Sudowrite Release Notes

We’ve got a huge update for you this week, with a few headline items below you definitely don’t want to miss.

Excellent Credit Efficiency

Earlier this week we launched Ballad 1.1, Sudowrite’s very own new AI model powering the Excellent Prose Mode. The response has been incredible, with many of you saying it has quickly become your daily driver. There was constructive feedback too, however—primarily that the credit cost of generating multiple Write cards could really add up (especially with big Story Bibles or longer chapters linked in continuity.

Based on that feedback, we made some key changes to how Excellent works. The result? You’ll now save up to 70% on credit costs when generating multiple Write cards with Excellent. The more cards at once, the bigger the savings.

Improved Plugin Editor

If you’ve ever clicked “Create Plugin” in the More Tools menu, you know how simple that first step is—say what you need, and Sudowrite builds it for you. Finalizing your custom writing tool in the editor was less intuitive though, so we just launched an improved Plugin editor that dramatically simplifies the process.

We’ve done away with a complex table of variables, and made it easy to pick from a selector which story inputs you want your plugin to use. New input fields will appear below the Plugin Instructions only for the story inputs you want your plugin to use—so you can force someone to select at least a hundred words to use it, or increase the limit so your Plugin can read a complete manuscript.

Updates to our documentation, including a video walkthrough of this new Plugin creation flow, are coming very soon!

Other Improvements

Claude Opus 4.8 - We’ve added Anthropic’s latest, “greatest” AI model to Sudowrite. Early reviews suggest improvements in prose quality, instruction-following, and consistency across longer outputs—but feedback differs based on genre. Try it out now in Write, Draft or Plugins.

Model Context on History Cards - Can’t remember if you used Opus 4.7 or 4.8 on that last Write click? We just added a new Model chiclet to the Write and Draft cards that appear in your History column, so you’ll always know which AI model wrote the card in question.

Chat Web Research - We heard your feedback that Chat being able to search the web would be a game changer, so we gave it the ability to do so. You can now ask Chat to go research and synthesize things from the internet. Try it with genre conventions or trope data.

Fixes

Rewrite Error Fix - We fixed an issue earlier this week that caused some of you to get a “Something went wrong” error when trying to use Rewrite.

Word Count While Drafting - The word count was not updating consistently while the Draft tool was generating chapter prose. We fixed that and it now gives you a much better real-time picture of your document length during generation.

POV Persistence - We fixed an issue where, after manually setting the chapter POVs in your Story Bible’s Outline, refreshing the page or navigating away could result in those being reset. Your POV will now persist as intended.

Chat History Cutoff - We fixed a bug that was preventing people with very long chat exchanges from scrolling all the way back to the beginning of their chat thread.

More Menu Dismissal - Clicking the three-dot (•••) More menu on a History card would expand a menu with a delete option that could not be dismissed. We fixed that and made it easier to dismiss that menu if you didn’t want to delete your History card.

Large Project Duplication - Projects with over 150 documents could get stuck during the duplication process, but still display a “success” message. We fixed that so large projects work as expected now, but also, if a duplication fails the message is now correct.

Thanks as always for bringing these issues to our attention. Keep the great feedback coming!

Recently the widely beloved AI model that powered the Excellent Prose Mode was discontinued. We were determined to minimize the disruption to your workflow, so we rolled out a replacement modeled closely after it—Sudowrite’s second in-house model, called Ballad. It eased the transition for sure, but you let us know exactly where there was still room for improvement.

We took your feedback, and today we’re introducing Ballad 1.1, a brilliant new model that preserves everything you loved about Excellent while dramatically improving its voice and instruction-following capacity.

Our early testers have confirmed our own results with Ballad 1.1, sharing detailed feedback on the improvements they noticed.

• It actually follows your Extra Instructions - Those specific notes you leave to try and tune your prose results (yes, even “no em dashes”) are way more likely to be incorporated in your results now.
• Capacity for unflinching intimacy - If you write romance or anything steamy, you may have noticed Ballad getting shy in the heat of the moment. Ballad 1.1 understands the importance of those scenes, and doesn’t cut away. (By our estimates it’s also about 40% more willing to use the vulgar terminology you want, when asked.)
• Improved POV and Tense adherence - You shared instances where Ballad’s prose would drift from your defined POV or Tense, sometimes mid-chapter. With Ballad 1.1 we’ve fixed that, and it now sticks to the POV and Tense you’re writing in rather than using its own.
• Significantly reduced repetition - Many of you encountered “echoes” with the original Ballad, where scenes or phrasing might replay within a chapter. We’ve eliminated that phenomenon with Ballad 1.1.
• Less robotic all around - In the same vein, it was possible for Ballad to parrot your own wording back word-for-word. It’s now more original, transforming your scenes into something that reads naturally—something fresh, and ready for the page.
• **…a certain je ne sais quoi **- Creating a voice that sounds just the way you want is more art than science. Our testers have confirmed that Ballad 1.1 has “it,” even though “it” may sound different from author to author.

One final note: We took Ballad 1.1 away from our testers briefly to address their final feedback, and they were super eager to get it back. As JD said in Discord, “Going back to [the old] Excellent… feels like a painful downgrade after some of my Ballad [1.1] results.”

Well, good news for our testers and you: The Excellent Prose Mode is now officially powered by Ballad 1.1. Just select Excellent in either the Write or Draft tool, and you’re writing with Ballad. We can’t wait to hear what you think.

Good news for bad spellers (like me 😅). Sudowrite now includes built-in, Story Bible-aware spelling and grammar checking—on by default, right inside your editor, and totally free to use.

How it works

As you write, misspelled words are underlined in red, and grammar issues are underlined in blue inside your document. Click any underlined word or phrase to see a suggested correction, then approve it with one click or ignore it and move on.

If you believe that ignorance is bliss and you’d prefer to disable spelling and grammar checks, just toggle off the purple ABC icon at the very top of the editor.

Your dictionary, your rules

Writing fiction means using invented names, made-up places, and words that just don’t appear in a standard dictionary. That's why:

• Character and Worldbuilding names from your Story Bible are automatically recognized—names, locations, and specific terminology you've already defined in Story Bible won't show up as spelling errors… assuming you spelled them correctly.
• You can add other words to your dictionary with one click.
• You can ignore grammar rules that go against your house style.

Spelling & Grammar Settings

Your custom dictionary and ignored grammar rules are saved in a new account-level Settings menu. This menu also allows you to select your Language and Region preferences—so that whether you live in the UK or the US, we can both believe we are spelling color correctly.

This menu will look slightly different from project-to-project, as it will also display the Character and Worldbuilding entries specific to the project you’re in. Dismiss dictionary entries or ignored grammar rules using the X beside them.

Find this new menu under More Settings via the Settings gear icon in the upper right.

Built for fiction writers

You’ve been asking for this for a long time, and it was really important to us to give you something smart and flexible that works great for fiction authors. We’re excited to make this available to everyone on every plan at no extra cost, and we’re looking forward to your feedback.

Today we’re releasing two of the biggest improvements to Sudowrite ever. Introducing Sudowrite Chat and Feedback, two new features that’ll change the way you write, revise, and prepare to publish your work.

(Re)Introducing Sudowrite Chat

Talking through your story is essential to figuring it all out. But generic chatbots only know what you tell them.

Sudowrite’s new, improved Chat is the good kind of know-it-all, with a complete picture of your characters, your outline, and your whole story world. The best part? Chat can now work alongside you all across Sudowrite.

We’ve given Chat all the tools it needs to be a full-fledged assistant. It already knew your Story Bible, but now it knows your Series. It could already read your documents, but now it can edit them, and even create brand-new ones for you.

Chat can also now use tools like Write and Rewrite, or leave you comments right on your work. It can use the highlighter to point out whatever you need help spotting. And for complex asks, Chat will even propose a multi-step plan for your approval.

To achieve this, Chat has a new “Allow edits” mode that will use credits (just like other features on Sudowrite). But in “Chat only” mode, Sudowrite Chat remains free to use by default.

Brilliant Feedback on Demand

Sudowrite could already get you to a first draft faster than ever, but we haven’t offered a clear pathway to your final draft… until now. Introducing Feedback.

Feedback reads your entire document and leaves you smart, specific comments in the margins—just like a real editor. It allows you to choose your desired edit type, and then goes to work marking up your document with full context from your Story Bible. (That means it won’t suggest you strike a scene in chapter three that would ruin a payoff in chapter nine—at least, not without good reason.)

Choose from over a dozen specific Feedback types—whether you need notes on pacing, structure, plot holes, dialogue, and more—or effortlessly create and save a Custom Feedback type of your own (so you can finally nix your personal prose pet peeves for good).

Sometimes you want a more subjective read-through, so Feedback also includes a Beta Read option. Three distinct readers are available: Maya tracks where the emotions land. Anton watches structure, pacing, and motivation. Joan finds the places where plausibility breaks and your readers would put the book down. Get their notes one at a time, or all at once.

Finally, fix what feedback found with help. Every comment comes with a suggested edit or clear next step. You can even reply @Sudowrite to any comment, and Chat picks up the thread in the reply. Your Feedback pass is just the beginning of the editing conversation.

Feedback is live now and will be exclusive to Professional and Max plans. To celebrate the launch, all Sudowrite subscribers can try Feedback through June 15.

Sudowrite Chat and Feedback are both available now. Whether you're just getting started or putting on the final polish, Sudowrite can now help at every step of the process. We can’t wait to hear what you think.

We’ve been busy! Here’s a look at some of our most recent fixes and improvements.

Rewrite Fix

We resolved an issue yesterday with the Rewrite tool that was causing it to produce a “something went wrong” error. It’s working normally again.

Editor Resizing Fix

With the left and right columns collapsed, you should still be able to resize the main editor column as desired—but that wasn’t working. We fixed that though, and the purple resize handles work consistently now.

Resize Handle Clipping

Speaking of those purple resize handles, we fixed an issue where they could appear on top of the Settings panel if you had that expanded.

Tense Consistency

We resolved an issue where the Write button would occasionally ignore your Tense setting, causing it to write prose in the wrong tense.

Opus 4.6 Punctuation Fix

We fixed an issue where Claude Opus 4.6 was generating backwards quotation marks and apostrophes, especially after em dashes and in contractions.

Visualize in Selection Menu

When we increased the Visualize word limit to 500 words, we didn’t update the Selection Menu. Visualize now appears in that menu whenever you’ve highlighted a right-sized passage.

Share Modal Scrolling

The list of documents in a project’s Share modal was not scrolling like it should. We fixed that so you can finally share those later chapters.

Star Button on Cards

We fixed an issue where the star-shaped Favorite button on History cards was occasionally unresponsive.

Scene Title Length

We fixed a bug where Draft could generate obscenely long scene titles instead of concise ones.

Too Much Trash

It became impossible to empty your project’s trash if you had too many documents in it at once. We fixed that, and you can once again live a peaceful, trash-free life.

Series Folder Deletion

We fixed an issue with deleting Series folders so that all projects inside the folder will stay together when you move it to the trash, making permanent deletion easier.

Faster Find & Replace

We changed the default Find & Replace search scope from Project to Document, which makes it much faster in large projects. (You can still toggle to Story Bible or the full Project scope when you need it!)

Anthropic just released Claude Opus 4.7, their most powerful (publicly available) model. We've just added it to Sudowrite.

Anthropic describes Opus 4.7 as "more tasteful and creative" than its predecessor. Some early adopters are calling it a leap forward for fiction, but others note it can be more literal and strict in how it interprets your instructions. If you loved Opus 4.6, you'll likely appreciate 4.7's precision; if you prefer a looser, more imaginative touch, it may take some experimentation to find the sweet spot.

Claude Opus 4.7 is available now in Write, Draft, and Plugins. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

We just made the Import Novel process even better. When you bring your work into Sudowrite, you now get a personalized Import Report—a detailed analysis of your work and a prioritized checklist of what to do next**.**

Import Novel has always been the fastest way to get started in Sudowrite. You bring in your half-finished work, completed draft, or messy pile of notes and Sudowrite creates a Story Bible for you automatically—Characters, Worldbuilding, Outline, and more. But once the import was complete, it was still up to you to figure out what to do next.

Now, as soon as your import finishes, you'll see a new document containing an analysis of your work. It looks at what was imported, provides an executive summary and reaction, and suggests actionable next steps—including which Sudowrite tools might help you most, or where your Story Bible could use some attention.

Think of it as a personalized onboarding guide.

Where to find it:

Just import your work using the existing Import Novel button. The Import Report will appear as its own document in the project’s Left sidebar once the import completes.

The best part? Import Novel doesn’t use any credits, so this super useful new utility is free. We’ve already got some neat ideas on how to make the Import process even better—but in the meantime, let us know what you think!

The team has been working on a bunch of accessibility improvements, and we're excited to share what we’ve shipped so far.

We’ve improved screen reader support across the web app.

That includes updating button labels, ARIA attributes, and keyboard navigation across several key areas of Sudowrite. If you use a screen reader like NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver, you should notice a much smoother experience when navigating key areas, including:

• Projects Page - Screen readers now properly announce project names, folders, and actions, making navigation clearer and more predictable.
• Main Menu Bar - We’ve given all menu items and navigation buttons descriptive labels, so screen readers can identify every control.
• Left Sidebar - We've fully labeled chapter lists, document navigation, and sidebar controls, and you can now navigate them entirely by keyboard.

More is on the way!

We're still working on the same improvements for the Editor, Story Bible, Right Sidebar, and Plugins page. We hope to wrap those up and roll them out soon.

You’ve been asking for these improvements for a while, and we're committed to making Sudowrite work great for every writer. If you use assistive technology and run into anything that doesn't work as expected, please reach out—your feedback directly shapes this work.

GPT 5.4 release

We've just added GPT 5.4, OpenAI's latest model, to Sudowrite.

According to OpenAI, GPT 5.4 brings some big improvements over previous GPT models. It's reportedly much more factual and better at following complex instructions. It also supports up to 1 million tokens of context, meaning you'll be able to max out Chapter Continuity or build Plugins capable of reading entire manuscripts.

As for how it writes, early reviews suggest GPT 5.4 is a solid improvement over other GPT models. Authors have said it sounds warmer and more varied, and it's especially strong at dialogue, style mimicry, and plotting complex narratives. If you love the rich literary feel of Muse or the precision of Claude's Sonnet, this probably won’t replace those—but for structure-heavy drafts, long-form consistency, and Plugins, it's a powerful new option.

GPT 5.4 is available now in Write, Draft, and Plugins. Give it a spin and let us know what you think!

New AI Models

We just added two of the newest AI models available to Sudowrite.

Gemini 3.1 Pro is Google's latest flagship model, bringing strong creative range and fast, reliable output. It's a great option for writers who want to experiment with a different voice, and thanks to its massive context window, a powerful choice for those building out Plugins.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is Anthropic's latest Sonnet-tier model, built for smart, efficient performance—on par with Opus 4.6, but lighter on credits. It balances creative quality with speed, making it a solid everyday choice whether you're pantsing in Write or generating a full chapter in Draft. If you loved Sonnet 3.7, we think you’ll really like how 4.6 sounds.

Both models are available now in Write, Draft, and Plugins. We also have a couple of other recent updates you should know about.

Import Novel Fix

Import Novel Fix — We fixed an issue where Import Novel would occasionally get stuck midway through or skip the Character creation step.

Draft Tool Improvements

Draft Tool Improvements — We made improvements to the Draft tool that make the process more intuitive and also make it easier to select your preferred AI model.

You may have heard that both OpenAI and Anthropic are deprecating some beloved models this month. Well, good news: Both GPT-4o and Claude 3.7 Sonnet will remain available on Sudowrite beyond February.
You’ve told us repeatedly that Claude 3.7 Sonnet is one of your favorite models for writing—there’s a reason it’s the base model for our Excellent Prose Mode. We’ve worked to make 3.7 Sonnet available on Sudowrite until April 28, even though it's going away elsewhere next week.
As for GPT-4o, that’s leaving ChatGPT today, but we’ll keep it available for the foreseeable future. We’ll also keep you posted on any developments regarding discontinued access to it. Our goal is to preserve your workflow best we can, and we’ll always pull whatever favors we can to retain access to the models you love.

Meanwhile, here are some of the bug fixes and improvements we made this week.

Bug fixes and improvements this week

• Find & Replace Performance — Projects with lots of documents or a huge Story Bible had difficulty typing search terms in project-wide Find & Replace. We improved the performance, and while it still takes some time to search across larger projects, it’s much more usable now.
• POV & Tense Performance — We sped up POV and Tense detection, so when you make material changes to your Synopsis those fields update much faster now.
• Last Document Deletion — We fixed an issue on mobile where it was possible to delete the very last document in a project and get things stuck. You can’t do that now.
• Trait Paste Formatting — Pasting markdown-formatted content into a Character or Worldbuilding trait field was creating duplicates: a markdown-formatted and plain text version. We resolved the issue, and now only formatted text shows up.
• Story Bible History — We fixed an issue where clicking into any Story Bible section’s History fields made those fields appear editable—they’re not, no matter how much you’d like to rewrite History.

Claude Opus 4.6 Release Notes

Today Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.6, its most powerful model yet—and we just added it to Sudowrite.
Anthropic is pitching Opus 4.6 as a meaningful upgrade in performance, and it should prove super capable at logically demanding tasks (especially in your Plugins). That said, it’s brand new and we’re not sure how well it’s suited to the task of creative writing. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback on its voice and what you like it best for!

Claude Opus 4.6 is live now in Write, Draft, and Plugins. We’ve also been hard at work on other improvements and fixes. Here’s a look at what else is new:

• Faster Editor Loading - We’ve dramatically improved the editor load time, which should be especially noticeable when loading Sudowrite projects on slower devices.

• Chat Loading Fix - We recently resolved an issue that was causing Chat to display a Something Went Wrong' message when loading.

• Write Card Settings - We resolved an issue that was causing the Number of Cards under Write Settings to reset to the default when a plan received its monthly credits. Your Number of Cards setting will now properly persist.

• Character Trait Persistence - There was an issue in Character cards where using the Generate or Rewrite feature inside a trait (such as Physical Description) caused Pronouns, Groups, and Other Names to be erased. We’ve fixed that.

• Import Novel Fix - We fixed an issue that caused certain books to fail during the Outline generation step of Import Novel.

• Project Export Failures - We identified and resolved an issue where emoji in your Project title could result in failed project exports.

• Apple Login Issue - We fixed an issue that was preventing some users from logging in using the Continue with Apple option.

• Draft Tense Fix - The Draft tool would sometimes ignore the selected Tense in favor of writing in its own preferred tense. We fixed that!

Thanks as always for bringing these issues to our attention!

Based on your feedback, we’ve made a few recent improvements to Story Bible.

You can now de-noise your Story Bible by collapsing any sections you don’t need open. For example, if your Synopsis is dialed in and you’re focused on Characters, you can collapse the Synopsis using the chevron toggle next to the section title. The AI still sees everything—you just don’t have to.

We’ve also added the ability to quickly collapse or expand all of your Character or Worldbuilding cards at once. Just click the More menu (•••) and select Collapse All to instantly tidy things up for easier navigation. You can open cards individually, or use the same menu to Expand All whenever you like.

We hope you enjoy these improvements. Happy writing!

What’s new

• Improved Character Trait Defaults - When we added role-based character templates, we introduced new trait sets for each unique character type but missed something important. Now when you generate or import characters, they will all include a Physical Description and Dialogue Style by default! (You can still edit these default trait sets as desired.)

• Increased Braindump Word Limit - We recently increased the word limit on the Story Bible’s Synopsis from 2,000 words to 4,000 words. You told us you wanted a bigger Braindump section too, so we’ve increased the Braindump section’s word limit to 4,000 words. That means now you can be twice as creative. 😉

• New & Improved Visualize - We’ve updated Visualize with a state-of-the-art image generation model. It creates stunning images and is a bit more permissive when it comes to blood and guts and stuff. Visualize will now render images with multiple characters in great detail, and better yet, it now uses character descriptions from your Story Bible. We've also increased the word limit to 500 words, while keeping the credit cost exactly the same as before. Try out the improved Visualize now in your More Tools dropdown menu.

(The header image here was generated with Visualize by Tess, who said, “I really like what I got for my firefly keeper. 🤩 It's like it pulled it out of my brain.”)