recognizing each other in the rain.” A controller would forward it as a joke and not buy. Legal would stop it. Search engines would bounce.
This is the most useful run on the page. Sudowrite is not a worse ChatGPT. It is a different product. If your job is a spec sheet, a blog, or an ad, you are using the wrong tool and it will clap at the wrong things.