🎛️ TOOLS: SUDO IS JUST “VIBEWRITING”

Remember Hamburger Helper? "Just add ... hamburger." This is Writing Helper: Just add... Soul

Mar 18, 2025

I spent the weekend with Sudowrite, the AI writing tool “made for authors.” In about an hour, I typed seven sentences and clicked thirty times — and suddenly, I had ten chapters of a novel.

⚡ TL;DR

In this post:

• I dive deep into Sudowrite, “The first AI made for fiction, designed for authors.”

• If Sudowrite wanted to create an honest pitch, it would be: “Get a bad first draft… FAST!”

• I test it with two experiments — one “on the fly,” the other with a piece I’ve been working on for months.

• It’s seductive. You might actually think you have something. That’s the danger… it’s not you, it’s Sudowrite. And it’s probably not going to be good.

• Sudowrite will disappoint writers who have a burning desire to communicate their thoughts, feelings, and inspirations to an audience.

• My first worry: Like “VibeCoding,” we’ve entered the world of “VibeWriting,” where we accept ‘good enough’ as good.

• Bigger worry: Platforms and streamers just need to churn out content for algorithms — and they’ll be very happy with ‘good enough.’

⚠️ Prepare to watch your soul go dead. If writing is how you think, feel, and connect — Sudowrite will let you down.

🎵 IT’S ALL ABOUT THE VIBEWRITING

VibeCoding lets you write code using natural language. You don’t have to know programming — just describe what you want, and the AI does it. The result? Fast, easy… and often buggy. 🐛

The founder of Anthropic predicts 90% of code will be written by AI in the near future. VibeWriting is what software people and technologists come up with when they apply the principles of coding to the creative act of writing with language. It encourages people who engage with the software to think that they’ve “written” something, when all they’re doing is exchanging tokens with a server that’s been trained on thousands of things that were already written..

You don’t write — you describe.

You don’t revise — you click.

You don’t think — you vibe. ✨

VibeWriting lets users feel like they’ve “written” something when all they’ve done is exchange tokens with a server trained on thousands of things already written.

🎥 Content companies — streamers, platforms, media cos — will start treating fiction and nonfiction writing the same way. Especially entertainment writing.

Is AI useful for writers? YES.

Is Sudowrite useful? NO.

The UI? A disaster. SO MANY BOXES. Trying to revise in those cramped windows is the opposite of inviting. 🧱

🤔 WHAT’S GOOD? WHAT’S “GOOD ENOUGH?”

🚫 I’m NOT here to judge whether people will like what SudoWrite produces!

Let’s be honest: It’s a cliche, but YOU CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR TASTE. I have friends who still look down on me because I enjoyed the live-action George of the Jungle. (Don’t judge me. 🦍)

In the writers’ room, when a pitch died, I’d shrug:

“Hey, people who like that kind of crap will like this kind of crap.”

That said — Sudowrite won’t help you write the thing you really want to write.

There’s only one way to get to that:

• 🧠 Thinking on your own.

• 💭 Feeling your way through draft after draft.

• ✍️ Writing and rewriting and rewriting.

Can AI help you? YES. But not this way.

🚧 THIS WON’T LEAD TO INNOVATION…

It’ll Lead to More of the Same

I spent a year learning Python. I suck at it. To pass, I cheated and used GitHub Copilot. (Don’t worry — I’ll never apply for an actual coding job. 🤷‍♂️)

Copilot made me a better, “almost good” programmer.

Here’s the kicker:

When you type #i need to develop a website page that registers new users, Copilot spits out code that maybe works.

But — and this is key — it looks like it’s working.

You see where this is going.

Replace “programming language” with “language,” and you’ll see why Sudowrite will disappoint anyone who really wants to write.

💡 “The most unfortunate thing in the world a scientist can have is an ‘almost’ good idea. You work for years on it, and in the end… it’s just not good.”

Same for Sudowrite. You can write all day. And in the end? It just won’t be good.

You might think it’s good… but… no.

🔍 LET’S TAKE A LOOK

Experiment One: Make It Up As We Go Along

• I made something up on the fly.

• Ten chapters. Seven sentences in the “Braindump” box. About thirty clicks. 🖱️🖱️🖱️

Here’s the idea:

A young man convicted of a murder he didn’t commit becomes a social media influencer. He draws the attention of a young woman who manages influencers, and who sees a totally unique opportunity.
She manages him to social media stardom, and eventually the attention gets his conviction overturned. He becomes a star and THEN a political icon, running for Governor of his State.
Elected Governor, his true corrupt and nasty personality emerges. He’s certainly capable of murder!… And at the very end of the story, he almost commits murder — but the young woman who managed his career steps in and saves the world by killing him.

🎥 Yeah, it’s a little A Face In the Crowd, a little Jailhouse Rock.

Sudowrite filled in characters, world, and outline. It was like reading an itinerary of a novel I hadn’t really written. It looked like progress.

🚨 Within an hour, I had 10 chapters of a 20-chapter novel. I was exhausted. I felt like Thomas Wolfe yelling out my window about how many words I’d “written.”

I posted the first three chapters.

Have at it. Maybe I’m WRONG!

Chapter One: Behind Bars

Chapter Two: A Digital Lifeline

Chapter Three: The Partnership

Ask for chapter four — I dare you. 😏

Experiment Two: Let’s Feed Our Baby Into the Machine

This time, I used “Autonomous,” a real project I care about.

Sudowrite’s output? NOT HELPFUL. Scenes split, logic broken, tone wrong. If an assistant gave me this, I’d send them back. But then…

I started doubting myself.

Maybe Sudowrite “knows” something I don’t?

🤖 Fellow writers: Has AI ever made you question your own instincts? Let’s talk in the comments.

🚫 THIS IS NOT WRITING.

I get it — Copilot for Github can generate code. But writing “language”? Not the same. What I got back from Sudowrite was text, not writing.

It’s PSEUDO WRITING. 🫠 (I’m sorry… I’ve been holding that back from the very beginning.)

Clicking through Sudowrite feels like progress — but you’re just filling boxes with someone else’s ideas.

🎬 I PREFER MY WRITERS’ ROOM

In “The Writer’s Process,” I use Claude, ChatGPT, NotebookLM to spark ideas, not to generate prose. They help me think.

Sudowrite tries to write for you. That’s the problem.

Writing is a long, lonely slog.

These tools help me reframe, rethink, and revise — getting more of me on the page. It’s what I’ve laid out in The Writer’s Process.

⚠️ MY BIG WORRY

“The AI you’re using today is the worst AI you’ll ever use.”

Future Sudowrites will get better.

And execs under pressure to “make more content” will use tools like this to write entire novels, scripts, non-fiction books.

Will it be horrible? Maybe.

Will it crowd out genuine voices?

You’re damn right. 💥

As writers, we have a responsibility to distinguish between tools that enhance our creativity — and tools that replaceit with algorithmic sludge.

🗣️ AM I RIGHT, PEOPLE?!?!

Click on the comments box below and I’ll generate a statement that says you are in 100% total agreement with me.

AI Screenwriter

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