How to Write a Book in ChatGPT: Guide for 2025 (& Beyond)

Whether we like it or not, AI is revolutionizing how we do work (and will likely continue to do so), regardless of any future changes or regulation that might happen.

So it’s important to stay on top of the AI developments to ensure that we know how to work with AI and apply it in our own process. 

Not only will this make us a better and more productive writer, but it will also make us more attractive to employers.

In this article, I’m going to walk you through how to use AI, specifically ChatGPT, to write a book, along with my review of the platform as an AI writing tool, and what sets it apart.

Additionally, if you'd like to know more about how author can leverage AI, I'd invite you to check out my Story Hacker community, where we have dedicated teachers on various topics, including AI writing tools like this one.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI-powered conversational assistant designed to understand and respond to text-based questions or requests in a natural, human-like way. It can help with tasks like answering questions, generating content, or offering advice across a wide range of topics.

First released in late 2022, it's primarily responsible for launching AI written media to a whole new level, with big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and many others engaging in a hot race to see who could win the “AI wars”.

Yep, ChatGPT started all that.

But for authors, ChatGPT is a valuable resource for brainstorming, outlining, helping you when you get stuck, and even producing prose for your book (although it will likely need to be heavily edited).

As of this writing, ChatGPT uses a variety of different AI models:

• GPT 4.o mini: a faster but less advanced model for everyday tasks that's available for free to all users
• GPT 4o: the advanced “flagship” model that can reason across audio, vision, and text in real time, but is only available with limited access to free users
• o1 and o1-mini: the new large language model that's trained with reinforcement learning to perform complex reasoning
• o3-mini: Another reasoning engine that is even more powerful for logic and reasoning (though not as good for creative writing, in this author's opinion).

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How Much Does ChatGPT Cost?

There are three ways to use ChatGPT:

• The Free version — It's completely free to use and gives you limited access to 4o mini and 4o. It's what you should use when dipping your toes into AI, but it won't be able to do nearly as much as either paid version below.
• ChatGPT Plus — It costs $20/month and gives you extended limits on messaging, file uploads, advanced data analysis, and image generation. It also offers limited access to the new o1 and o1-mini. When someone says they have a “paid ChatGPT account,” 99% of the time they mean ChatGPT Plus.
• ChatGPT Pro — It costs $200/month and gives you the highest level of access, including the “o1 pro” mode.

Is ChatGPT Plus worth it?

If you plan to use the AI for advanced plotting or prose writing, then yes, I recommend ChatGPT Plus. However, if you’re just occasionally using the AI to brainstorm, summarize long passages, or to get some ideas, then it’s not necessary.

That said, if you plan on using ChatGPT extensively in your process, ChatGPT Plus is well worth the cost.

ChatGPT Pro and its $200/month price tag, on the other hand, is overkill for almost everyone. It's more suitable for businesses who have daily AI needs and could therefore benefit from the unlimited AI usage.

If you want more videos like this talking about the practical uses of AI in writing and marketing, be sure to subscribe to the channel.

What Are ChatGPT’s Strengths (Compared to Other Tools)

ChatGPT has emerged as a frontrunner among many AI tools and models. However, there are other tools like Sudowrite, Novelcrafter, Claude, or even OpenAI’s Playground that all have different and unique offerings.

So what makes ChatGPT unique?

Well, after having written tens of thousands of words with a variety of tools and platforms, I have several unique strengths that I’ve seen in ChatGPT that keep me coming back.

Better at Following Directions

One of ChatGPT's standout features is its ability to follow directions. While many AI tools can process instructions, ChatGPT does so with a precision and context-awareness that is hard to get with some other tools.

This means fewer errors, more accurate outputs, and less chance that the AI will wander off of the guardrails you’ve given it.

Better at Defined Structures and Logic

This is a little harder to pin down, exactly, but those who have been using ChatGPT for a while, and comparing to other platforms, will agree that ChatGPT is much better at structure, and providing structured answers.

Again, it’s hard to find a way to say it better than that.

ChatGPT usually provides answers that are easier to scan, are broken down nicely into a format, plus it’s also much better at following directions when you provide specific frameworks or examples to follow.

Code Interpreter

Code Interpreter is a feature that ChatGPT Plus users can use. It’s actually kind of mindblowing.

Basically, you can ask it to perform any reasonable task, and ChatGPT will write the code it needs to perform that task. It actually writes its own code.

For authors, this is particularly useful if you have some documents to upload to ChatGPT, then ask it to perform a specific task with those documents. The possibilities are quite extensive.

Custom Instructions

Every user is unique, and so are their requirements. Recognizing this, ChatGPT offers the ability to provide custom instructions. This means you can tailor the AI's responses to fit specific needs, ensuring personalized and relevant outputs.

It does this by giving you a field where you can input your custom style or information you want the AI to know, and it will remember those things for the entire chat, no matter how long the chat continues.

This is great, because previously it would eventually forget the things you told it in your initial prompt. With Custom Instructions, that doesn’t have to happen.

GPTs and Projects

ChatGPT Plugins allow the AI to perform specific, repetitive, or niche tasks that require additional setup. These can be set up by you, or you can use one created by someone else.

Projects are similar, but more private, and can involve multiple chats that all have the same instructions.

Canvas

Canvas is a feature that lets you edit the text of ChatGPT's output, almost like having a document right inside of ChatGPT that can be edited and manipulated by the AI.

How to Write a Book in ChatGPT

My steps for how to write a book in ChatGPT are similar to how you would do so in other AI programs, especially Claude and the OpenAI Playground.

The only major difference is the use of tools like Code Interpreter, Custom Instructions, and the like.

That said, here is my 7-step system for writing with ChatGPT. As always, you can use the AI for just one of these steps, or for all of them. Just pick where you have the most pain associated with the step, and use it for that.

For instance, I love doing the outlining, so I don’t use AI for that. But I’ve found it to be a great help in other areas.

Step 1: Brainstorm

Brainstorming is the creative groundwork for your novel. Here, you'll gather ideas, themes, and concepts that resonate with your story. 

It's all about letting your imagination run wild and capturing the sparks of creativity.

Personally, I always start by brainstorming my premise and my ending, if I don’t know what they should be already.

Here are some prompt I’ve used:

Give me [NUMBER] high-concept pitches for a bestselling [GENRE] story with a unique twist, intriguing characters, and gripping emotional stakes.

Given the following premise and story information, give me [NUMBER] possible endings to this [GENRE] novel.

Step 2: Synopsis

The synopsis is a concise summary that encapsulates the main plot points of your novel. It helps you understand the flow of your story and ensures that the critical elements align cohesively.

You can expand upon your brainstormed premise and ending using a prompt like the following:

Given the following premise and story information, give me a highly detailed synopsis for a [GENRE] story in the traditional three act structure. Each act should be clearly labeled and should build toward the ending I've described.

Premise:

Ending:

Other Information:

Step 3: Characters and Worldbuilding

Characters are the heart of your story, and worldbuilding sets the stage on which they perform. There are many prompts you could use here, but here is a sample prompt for developing a character profile:

Write a character profile about the protagonist/antagonist/mentor of this novel:

[INSERT SYNOPSIS] 

Here is what we know so far about this character: [INSERT CURRENT SUMMARY OF CHARACTER] 

Include the following elements: [INSERT DESIRED ELEMENTS HERE]

Step 4: Outline

Outlining offers a structured view of your novel's framework. It can be as detailed or as broad as you need it to be, providing a plan that you can follow as you write.

From your synopsis, you can expand it further into a fully fleshed out outline:

Using the following synopsis, create a detailed summary of the story, fleshing out additional details, and breaking it into parts using the [OUTLINE METHOD OF CHOICE]:

[INSERT SYNOPSIS HERE]

Step 5: Story Beats

When creating a story with AI, it helps to have an intermediate step between the outline and the actual writing. So fleshing out the outline into individual story beats (essentially a highly-detailed outline of each chapter), can look something like this:

Take the following chapter summary, and generate a list of 12 highly detailed action beats for a script with additional STORY INFORMATION to fully flesh out the chapter. Make sure to always use proper nouns instead of pronouns.

[INSERT CHAPTER SUMMARY HERE]

Step 6: Style

A style prompt is possibly the most important prompt on this list, as it will affect how the prose sounds when you use AI to generate prose. 

Style prompts can be lengthy, depending on how you use them. I've seen some that go on for hundreds of words, but here is one example of a shorter one that could work:

First person past point of view of [MAIN CHARACTER], show don't tell, deep point of view.  Realistic dialogue. Stronger verbs. Lots of conflict, drama, and description. Avoid mushy descriptions/dialogue.

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Step 7: Prose

Last but not least, it's time to create the prose prompt. Now many, if not most, authors will not be using AI for this step, and that's okay. In fact, I would say that AI is best used as a brainstorming tool.

However, there are many who DO want to write prose with AI, and I would do it something like this, using 2-3 story beats at a time.

Note that a tool like Sudowrite or Novelcrafter make this process a lot easier, removing the need for any prompt, and instead you just give it a summary of the next section of prose.

Write 600 words of a chapter using the following details:

Genre: [ENTER GENRE HERE]

Tone: [ENTER TONE HERE]

Point of View: [ENTER POV/TENSE HERE]

Setting: [ENTER SETTING HERE]

Key Characters in This Scene: [ENTER CHARACTER DETAILS HERE]

Style: [ENTER STYLE HERE]

Story Beats to Cover: [INSERT STORY BEATS]

Other Resources

AI is an ever-shifting resource, and so there are a few additional resources that I would recommend if you want to stay on top of it.

The first, is my own YouTube channel, The Nerdy Novelist (a personal project, not associated with Kindlepreneur) where I provide almost daily videos about the goings on in AI.

Check Out the Nerdy Novelist Here

The second is my membership: Story Hackers, where you can learn everything you need to know not just about writing with AI, but a more well-rounded overview of how to publish a book and the basic principles of good storytelling.

We have multiple classes each week where you can get tailored advice for your specific situation.

Check Out Story Hacker Here

So, is ChatGPT the Best Way to Write with AI?

While ChatGPT is great, it has it's limitations.

First, it's not really built with authors in mind. While it's incredibly versatile, I would rely on it to do anything tailored to the author experience.

Second, it really requires a lot of prompt engineering to figure out and get the most out of it. The prompts in this article will help, but they're just a starting point.

Thankfully, there are other programs that uses what GPT (and other LLMs) gives you under the hood, but shapes it specifically for fiction authors.

One is called Sudowrite, and it's the easiest option (for now) for fiction authors who are just starting out experimenting with AI.

Now, I've done a full roundup of the best AI writing tools, but this one is carefully designed to cover tasks that authors often need, like brainstorming, character creation, and editing.

Sudowrite is packed with a lot of different features, to the point that I'm sure many of you can find something that works for you, and it's a great way to start experimenting with AI, even if you're still a little on the fence about it.

To help with that, if you use the link below, you can actually get 10,000 words for free when you sign up, meaning you can use those words to experiment further before you even pay for the tool. So check them out if you're interested.

Check Out Sudowrite Here