What Sudowrite did to Stuart Turton’s novel

To put Sudowrite to the test, we fed the AI an extract from The Devil

and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton, which is out now in paperback. That name will be familiar to long-time PC Pro readers – Stuart was our news editor before he selfishly decided to become a bestselling author.

Here you’ll see the extract from Stuart’s book that was given to Sudowrite, where the software took the story next and finally Stuart’s verdict on what the AI did to his writing.

Extract from TheDeviland theDarkWater

Arent Hayes howled in pain as a rock slammed into his massive back. Another whistled by his ear; a third striking his knee, causing him to stumble, bringing jeers from the pitiless mob, who were already searching the ground for more missiles to throw. Hundreds of them were being held back by the city watch, their spittleflecked lips shouting insults, their eyes black with malice.

“Take shelter for pity’s sake,” implored Sammy Pipps over the din, his manacles flashing in the sunlight as he staggered across the dusty ground. “It’s me they want.”

Arent was twice the height and half again the width of most men in Batavia, including Pipps. Although not a prisoner himself, he’d placed his large body between the crowd and his much smaller friend, offering them only a sliver of target to aim at.

The bear and the sparrow they’d been nicknamed before Sammy’s fall. Never before had it appeared so true.

Pipps was being taken from the dungeons to the harbour, where a ship waited to transport him to Amsterdam.

Four musketeers were escorting them, but they were keeping their distance, wary of becoming targets themselves.

“You pay me to protect you,” snarled Arent, wiping the dusty sweat from his eyes as he tried to gauge the distance to safety. “I’ll do it until I can’t anymore.”

The harbour lay behind a huge set of gates at the far end of Batavia’s central boulevard. Once those gates closed behind them, they’d be beyond the crowd’s reach. Unfortunately, they were at the tail end of a long procession moving slowly in the heat. The gates seemed no closer now than when they’d left the humid dampness of the dungeon at midday.

A rock thudded into the ground at

Arent’s feet, spraying his boots with dried dirt. Another ricocheted off Sammy’s chains. Traders were selling them out of sacks and making good coin doing it.

“Damn Batavia,” snarled Arent. “Bastards can’t abide an empty pocket.”

On a normal day, these people would be buying from the bakers, tailors, cordwainers, binders and candlemakers lining the boulevard. They’d be smiling and laughing, grumbling about the infernal heat, but manacle a man, offer him up to torment, and even the meekest soul surrendered itself to the devil.

Sudowrite takes over…

The harbour was strangely quiet, as languorous as just another brick-paved boulevard in the most expensive part of town. That sense of calm was which vanished when they finally turned off the boulevard into the quay itself.

A windmill almost as wide as a church turned to the south, its sails tossing in the soft breeze, swathed in crimson canvas.

The galley that waited to take the next shipment to the East was crammed with caskets. The air was ripe with the stench of vinegar, unloading still in progress. On lighters waited with horses to take the barrels to the wine cellar.

Arent kept Pipps close by his side, his eyes on the restive sailors gathering at the mooring posts. A dozen waited at the first, arms crossed over their chests, biceps bulging, arguing.

The gates were finally opened, and a stream of bodies came surging through. With a shout, the crowd parted, opening a direct path to Pipps. “Move it!” roared a voice, and a hundred fists punched threateningly into the air.

The musketeers looked up to the captain, still in the castle, apparently reminding him of his duties. He let off one shot, causing the crowd to fall silent. But the barrage came from elsewhere. Pipps fell to his knees. “No,” he screamed.

A ball had pierced the bridge of his nose, blood streaming down his chin. A dollop of gore was flung into the air, landing on Arent’s breeches. “Run,” snapped Arent. “Just run, damn it!”

Pipps staggered to his feet.

Stuart Turton’s verdict

Before I started writing books, I worked for

PC Pro for three years. That probably makes me one of the few authors genuinely excited about the development of GPT-3.

When I was told about Sudowrite I thought it sounded brilliant. Writing is a solitary job and I liked the idea of having a piece of software that could give me a creative nudge now and again, offering ideas for what to write next when my brain had flung up the white flag.

Having played with it for a few hours, I can’t pretend it’s something I’d use regularly. Even accepting that the text needs to be heavily edited – it doesn’t mimic style at all, it’s the idea buried in the text you’re after – it too often conjures forward momentum by throwing something so radical into the mix that it would entirely break the novel.

For example, I pasted the first 300 words of The Devil and the Dark Water into Sudowrite, then asked it to suggest what should happen next. It offered five options, including murdering a child, shooting my protagonist through the nose, robbing them blind and two that were utterly nonsensical.

None of the suggestions are things I’d have thought of doing, which certainly has worth. The problem is the software isn’t paying attention to the pacing of the novel, the character’s traits or where we’re at in the story. It feels like I’m asking my threeyear-old daughter what should happen next then happily popping two characters from

Paw Patrol in there.

I did have more success with other parts of the software. Sudowrite can suggest twists and characters you may want to add to your novel – some of which actually worked quite well. I gave it a basic outline of

The Devil and the Dark Water, and the first suggestion it offered was actually a twist I’d used in the book. Most of the others were insane, but a few were interesting.

Sadly, it’s too late for me to use its best suggestion: “the boat is actually a ghost ship carrying 24 passengers and a giant squid”. Maybe next time.