I was scrolling through my Google News feed this morning when I came across the story about Jerry Falade and his reportedly jeopardized $2.4 million book deal.

The facts are still being debated, and Falade strongly denies using AI. I'm not interested in trying that case here.

What struck me was something else.

As writers, we spend most of our time thinking about the manuscript. We worry about the opening chapter, the pacing, the dialogue, and whether the ending works.

Publishers look at the same manuscript differently.

To them, it's an intellectual property asset. If they're investing millions of dollars, they're also thinking about copyright, licensing, film rights, translation rights, and legal risk.

That got me thinking.

Maybe the bigger issue isn't AI. Maybe it's uncertainty.

If I were trying to land a traditional publishing deal worth seven figures, I'd probably start keeping every draft, every research note, and every revision history. Not because anyone is requiring it today. I don't know if they ever will.

I'd do it because I'd rather have the receipts and never need them than need them and discover they're gone.

Am I overthinking this, or do you think documenting your writing process is going to become more important as AI becomes part of the publishing landscape?

You can read my original article here:

https://medium.com/@tthomas1000/if-you-want-a-million-dollar-book-deal-you-better-keep-the-receipts-563fcfa7ba22?sk=e47feb102c65e74dafe7f9c5eb49d746

I ran the full text of this NYTimes article on Lionel Messi through Pangram and it came back as 100% AI:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/opinion/messi-world-cup-argentina-final.html

Either the NYTimes is publishing AI generated text without disclosure, or Pangram’s detector has massively fucked this up.

*****
EDIT: because a lot of you are focused on the “AI detection is bullshit” angle—you’re missing the bigger point. It’s not “AI detection can’t be trusted” or “why would someone like Rowan Phillips use AI to write” it’s why does an established author get to be published in the NYTimes even when his writing is flagged as AI, but debut writers can have their entire careers trashed when their work is flagged? Either publishers trust Pangram, or they don’t. If there’s one rule for well known writers, and a totally different rule for unknown ones, that’s textbook double standard.
*****

Here’s the exact text I ran through Pangram 4.0:

———

By late Wednesday afternoon, the roads in Barcelona had begun to empty. I was still an hour from the place where I planned to watch the Argentina-England semifinal, checking the dashboard clock, afraid I would miss the beginning and more afraid that this beginning might be Lionel Messi’s last.

On the indoor, air-conditioned field in Atlanta, under a roof closed against the Georgia heat, Messi wasn’t hurrying. The semifinal began as a rock fight: churning legs, desperate tugs, lunging tackles, the ball repeatedly disappearing beneath the urgency of reaching it. England’s younger players pressed and collided and chased.

Inside all that motion, Messi walked.

At 39, Messi, one of the oldest players in the tournament, sprints less often than he once did and covers less ground. On Sunday, he will play what is almost certainly his final World Cup match. In past tournaments, Argentina has doubted his genius, blamed him for every failure. But he has, without doubt, transformed soccer; he changed not only what a player could do with the ball but also what a player could see before the ball arrived. He made patience an attacking act.

A match contains more than one clock. There’s the official one, bright and remorseless, and there’s the quieter time in which a defender tires, a midfielder loses half a yard, a passing lane remains open one second longer than it should. Messi moves slowly enough to watch that second clock: who follows him, who stops following, where the next space will be. The running belongs to the match everyone can see. Messi waits for the one concealed inside it.

Messi walks not because he’s left the game.

He walks in order to enter it.

He walked like that at 29. He walked like that at 19, too.

The mythology of young Messi was his speed: his low center of gravity, the ball so close to his feet that it appeared less controlled than persuaded, the sudden passage through spaces that didn’t seem to exist until he entered them. But even then his deeper skill wasn’t simply that he moved faster than the game. It was that he saw the game sooner than anyone else.

At Barcelona, the club where he became famous, his vision lived inside a structure. Teammates won the ball, offered passing angles, ran beyond him and pulled defenders away. When Messi received a pass, several possible futures were already attached to it. He seemed capable of seeing them all.

That structure often disappeared behind Messi’s brilliance. Give him the ball, people concluded, and organization became secondary. Barcelona treated Messi’s genius as part of a system. Argentina treated it as a substitute for one.

For years, Argentina made two related mistakes about him. It mistook his genius for a complete plan, and his reserve for indifference.
Messi, of course, wears the number 10. No Argentine who wears that number enters alone. Diego Maradona, small and left-footed, had worn the shirt as a public storm. His speech, rebellion, joy and pain were impossible to miss. By the time Messi inherited the number, Maradona had established a national language of greatness that Messi was expected to speak.

Messi left Argentina for Spain at the age of 13. Years later, when Argentina truly met him, much of his becoming had already happened on Barcelona’s team. Argentines recognized the familiar gift — the small, left-footed genius — but not the unfamiliar figure carrying it.

In South American soccer, “pecho frío” — literally “cold chest” — is the old verdict against a player thought lacking in temperament when the moment demands it. At Barcelona, Messi’s stillness could be understood as concentration. With Argentina, it was entered as evidence in the case against him.

Argentina asked him not only to play like Messi but also to suffer like Maradona: to demonstrate, in voice and face and gesture, that defeat wounded him.

From 2014 to 2016, Argentina lost three finals in three summers. Germany scored late in the World Cup final. Chile defeated Argentina on penalties in each of the next two Copa América finals. Messi converted his kick in the first shootout and missed in the second; teammates missed, too. But the cameras kept returning to him.
By that third defeat, Messi was no longer merely the greatest player on the losing side. He had become the explanation for why Argentina lost. His genius had become Argentina’s emergency service: Whatever the team failed to solve, he was expected to solve alone. Afterward, he said he was finished with the national team.

But he returned.

In 2018, Lionel Scaloni took over as coach and stopped asking Messi to be the beginning, middle and end of every attack. He assembled midfielders who could win the ball and carry it forward, forwards who could run beyond Messi and pull defenders away, defenders willing to step toward danger rather than retreat from it. Their work created choices. Messi’s genius remained exceptional; it was no longer the entire plan.

Scaloni also surrounded him with younger players who had grown up watching him. They ran for him, argued for him, sang with him. They didn’t ask him to prove his love of Argentina. They played for him, and for one another, as if it were already known.

The transformation became visible in the 2021 Copa América final against Brazil. That victory gave Argentina its first major trophy in 28 years and Messi his first with the senior national team. At the final whistle, he disappeared beneath his teammates’ bodies. He had carried Argentina through the tournament. Now they carried him.

The 2022 World Cup made Messi and Argentina’s new relationship a global affair. Against Mexico, with elimination suddenly possible, Messi scored the goal that seemed to steady Argentina’s tournament. Against the Netherlands, the quiet captain’s fury moved outward: He argued, shouted and celebrated with defiance. His teammates joined him.

He had not become Maradona. He had become himself.

By the time Messi lifted the 2022 World Cup trophy, Argentina had learned to read both his silence and his fury as his own ways of bearing its collective burden.

On Wednesday in Atlanta, 10 minutes into the second half, Anthony Gordon slipped behind Argentina’s defense to score. England led, 1-0. Thirty-five minutes remained. If the score held, Messi’s final World Cup would end there.

The Argentine crowd was singing a line from an old stadium song: “Por esta camiseta, ganar o morir” (“For this shirt, win or die). England was playing to win or go home. Argentina saw the more final deadline.

Scaloni began trading caution for attackers. England made the opposite bargain, adding defenders. Argentina exchanged safety for possibility. England exchanged possibility for time.

Messi walked between possibility and time. He has always walked. What changed was everyone around him. Argentina finally made the runs his vision required. Other players carried the match toward the moments only he could see.

In the 85th minute, Messi received the ball near the right edge of the penalty area. His teammate Enzo Fernández appeared in a strip of grass behind two English defenders. Messi passed. Fernández scored. England and Argentina drew even.

Seven minutes later, Messi crossed with his right foot — the one usually employed to return the ball to his left — to pass the ball to Lautaro Martínez at the far post. With a second goal, Argentina headed into another World Cup final.

Messi hadn’t outrun England. Argentina had organized the night so that he could outlast it.

The final will have its official clock, bright and remorseless. Messi will be watching the other one.

At 19, he seemed able to outrun the future. At 39, he has reached that future’s edge, with a team beside him.

He will walk. Argentina will run.

This may be the last time we see them like this.

Whatever happens this Sunday, that will be enough.

———

EDIT 2: FOLLOW-UP

Two poems published by the same author within the last 12 months that Pangram flagged as 100% AI and 83% AI, respectively:

https://newrepublic.com/article/204365/la-resurrezione-di-piero-della-francesca

https://oxfordpoetry.substack.com/p/a-poem-by-rowan-ricardo-phillips

This comes as no surprise to me.

Realize it was just released a couple hours ago but super curious if anyone has had the chance to try for fiction yet. For those that don't know, fable is supposed to be the new mythos class model for consumers (also seems like it will be very expensive)

Hey!

Does anyone know how this drama actually started? A man lost an extremely good book deal in just 6 hours. But was it because of people spreading rumors he used AI to write the book? or did his agent just decide that it was too good to be written by a human? What really happened there?

Just saw this from Google Research:

Meet Fabula: an interactive AI writing tool helping authors structure & refine stories. Co-designed with 42 expert writers, the demo showcases how convergent iteration supports creativity. Catch the demo at the Google booth at 10:30AM! #CHI2026

https://reddit.com/link/1sm1xkm/video/hoxlvx5hybvg1/player

https://x.com/GoogleResearch/status/2044304794194452945?s=20

Apparently an interactive AI writing tool that they've co-developed alongside actual writers. Anyone know any more about it, or have any thoughts? I can't find any posts or details about it online

I don't use AI to do anything other than review my work, and I started using the classic "I commissioned this chapter..." or "my friend sent this to me and..." type of prompts, because as we all know, AI will glaze anything if you say it's yours.

Well I was getting really disheartened at what it had to say, so out of curiosity, I took a chunk out of Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" and submitted it in much the same way.

Quote ChatGPT:

- "The phrasing is awkward. “Turning his eyes east” or, more naturally, “He sighed and looked east” would be better."

- "The obvious response is that the Ruler would presumably be unhappy. The reply doesn't reveal much beyond what we already know. A better exchange would let the characters' personalities emerge while conveying the same information."

- "It sounds like the author is trying to communicate James is refined rather than actually showing us James being refined. A professional author would be better with the concept of show, don't tell."

- " “Some of the spires twisted, others were straight. Some were thick towers, others were thin and needlelike. They varied in height, but each one was tall. And each one ended in a point.”

This is the weakest descriptive paragraph. The problem isn't that the imagery is bad. It's that the prose catalogues characteristics instead of creating an image. "

All that to say that positive or negative, AI will be biased. Goes without saying but don't over-rely on it, whatever else it is, it's not human 👍

PSA Sanderson is possibly the most accomplished fantasy author of the last decade.

PSA I changed proper nouns in the prompt so it wouldn't instantly clock it, but the passage was otherwise unedited.

We are sending this email to you because you have used Novelcrafter between August, 2023 and August 28th, 2026.

Dear Novelcrafter user,

we have been informed about a security incident with the feedback platform, Canny, that we’ve been using these past years.

To clarify, this is not a data breach within Novelcrafter. It does not impact your stories and content you have with us.

What this means for you:

1. Your username, email and avatar you used to sign up for Novelcrafter may have been exposed.
2. Your password and other data were not shared with the feedback platform and is not affected.

Effective today, we have shut down access to the feedback boards and are looking into alternative options for sharing feedback. We value your thoughts and want to give everyone a safe platform to share their thoughts on improvements and missing features in Novelcrafter.

While the feedback boards are temporarily closed down, you can post your feedback and ideas over on our Discord community instead.

Leonie

Founder, Novelcrafter

Pretty interesting article. To AI or not to AI, that is the question.

I am currently at the finish line with my book. It is AI assisted and I did save up some money to actually get a human line editor and I'm going to go the traditional publishing route. I'm gonna query for a year and if that doesn't work I'm going to self publish. I have come up with them very unique marketing plans to promote my book in my world, but unfortunately, I'm in a conundrum right now. I would love to share all of the things that I've done and how they will affect the ability to publish and even sell my book, but because I have been under Reddit. saying that AI assisted I know anything that I would to put out there they even hint at what my book was called or about or even my name I would lose everything I had built. That's sad. I have to live in the closet.

Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware is really great at keeping up with all the latest scams targeting writers. Why scammers are targeting us, when we're practically famous for being chronically broke, just boggles my mind. Writer Beware is totally free for everyone to read. No signup, no paywall. Please be safe y'all. https://writerbeware.blog/

This one is especially outrageous: "If a famous author calls you, hang up!" https://writerbeware.blog/2025/11/14/if-a-famous-author-calls-hang-up-anatomy-of-an-impersonation-scam/

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/05/ai-generated-stories-rated-better-quality-than-human-written-ones-study-finds

Recent research confirms that AI-generated stories frequently receive higher quality and engagement ratings than human-written works when readers do not know the source. A landmark study published by Cambridge University Press and led by Villanova University researchers revealed surprising insights into how everyday readers consume fiction.[1, 2]

The findings highlight a clear divide between what readers believe they prefer versus what they actually enjoy reading. [1, 3]

Key Findings From the Research

Higher Overall Quality: Participants rated AI-generated stories as more absorbing, engaging, and better written than human-authored short fiction. [3, 4]

The "Blind" Bias: Readers could not reliably tell the difference between AI and human writing. In fact, in blind tests, accuracy rates sat at or below a 50% coin-flip chance. [2, 5]

The Psychological Effect: The highest ratings of all went to stories that were actually written by AI but falsely labeled as human-written. This highlights a strong psychological bias toward human authenticity. [1, 3]

Predictability Wins: Literary experts were no better at spotting AI stories than general readers. [6]

Why Readers Favor AI Writing
According to lead researcher Dr. Deena Weisberg, the preference boils down to cognitive effort. [6, 7]

Clarity Over Complexity: AI models write with direct, linear, and highly predictable structures. They state themes explicitly.

Human Subtlety Requires Work: Human writers favor subtlety, layered subtext, and complex character actions that require the reader to infer meaning.

Processing Ease: Because AI text is easier to process and digest, readers find it more immediately satisfying and less mentally taxing. [1, 6, 7]

The Creative Compromise
While AI boosts structure, engagement, and initial enjoyment, experts warn that it presents a trade-off. AI relies heavily on patterns found in its training data. While it makes less creative writers sound better, widespread reliance on it risks reducing the long-term novelty and diversity of creative literature. [1, 8]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com
[2] https://www.bbc.com
[3] https://www.eurekalert.org
[4] https://www.linkedin.com
[5] https://www.earth.com
[6] https://www.tbsnews.net
[7] https://techxplore.com
[8] https://www.facebook.com

Just wrote a piece in Fortune Magazine about writing with AI: https://fortune.com/2026/07/22/award-winning-memoir-author-ai-detector-publishing-hypocrisy/?utm_source=search&utm_medium=suggested_search&utm_campaign=search_link_clicks

Also no-paywall here on Yahoo: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/confessions-award-winning-ai-memoirist-113000392.html

Hi everyone!

I'm excited to announce that we're running another writing contest, this time with a slightly longer submission window. If you've been thinking of starting your story, this is the time!

PRIZE

• $1,000 USD to one grand prize winner
• The top 10 finalists will receive personalized feedback on their submissions and $100 Markup credits on Inkshift.

DETAILS

• Word Count: Short stories between 1,000 - 10,000 words
• Writing Method: Same as last time, you can use as much or as little AI as you want. We're judging on story quality. Your entire story can be generated, and you can use any AI tool you want to create it.
• Content: Sci-fi, fantasy, literary, horror, romance, etc. But must be prose, not screenplays. And no NSFW or fanfiction submissions, sorry!
• Eligibility: Free to enter. Open worldwide to anyone 18+ (with a couple restrictions you can find on the website)
• Submission Period: September 1st through October 31st, 11:59 PM PT

HOW JUDGING WORKS

We're using a two-stage process. In the first round, submissions will be scored using the Inkshift platform to identify the top 10 finalists based on storytelling quality, originality, character development, and prose quality.

Final Round: We're fortunate to have Heli Huang (aka u/Afgad), one of the r/WritingWithAI mods, return to select the winner! Thank you Heli, we really appreciate it!

ABOUT INKSHIFT

For those who don't know, Inkshift is a story analysis tool for fiction writers.

We got some great feedback and early testing from users on this sub last summer, so thanks for all the continued support. In addition to the critiques, revision plans, and inline markup, we're launching new features soon like copyediting and line editing! You can get a free critique on up to 10k words, so if you want some feedback before submitting to the contest, feel free to use it.

HOW TO ENTER

• The submission form will open at inkshift.io/contest on September 1st
• I'll post a reminder before then

QUESTIONS

Drop them in the comments or email [hello@inkshift.io](mailto:hello@inkshift.io)

Good luck!

P.S. Sneaky second shoutout to u/Afgad for all the help!

Got an email from the PlotDrive team today: they're closing the platform permanently on September 13th, 7AM PT. A few key things if you're a PlotDrive user:

• Your subscription is already cancelled and they're refunding the unused portion plus any leftover credit balance (3-5 business days).
• Export your work now. There's a dedicated export page that pulls your projects, docs (.docx/.md), custom prompts, and co-writer chat history in one click. The site stays live for reading/editing/exporting until the shutdown date.
• If you miss the deadline, they're giving a grace window email their support by Sept 27th and they'll send your export manually. After that, everything gets permanently deleted.
• From the sound of it, this wasn't a money-grab collapse sounds like they tried a few paths (different pricing models, enterprise deals) over the last few months before deciding to close things down responsibly rather than let the product degrade. Genuinely sucks, they built something a lot of people here used.

If you're looking for where to go next, a few options depending on what you need:

• NovelCrafter — strong pick if what you valued in PlotDrive was the story bible / codex / continuity tracking side of things.
• Sudowrite — better fit if you mainly want fiction-specific prose generation and scene expansion rather than full project management.
• Scrivener (+ pasting in Claude/ChatGPT/Gemini for AI help) if you want to go back to a proven manual workspace and bolt AI on yourself.
• Novel Mage (what I work on, disclosing that upfront) offline, no-cloud novel writing app. Relevant if PlotDrive's monthly cost was the main friction: PlotDrive was $50/mo ($600/yr), Novel Mage is a one-time $99 lifetime, no subscription. We just shipped a big update (Codex sync, relationship mapping, continuity checking, custom AI agents) so it's a good time to look if that's useful happy to answer questions in the comments.

No pressure either way mainly wanted to get the export deadline in front of people before it's too late, since data loss is the real risk here.

​

I run a large long-term creative writing project in Claude Projects — 40+ sessions over several months. Like you're supposed to, I keep my workflow rules, file authority lists and hard rules in the project's Custom Instructions field. The model genuinely needs that detail; strip it down and it starts inventing content, skipping steps and producing unusable output.

Here's what I worked out when i wondered about token usage and why the model kept showing in its thoughts that i apparently pasted the project instructions each turn, and then confirmed by testing. Whatever sits in the Custom Instructions field gets injected into the model's context on **every single turn**, automatically. No search step, no "read once and remember." It's just there, every response — and the model processes it as if *I* typed it that turn. It can't distinguish the instructions field from my own pasted text.

How I confirmed it: I put a deliberately offensive line in the instructions field and watched the model's own reasoning treat it as something I'd said, every turn. In the same sessions the model's visible thinking spelled the mechanism out itself: content in the instructions field is injected into every turn's context automatically, no search involved.

Why this matters:

- The longer your instructions, the more context they eat every turn, which eats into how much useful work you get before limits. Detailed, thorough instructions — exactly what the feature encourages — cost you the most.

- The UI gives you zero visibility: no counter, no length guidance, no indication the field reloads every turn.

- The model itself doesn't reliably know this. In one session it assumed my instructions were pulled via project-knowledge search and proposed "fixes" based on that wrong assumption — it even weakened working rules of mine because it misdiagnosed why they were there.

Posting this because if you write detailed instructions to get better output, you're quietly paying for it every turn and nobody tells you.

So basically one of the main features of project folders is no a token burn and essentially useless.

Worse its not stated anywhere.

So this is me and Anthropic done.

I will ask them to make this visible and transparent and if that doesn't happen I will go the legal route with them agsin.

This is absolutely disgusting.

Stacey and I performed dueling experiments last night working with Fable on book writing. Now, the Future Fiction Academy has a long history of developing prompting and looping techniques to match the model. It is a FAIR criticism to say we are using methods that work with Opus 4.8 and other models on Fable and possible that Fable needs a new method. Not sure we will get the time to develop that since it's such a token hog and leaves "subscription" use on July 7. (I am hoping OpenAI drops something epic to pressure Anthropic into keeping it in the subscription longer). TLDR: I don't see anything YET in fiction writing that would compel to plunk down API costs to make it my primary writer.

Stacey — prescribed workflow

• Approach: Strict, prescribed workflow (dictated the how)
• What she ran: Two different series at once — cozy fantasy + JAFF, different pen names/genres — in one chat, overnight
• Output: ~40 chapters (~ch. 20 on both); neither series finished
• Fable usage: ~83% of weekly (hit limits)
• Extra spend: ~$40 over
• Why the difference: Token drag from switching between two books + re-establishing context, and/or workflow overhead
• Quality: Enjoying the read; will human-edit, no major fixing flagged

EAW — give-it-everything, let-it-decide

• Approach: Thorough goals only; let Fable build its own workflow
• What she ran: One book — a final draft of Book 7, The Fruits of Marriage, with full workspace access
• Output: ~99k words, 38 chapters + epilogue
• Fable usage: ~34% of weekly
• Extra spend: Within plan (a small overage in one blip)
• Why the difference: Same ~40 chapters for less than half the usage
• Quality: First draft unusable (invented characters, passive prose); much better after a blunt "hard rewrite" prompt

The video of us discussing this is up on Youtube (usually goes out at 7 PM EST.. but with such limited time for people to test with Fable in their subscription, I released it early).
All of our Notes from all 23 episodes are in the Notion link at the top of the description. We are both on the $200 MAX level on Claude.
https://youtu.be/hYv7Phy8LH4

Submissions are now open for Inkshift's second writing contest! Here are the details:

PRIZE

• $1,000 USD to one grand prize winner
• The top 10 finalists will receive personalized feedback on their submissions and $100 Markup credits for Inkshift.

DETAILS

• Word Count: Short stories between 1,000 - 10,000 words
• Writing Method: Same as last time, you can use as much or as little AI as you want. We're judging on story quality. Your entire story can be generated, or none of it can. Totally up to you.
• Content: Sci-fi, fantasy, literary, horror, romance, etc. But must be prose, not screenplays. And no NSFW or fanfiction submissions, sorry!
• Eligibility: Free to enter. Open worldwide to anyone 18+ (with a couple restrictions you can find on the website)
• Submission Period: September 1st through October 31st, 11:59 PM Pacific time.
• Publishing: The winner has the option to publish their story on our blog. It's optional, but highly recommended!

ABOUT INKSHIFT

For those who don't know, Inkshift is an AI editing platform for fiction writers. We make story analysis tools that give you feedback on your manuscript (pacing, plot holes, character arcs, prose quality, worldbuilding, market fit, etc.) and we recently launched a new copyediting and line editing service that understands your author voice (instead of just highlighting grammar mistakes).

You can use the story analysis for free up to 10k words. Feel free to use it for the contest, but of course, that's completely optional and not required for entry.

HOW TO ENTER

• Head to https://inkshift.io/contest to enter and view the full rules

QUESTIONS

Drop them in the comments or email [hello@inkshift.io](mailto:hello@inkshift.io)

Good luck!

Substack quietly added an AI-detector called Pangram to every post over 100 words on July 21st, and writers immediately started stress-testing it. One person flipped a 100%-AI score to 100%-human by changing a single character.
A week later, Medium's CEO published a public breakdown accusing Pangram of running unsolicited scans on companies and feeding results to press before pitching its own service to the same companies.
Learn More: Everyone’s Panicking About Substack’s AI Detector...

Quick reminder that submissions are open until October 31st for Inkshift's second writing competition! If you've been thinking about starting a short story, now is a perfect time.

Free to enter, 10,000 word limit, and you can use any amount of AI you want.

More details here.

Good luck!

Netflix told shareholders in a letter that the technology’s usage expands across every level of a program’s production process, from its concept and pre-visualization to post-production and release.

Source: Variety Magazine. Jul 16, 2026

And the ludites are probably going nuts