We Reviewed the Best AI Story Generators on the Market

March 26, 2024

Helpful Summary

Overview: We review six AI story generators, covering features, pricing, pros, and cons.
Why you can trust us: We’ve tested tons of AI writing tools in the process of building DreamGen—and that gives us a unique perspective in evaluating them.
Why this is important: AI story generators can be used for entertainment, to get past a writer's block and save time, and to organize the information about your story.
Action points: Our top AI story generators are DreamGen, NovelAI, AI Dungeon, SudoWrite, NovelCrafter, and KoboldAI.
Further research: Check out our guide to the best AI Dungeon alternatives for more great recommendations.

Looking for the Best AI Story Generators?

Ever found yourself staring at a blank screen, waiting for inspiration to strike? It’s no fun.

Momentum is a powerful tool in writing. But creativity isn’t a limitless resource, and every writer has struggled to come up with new ideas at some point. AI story generators can help by providing tailored suggestions, prompts, and ideation that keep momentum flowing.

Interested? You’re in the right place.

In this DreamGen guide, we take a deep dive into the top AI story generators available. We’ve done the research so you don’t have to, and we’ll provide you all the details you need to make an informed decision.

Let’s get started.

Why Listen To Us?

At DreamGen, we’re determined to develop the ideal AI role-play and story-writing platform for writers, fan fiction enthusiasts, creative minds… and anyone who loves to create and immerse themselves in stories.

As writers ourselves, we understand the frustration and challenges that come with constantly generating fresh, engaging ideas. And while there’s no substitute for human creativity, AI is more than capable of assisting in the process.

So, with all that in mind, we present to you our top picks for the best AI story generators on the market.

What Are AI Story Generators?

AI story generators are tools that use AI to help you generate stories (no surprises there).

That said, there is actually quite a bit of variation among AI story generators. One of the biggest differences is AI's role in creating the story. For example, AI Dungeon is designed for AI role-play where you’re only in control of your character’s actions, while SudoWrite focuses on more serious AI-assisted story writing.

And then there are tools like DreamGen that can do both!

In our reviews of each tool, we’ll highlight where on the “generation to creation” spectrum each tool falls and what that means for you. Overall, AI story generators aim to help writers overcome writer’s block and spark new ideas by using AI—it’s just a matter of finding one that does everything you need it to.

Benefits Of Using AI Story Generators

Organize Story Information: Writing a story means managing plotlines, characters, arcs, and world-building elements. A good AI story generator will help you keep track of all these details—and even suggest new ones!
Streamlining the Writing Process: By speeding up tasks like brainstorming and description-writing, AI story generators can help writers focus on more rewarding aspects of storytelling, like character development and plot twists.
Overcoming Writer's Block and Enhancing Creativity: As mentioned earlier, momentum is important in writing. AI story generators can provide a fresh perspective or prompt to help writers get past any blocks and develop new ideas.
Supporting Co-Creation: AI story generators allow for an entirely new kind of writing experience—one where you (the author) don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen next. This can lead to all kinds of unexpected twists and turns.

Criteria To Consider When Choosing AI Story Generators

Customizable Generations: Writing is a creative process—and that means it’s a personal process. You need a tool that offers enough customization and control to match your style and generate outputs that resonate with you.
Intuitive User Interface: You’d be surprised by the variation between different AI story generators. An intuitive UI is essential for a smooth writing experience and will encourage you to use the tool more often and thus write more. Additionally, consider whether the tool offers API access, as this will allow you to integrate the AI story generator into your preferred writing environment or existing workflow.

Affordable Pricing: Pricing is an important factor with any tool you use, and there are quite a few pricing models out there. Some tools, like DreamGen, charge flat monthly fees for set amounts of completion credits. Others use more complicated credit systems or PAYG pricing per generation.

6 Best AI Story Generators

DreamGen
NovelAI
AI Dungeon
SudoWrite
NovelCrafter
KoboldAI

1. DreamGen

DreamGen is an AI-powered platform for unrestricted role-play and storywriting.

On the “generation to creation” spectrum, DreamGen can slide to either end depending on what you need. If you want quick and easy writing, DreamGen can generate paragraphs, scenes, dialogues, and more in seconds. However, if you want to dive deeper and create full stories with complex plots and characters, DreamGen also offers that option.

Our custom, open-source models are designed with pure creativity in mind—we let your imagination run wild while our AI handles the details. Plus, our editor is designed for writing longer-form content with features like extended context windows, multiple character blocks, and more.

The basic writing process is simple with DreamGen.

To begin, you can select one of our carefully crafted story scenarios or create your own. When creating your scenario, you can start with a simple, brief plot description or go all out with a detailed description of the plot and the world – including the set of important characters, locations, etc. Additionally, you can specify the writing style to fit your vision.

You have complete control over how involved AI is in the writing process. If you need a hand, you can hit “Continue” and the AI will pick up where you left off. Or, you can write out specific instructions for the AI to follow—like “have character A confront character B in the next 300 words”.

Key Features

Unrestricted Story Writing: Write without worrying about filters and censorship. We know that powerful stories often explore the complex, messy, and sometimes dark realities of the human condition, and we give you the tools to do just that.
Story Steering: Take control of the creative process with various tools to steer the AI in whatever direction you want – you can direct the writing style, as well as what should happen next.
Customizable Outputs: Dive into the settings that control things like randomness, length, and creativity to fine-tune the AI's output.
Multiple Models: Choose between multiple AI models designed to maximize speed, costs, or something in between. Advanced and Pro users get unlimited generations with our basic model so it’s easy to iterate stories.
API Access: Access DreamGen’s models through your favorite frontend with our easy-to-use API.
Story Prompts: Jump right into the action with our library or pre-written story scenarios.
AI Role-Play: Switch to Roleplay Mode to let the AI take on the role of a character you created and see where it takes the story.

Pricing

DreamGen offers a generous free plan that lets anyone start using the platform immediately.

If you do want to upgrade, our paid plans offer access to better models and more monthly completion credits. You can choose from Starter ($7.83/month), Advanced ($19.35/month), and Pro ($48.30/month).

All paid plans are 50% off for the first month.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Great long-form writing editor.
Offers a structured way to organize story information in codex / story-bible.
Fine-grained tools for steering the writing style and the plot.
Role-play and story-writing modes.
Affordable pricing.
Open-source models (available on Hugging Face).

Cons

Limited story scenario library.

2. NovelAI

NovelAI is one of the original AI-powered story generator tools. It’s designed to help authors, writers, and anyone who wants to write stories, plots, and characters. It stands out thanks to its simple, intuitive UX and useful story-writing features like Lorebook and style emulation.

Similar to DreamGen, Novel AI can either be a generation or creation tool thanks to its two different modes—Storyteller and Text Adventure.

Key Features

Lorebook for World-Building: Helps maintain consistency by recording key details about locations, characters, and plot points that may come up again later in the story.
Image Generation: Integrates the Stable Diffusion text-to-image diffusion model to support visualizing narratives through high-quality AI-generated images.
Style Emulation: Tries to emulate the writing style of different famous writers chosen by the user.

Pricing

NovelAI offers monthly subscription plans ranging from Tablet ($10/month) to Opus ($25/month).

All plans come with image generation and AI TTS, but higher-tier plans offer more memory tokens to support longer projects with more nuance.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Nice, user-friendly interface.
Provides authorial freedom.
Ability to emulate famous writers' styles.
Adaptability to various themes.

Cons

Pricing might be steep for some users.
Limited model customization.

3. AI Dungeon

AI Dungeon is a text-based adventure “game” (really more of a role-play tool) that uses AI to generate scenarios and stories based on user input. Users can type in any prompt, action, or story idea, and the AI will generate a unique narrative based on that input.

AI Dungeon is a great example of a tool that’s towards the “generation” side of the spectrum. Yes, you’re still inputting and creating content, but the AI takes over to generate a unique story.

Key Features

Massive Scenario Library: Browse a massive library of user-generated story scenarios, ranging from fantasy and sci-fi to romance and horror.
Gamified Writing: Write stories by taking “turns” with the AI, allowing for unpredictable plot twists.
Mobile App: Role-play on the go with the AI Dungeon mobile app (available on iOS and Android).

Pricing

AI Dungeon has a free plan that offers unlimited access to basic models.

Paid plans range from Adventurer ($9.99/month) to Mythic ($49.99/month). Higher-tier plans offer benefits like longer context windows and faster AI generation speeds.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Ability to cater to any storyline imaginatively.
AI’s unpredictable nature leads to engaging and surprising story developments.
Sharing and exploring stories by others adds a rich content layer.

Cons

Occasional narrative inconsistencies or nonsensical responses.
Expensive paid plans.
Limited model and output customization.

4. SudoWrite

SudoWrite is an AI writing assistant designed specifically for fiction authors. Unlike marketing-focused writing tools like Jasper, SudoWrite offers tools like AI-assisted storyboarding, structural editing, and tone emulation that are designed to help writers develop engaging storylines.

SudoWrite is definitely more of a “creation” tool. It’s meant to adapt to your writing style, and that means it relies on you writing things yourself. Could you use it to generate a story? Maybe—it probably wouldn’t be very compelling, though.

Key Features

Story Engine: Supports the creative writing process by helping authors flesh out characters, plot, and prose.
AI-Assisted Writing: Generates the next 300 words of a story while trying to emulate your style and voice.
Revision Tools: Includes a "Rewrite" feature for text rephrasing, description enhancement, and editing for showing rather than telling.

Pricing

Sudowrite offers three plans ranging from Hobby & Student ($10/month) to Max ($44/month).

Higher-tier plans offer more credits monthly (one credit equals one AI-generated word). On the Max plan, unused credits roll over to the next month.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Amazing long-form editor.
Designed for serious creative writing.
Good tone detection.

Cons

No plagiarism checker.
Certain features (like AI storyboarding) could use more work.

5. NovelCrafter

NovelCrafter is a bit different to other tools on this list. It’s a frontend (basically a UI) that doesn’t offer any AI story generation capabilities itself—instead, it lets you connect to various LLMs like GPT-4, Claude, Poe, and DreamGen.

The tools also offers some useful features for organizing scenes, characters, and plot information. It also definietly leans more towards the creation side of the spectrum, but can still be used for generating content.

Key Features

The Codex: Serves as a personal wiki for storing all things related to users’ story, including characters, locations, lore, and more.
Plan, Write, Tinker, Review: Brings planning story structure to writing in a focused interface, tinkering with ideas via AI, and reviewing progress in one place.
Workshop: Features an AI-powered space for ideating and chatting about story elements, enhanced by data from Codex.

Pricing

Novelcrafter's pricing ranges from Scribe ($4/month) to Specialist ($20/month).

Each plan offers features tailored to writers of different levels, from basic tools in the Scribe tier to collaborative and advanced features in the Specialist tier.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Range of useful writing tools.
Works with almost any AI model.
Helps when generating ideas and content.

Cons

Requires quite a bit of setup if you want to use AI.
Limitations in free version capabilities.

6. KoboldAI

KoboldAI is an open-source AI story generator that empowers writers and creators by harnessing the capabilities of various local and remote AI models to assist in generating text on their own hardware.

It provides a powerful platform for enhancing the writing process, offering a versatile tool for anyone looking to generate stories with minimal manual effort. In other words, this is definitely on the “generation” side of the spectrum for AI writing tools..

Key Features

Various AI Models: Offers a selection of AI models designed for different writing styles, including novel, adventure, NSFW, and hybrid models.
Diverse Use Cases: Supports interactive storytelling, writing assistance, and the creation of text-based adventure games.
Installation Flexibility: Can be installed on various operating systems, including Windows and Linux.

Pricing

Kobold AI is free to install.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Ability to preserve intricate details over extended periods.
Allows you to run small models directly on your computer.
Incorporates a Memory pad where users can input persistent context.

Cons

Requires powerful hardware to run premium models.
Outdated UI.

Other tools

Here are some other tools related to AI story generation that we have tried out, but not enough to provide a full review:

Fantoons: Focused on generating comics and fan-fiction.
FictionGPT: Very basic tool to generate simple stories.
Story Generator: Similar to FictionGPT, but with a few more features, such as the ability to control the "creativity" of the AI.

Conclusion

And that’s it—our list of the six best AI story generators on the market.

After a thorough review, it's clear that there’s quite a bit of variety in the AI-powered story generator space, with tons of different features and capabilities on offer. The right tool for you will depend on your goals.

At DreamGen, we’ve worked hard to give writers a powerful tool for generating ideas, refining stories, and having fun with the creative process. Our wide range of features and user-friendly interface make Dreamgen a compelling choice for anyone looking to create with the help of AI..

Try it now for free.