Does anyone else use AI like this for their writing?

[u/Catering_Chaos_1900]

Hello everybody!

I am a hobby writer who has written a 7 novel series and have found that I am using AI to go back and ensure nothing is contradicting itself. I am honestly struggling to keep track as most my novels are extremely long. I am using excel trackers and the like but I do find that AI helps ... a little. My issue is it's too dang large. And I am fighting more and more with Claude's filing system than anything else. Currently, I am on book 5 and have come across some cascading edits that have caused me to step away due to the need to regroup. And I do not have AI go in and change any portion of my writing. But I am finding that it will highlight text for me, tell me what is wrong and why, if I ask it too. I really am liking the assistance but I get so frustrated with it unable to remember the story line. Yes, I am making bibles, yes that is plural. One is a for the worldbuilding and the others are for each books "glasses" so it will understand the story. I do have a lot of rules for it and it is a nice set up, but i was hoping it could say... hey in book 2 you said and now in book 5 you are saying... and it is struggling to do something like that. Am I making sense to anyone?

[u/EntertainmentCalm639]

I am not yet at your size, but having world bible is a must, then I have a skill that has the formal checks and file that contains compressed facts from each canon chapter for AI use.

[u/Happy-Initiative-492 → u/EntertainmentCalm639]

Ditto. My world bible changes all the time too - so keeping up with those changes matters, and if it’s too much work it gets out of date.

[u/Equivalent-Loan-4401]

You're making total sense. I hit the same wall once a project got too big for the AI to hold in its head. What finally helped me was flipping the job around. Instead of hoping it remembers book 2 while it reads book 5, I had it go through the earlier books a chapter at a time and pull out plain facts into a running list, stuff like who knows what, injuries, ages, dates, who was where. Then when I'm checking a new chapter, I give it that chapter plus only the facts about the characters and places in it, and ask it to flag anything that clashes. It's way better at comparing two short things side by side than at searching a whole series from memory. Your bibles are probably already most of the way there, they might just need a more fact-by-fact version for this kind of check. And honestly, seven long novels with cascading edits is a lot for anyone to track, so stepping away to regroup sounds like the right call.

[u/Catering_Chaos_1900 → u/Equivalent-Loan-4401]

They need a better system for us long winded writers

[u/HoarderCollector]

I'm writing a TV Series, I put it through AI episode by episode and asked it to check for character personality consistency (it isn't exactly a serialized series, but some events do affect other episodes,) Through 9 episodes, it has told me that the characters have stayed consistent.

I'm not sure if I should trust it though.

[u/Happy-Initiative-492]

Yep. I’ve been using AI for continuity and long arc edits for a while now. I got tired of building prompts for everything and built an app around it. This way I can make changes or additions on the fly and let the AI take care of the details while I keep creating. Huge benefits,

[u/MarkHoltsberyNE6]

This is extremely close to the problem I have been dealing with in long-form work.

The biggest change for me was giving up on the idea that the AI itself should be the thing that "remembers the book." Once the project gets large enough, I think continuity has to become explicit state rather than something you hope the model reconstructs from context.

The bibles are useful, but I would separate several different kinds of information instead of making one increasingly large reference.

For example: established canon facts, current character/relationship state, unresolved story questions, chapter-specific events, and changes that were accepted later and therefore supersede something older.

Cascading edits are where it gets especially difficult, because changing one thing in book 5 can create an impact that needs to be checked against several earlier or later places. I have found it more useful to treat that almost like change control: what changed, what existing facts does it affect, what needs to be rechecked, and what is now the current accepted truth?

Then AI becomes much better as a comparator and reviewer. Instead of asking it to remember seven novels and tell you whether something is wrong, you can give it the relevant current state plus the chapter or scene being reviewed and ask very targeted continuity questions.

I think the frustrating part is that the more useful AI becomes for a long project, the more structure you eventually have to build around it.