How to write a novel with AI help (and disclose it honestly on KDP)

Start with the people

A novel gets lost when the draft starts before anyone in it is specific enough to follow. Write the people down before you ask a tool for prose.

For the main character, answer three questions in ordinary words:

• Who are they, in the life they already have?
• What do they want that they do not have?
• What stands in the way, and what will it cost them to get past it?

If you cannot answer those, the middle will invent a new want every chapter, because a fresh motive is easier to write than a consistent one. Do a shorter version for anyone who changes the plot: a reason to be in the room, and a limit on what they will do. Keep a fact list beside the plan — ages, where people live, how they speak, what they have already promised — so a later chapter cannot quietly rename them.

On shadowwriter-ai.com, you say who the story is about, what they want, what stands in the way, and how it ends if you already know. Shadow Writer then builds the characters, the places and a chapter plan, including the setups that have to pay off later. You decide whether that plan is the book you meant. When the manuscript is finished, the chapter plan and the chapters are there for you to edit.

The same site writes novels and novellas today. Children's books, business books, poetry, picture books, comics, coloring books, gaming books and puzzle books are coming soon.

Every book starts private. Showing it to anyone else is a later choice, and you do not need to make that choice to finish the draft.

Decide the arc before the chapters exist

An arc is the change from the first page to the last. You need three beats: how it opens, the turn in the middle, and how it ends, including what the main character has lost or gained. You can change the ending later. Do not draft the middle with no idea what the last chapter is for. "They grow" is not an ending. Say what is different on the last page.

AI drafts slide in the middle: lively scenes that change nothing. The turn has to cost the character something they were counting on, or the ending will not need the middle at all.

Write a chapter plan

Split the arc into chapters before anyone writes the prose. For each chapter, note four things:

• A working title, so you can talk about the chapter without quoting it.
• The job: what must be different by the last line.
• The setup: a fact, a promise or a problem a later chapter has to answer.
• The payoff: which earlier setup this chapter closes, if it closes one.

Read that plan once before any draft. If two chapters do the same job, cut one or change one. A novel can return to a problem. It should not repeat a scene and call it a plot. If a setup never pays off, pay it off or take it out. A payoff with no setup feels like a coincidence. Repairing the plan is a few lines. Repairing a stack of chapters that wandered is a second book.

Shadow Writer's chapter plan is this list, and its continuity check walks the same setups. That does not replace your own read.

Draft one chapter at a time

Draft in order. Give the tool that chapter's job, the facts that are already true, and where the previous chapter stopped. Ask for the chapter. Do not ask it to invent a better plot on the way.

• Do not add a character, a place or a secret the plan did not allow, unless you update the plan first.
• Read the chapter before you start the next. If it did a different job, fix the chapter or the plan, not both versions at once.
• Cut paragraphs that do not serve the job. Length is not a plot.
• Keep the narrator's distance steady, and when the tool offers two directions, pick one.

You are the author of those choices. The tool can produce the paragraphs. It cannot decide what the book is for. If a chapter is the wrong chapter, draft it again. Keeping a weak chapter because it arrived quickly is how novels become long and empty.

Shadow Writer drafts each chapter against the characters and the plan, then checks continuity: the cast, the timeline, and every setup that was planted. That check makes a contradiction easier to see. It is not a promise that nothing slipped through. When the book is finished, you edit the prose yourself, and you accept a suggested edit only if you want it.

Revise for one voice and facts that stay put

A first draft from an AI tool is a draft. Read it out loud if you can, with the fact list beside you.

Voice

Mark where the voice changes for no reason: a formal paragraph in a casual book, or three chapters that open the same way. If the same image shows up every chapter, keep it once. Read the dialogue with the names covered. If you cannot tell who is speaking, the voices have flattened into one.

Consistency

Check names, ages, how much time passes, where people are, and whether they could have got there. Check objects that were lost or given away, and promises the early chapters made. If you change a fact, look for the old fact in the later chapters. Walk the plan's setups and payoffs. A setup with no payoff feels forgotten. A payoff with no setup feels like luck.

What revision does not change

Editing does not re-label the book. If an AI tool created the text, Amazon still treats that text as AI-generated after you revise it. Rewrite as much as the book needs. Then disclose it for what it is. The next section is Amazon's line, not a house style.

Tell KDP whether the novel is AI-generated

When you publish on Amazon KDP, the content page asks about AI. Amazon's Content Guidelines put the rule in one place:

"We require you to inform us of AI-generated content (text, images, or translations) when you publish a new book or make edits to and republish an existing book through KDP. AI-generated images include cover and interior images and artwork."

Read that page again on the day you publish. The quotes below are from it as read on 17 October 2026.

What Amazon calls AI-generated

Amazon defines AI-generated content as "text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool." If you used an AI-based tool to create the actual content, whether text, images or translations, "it is considered 'AI-generated,' even if you applied substantial edits afterwards."

Text written by Shadow Writer is AI-generated in that sense. The tool created the actual chapters. Substantial edits afterwards do not move those chapters into the other category. On the form, the honest answer for the text is yes. Where the form asks which tool you used, name Shadow Writer AI.

Images use the same line. If Shadow Writer made the cover, that art is AI-generated, including the title and the pen name lettered onto it. When picture books, comics and coloring books launch, pictures inside a picture book, a comic or a coloring book will be AI-generated as well, even when the cover is one you brought yourself. Those kinds are coming soon. If you drew or commissioned every image, answer from the files you upload.

Translation is its own question. Answer yes only if a tool translated the book. A novel written here was not translated for you. If you translated it yourself with another tool, answer for that tool.

What Amazon calls AI-assisted, and why this novel is not that

AI-assisted is the other case, and Amazon describes it narrowly. "If you created the content yourself, and used AI-based tools to edit, refine, error-check, or otherwise improve that content (whether text or images), then it is considered 'AI-assisted' and not 'AI-generated.'" The same is true if you used a tool only to brainstorm and generate ideas, and you then created the text or the images yourself. Amazon says: "You are not required to disclose AI-assisted content." It also says: "It is not necessary to inform us of the use of such tools or processes."

It applies when you wrote the novel and the tool only edited, checked or helped you think. It does not apply when the tool wrote the chapters, even after a heavy rewrite. Calling a Shadow Writer novel AI-assisted would skip a disclosure Amazon requires. You are still responsible for the book. Amazon says:

"You are responsible for verifying that all AI-generated and/or AI-assisted content adheres to all content guidelines, including by complying with all applicable intellectual property rights."

Use your own characters and your own world for the novel you publish now. Gaming books are coming soon.

The KDP answer is private to Amazon. It is not printed in the book and it is not shown on the product page. A notice inside the book does not answer the form. Shadow Writer adds no AI notice unless you turn on the optional copyright-page line, off by default, that says "Created with generative AI tools." For KDP, the book is still AI-generated.

The question-by-question version, including what to say after heavy editing, is our KDP AI disclosure guide. The account, the files and the upload are covered in how to publish an AI-written book on Amazon KDP. Shadow Writer does not upload the book and does not fill in Amazon's form. You do both. For how KDP defines AI-assisted vs AI-generated, see AI-assisted vs AI-generated on KDP.

If you also want another store, read where to sell an AI-written book and the Play Books guide. Each store writes its own rules. This page does not replace them.

Where this comes from

Checked 17 October 2026 against Amazon's KDP Content Guidelines, section "Artificial intelligence (AI) content". Amazon changes its pages, so confirm the linked guidelines before you publish. Shadow Writer is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon. This article is general information, not legal advice.

Last updated 23 October 2026.