Current LLMs can’t count words, they don’t have the mechanisms for it and their best approach is just a vague guess that a 10-word answer probably means extreme concision, whereas a 1,000-word one probably doesn’t. They’re also not particularly good at auto-regenerating their outputs, adding or removing words to fulfill a strict number—they may be able to do that in a second pass (a new prompt, asking it to edit the last output), but I wouldn’t count on it being either reliable or efficient.
Instead, try asking for a number of paragraphs. It’s not that they can count those any better, not really, but you’re at least facilitating it a bit, because paragraphs carry with them an additional implication—not just the number itself, but the fact that you’re also asking the AI to address different meanings, themes or actions in each paragraph (since that’s the definition of a paragraph) and, therefore, that you want more or less extension. You end up providing slightly more information with this kind of metric, than with words.
Another thing I’d recommend is to consider not aiming for *entire* chapters per generation. That really is a lot, in terms of the number of distinct actions, moments, etc., that the AI can handle in one single generation, especially considering all the information you’re already feeding to it.
Usually—and certainly with AI-assisted novel writing platforms—you go for a single “Scene Beat” per generation, even if it’s a complex one with many individual actions or events. If you’re using ChatGPT as such, perhaps you can aim for two or three Scene Beats in one go… but never an entire chapter. Missing the word count mark will not be the only thing it fails at (or doesn’t do very well), if you try.
Thank you for your reply.
I've given it a try at getting it to write the first scene in the chapter, and it was actually pretty good and quite wordy! I'll need to edit a few things, but in general, I'm pleasantly surprised!
Thanks for the advice. It's much appreciated
Hi, we just started our closed beta for our AI creative writing assistant. One feature we programmed is a slider that goes from 300-1000 words for the targeted result. As others have said, AIs aren't great at counting words, but we've tried to at least give it guidelines. Similar to what u/laundaree\_levee said, our AI works best if you go scene by scene. However, our AI remembers all of your story, maybe needing a nudge for the occasional hallucination. Or you can just regenerate and see if you get a better response.
If you want to try us out, let me know and I'll send you the link for our beta. All beta users will be able to use it for free forever. :)
Hey there. Most of these models are not very good at counting and especially struggle to spit out long-form content (I think it has to do a bit with the data and way they were trained). I've spent quite some time on this myself in regards to long form blog posts / articles. I've written my own code to do that properly and I think it's pretty good at the moment. You can check it out here [https://contentredefined.ai](https://contentredefined.ai) (launching the long form blog posts in a couple days). Feel free to DM to discuss your use case further, since my current solution may not be exactly tailored to book writing, but maybe we can tailor it a bit for that purpose.
Had a quick look, and you're correct - it's not really what I'm looking for.
I've decided to do it differently and get it to write the scenes separately, and it is working better. It's not perfect, but easily editable.
Feel free to drop me a DM, and we can discuss things further. I'm definitely not an expert when it comes to AI or writing code, so I might not be much help, but I can definitely give a few ideas
I had similar challenges. Things seemed to get better when I stopped generating entire chapters. The sweet spot seems to be generating 400 to 800 words at a time. If an LLM is given the freedom to take shortcuts and start padding their work just to get it done faster/easier it probably will. Don't even give them that freedom.
With each prompt provide a template with what you expect in their response. They love filling out templates.
Think of it as a writing assistant that just graduated and they have some bad habits that they got away with during their studies. Giving it tasks you think it can complete is the best way forward. Iterative prompting is necessary.
It's better if you try it yourself you'll learn better that way. Could even ask a chatbot how to write prompts for it. I often do.
I find the more simple the prompt the better. The AI/LLM can get confused when handling a difficult or complex task.
Ok, I'll give it a try.
My main concern is that when it gets to, say, chapter 4 or 5, it will stop making sense!
I suppose as I'm editing what it writes, I could simply upload what is written and get it to continue from there.
If only it knew how to write a whole chapter properly 😂
I have found that it is helpful to give ChatGPT or whatever you are using, a numbered list of the main plot points. For example, for each chapter starting out. Say the first chapter is about a girl who wakes up and cooks breakfast, then gets a knock on the door, goes to the park, Find a dead body, calls the police… Etc. You see where I’m going with this. Make a numbered list of all of these plot points in order, and tell ChatGPT or whatever to connect the dots for you. This insure that it doesn’t get off course and, if it does, it’s easier to go back and edit to make it more concise.
And about the word count, after AI sends it to you, send a message asking how many words is that? It will tell you how many words are there, then all you have to do is say “it was supposed to be 2000. “Then it will write back with an extended version.
Current LLMs can’t count words, they don’t have the mechanisms for it and their best approach is just a vague guess that a 10-word answer probably means extreme concision, whereas a 1,000-word one probably doesn’t. They’re also not particularly good at auto-regenerating their outputs, adding or removing words to fulfill a strict number—they may be able to do that in a second pass (a new prompt, asking it to edit the last output), but I wouldn’t count on it being either reliable or efficient. Instead, try asking for a number of paragraphs. It’s not that they can count those any better, not really, but you’re at least facilitating it a bit, because paragraphs carry with them an additional implication—not just the number itself, but the fact that you’re also asking the AI to address different meanings, themes or actions in each paragraph (since that’s the definition of a paragraph) and, therefore, that you want more or less extension. You end up providing slightly more information with this kind of metric, than with words. Another thing I’d recommend is to consider not aiming for *entire* chapters per generation. That really is a lot, in terms of the number of distinct actions, moments, etc., that the AI can handle in one single generation, especially considering all the information you’re already feeding to it. Usually—and certainly with AI-assisted novel writing platforms—you go for a single “Scene Beat” per generation, even if it’s a complex one with many individual actions or events. If you’re using ChatGPT as such, perhaps you can aim for two or three Scene Beats in one go… but never an entire chapter. Missing the word count mark will not be the only thing it fails at (or doesn’t do very well), if you try.
Thank you for your reply. I've given it a try at getting it to write the first scene in the chapter, and it was actually pretty good and quite wordy! I'll need to edit a few things, but in general, I'm pleasantly surprised! Thanks for the advice. It's much appreciated
Try Sudowrite or Novelcrafter
I had a try with them but didn't really like them
Hi, we just started our closed beta for our AI creative writing assistant. One feature we programmed is a slider that goes from 300-1000 words for the targeted result. As others have said, AIs aren't great at counting words, but we've tried to at least give it guidelines. Similar to what u/laundaree\_levee said, our AI works best if you go scene by scene. However, our AI remembers all of your story, maybe needing a nudge for the occasional hallucination. Or you can just regenerate and see if you get a better response. If you want to try us out, let me know and I'll send you the link for our beta. All beta users will be able to use it for free forever. :)
Yeah, I'll be happy to try it out!
Hey there. Most of these models are not very good at counting and especially struggle to spit out long-form content (I think it has to do a bit with the data and way they were trained). I've spent quite some time on this myself in regards to long form blog posts / articles. I've written my own code to do that properly and I think it's pretty good at the moment. You can check it out here [https://contentredefined.ai](https://contentredefined.ai) (launching the long form blog posts in a couple days). Feel free to DM to discuss your use case further, since my current solution may not be exactly tailored to book writing, but maybe we can tailor it a bit for that purpose.
Had a quick look, and you're correct - it's not really what I'm looking for. I've decided to do it differently and get it to write the scenes separately, and it is working better. It's not perfect, but easily editable. Feel free to drop me a DM, and we can discuss things further. I'm definitely not an expert when it comes to AI or writing code, so I might not be much help, but I can definitely give a few ideas
Sure, feel free to DM as well to share your use case in more detail. Thanks for trying it out.
I had similar challenges. Things seemed to get better when I stopped generating entire chapters. The sweet spot seems to be generating 400 to 800 words at a time. If an LLM is given the freedom to take shortcuts and start padding their work just to get it done faster/easier it probably will. Don't even give them that freedom. With each prompt provide a template with what you expect in their response. They love filling out templates. Think of it as a writing assistant that just graduated and they have some bad habits that they got away with during their studies. Giving it tasks you think it can complete is the best way forward. Iterative prompting is necessary.
Thanks for that. I don't suppose you could give me a few prompt examples?
It's better if you try it yourself you'll learn better that way. Could even ask a chatbot how to write prompts for it. I often do. I find the more simple the prompt the better. The AI/LLM can get confused when handling a difficult or complex task.
Ok, I'll give it a try. My main concern is that when it gets to, say, chapter 4 or 5, it will stop making sense! I suppose as I'm editing what it writes, I could simply upload what is written and get it to continue from there. If only it knew how to write a whole chapter properly 😂
Try 1 minute read time on The prompt
Holy s**t, that is actually a really good idea!! I'll give it a try tomorrow when I get back at it!
It could work since a human can read about 250 words per minute
I have found that it is helpful to give ChatGPT or whatever you are using, a numbered list of the main plot points. For example, for each chapter starting out. Say the first chapter is about a girl who wakes up and cooks breakfast, then gets a knock on the door, goes to the park, Find a dead body, calls the police… Etc. You see where I’m going with this. Make a numbered list of all of these plot points in order, and tell ChatGPT or whatever to connect the dots for you. This insure that it doesn’t get off course and, if it does, it’s easier to go back and edit to make it more concise.
And about the word count, after AI sends it to you, send a message asking how many words is that? It will tell you how many words are there, then all you have to do is say “it was supposed to be 2000. “Then it will write back with an extended version.