Opening Pages

Chapter one, paragraph one, her pen already moving

DuPorn.cc: AI romance co-writing, a duet in prose

16
novelists on the shelf, each of them an AI character
1
shared manuscript for each pairing, kept for next time
20–55
their ages, all adults with books behind them
3
days of the advance copy with every author open, no card
Bettina Lorenz
Bettina, 32 AI
offline

She leaves a gap in her paragraph and expects you to fill it.

Isolde Hargreave
Isolde, 49 AI
at her desk

She will not tell you the genre until you give her a title.

Sixteen AI novelists, each in a genre of her own, open a story in real prose and hand you the pen. You write the next paragraph, she answers in the margin, and the book grows turn by turn. It is saved, she remembers how your last chapter ended, and you can read it back whenever you like.

The sixteen authors, from their own dust jackets

Open every jacket

AI romance co-writing, a duet in prose

Chat apps tend to produce short lines and quick replies, which is fine for flirting and poor for fiction. This site works at a different speed. The unit here is the paragraph, the pace is that of a manuscript passed back and forth across a desk, and the result, at the end of a good evening, is a few pages you would be willing to read again.

Her turn, your turn

She opens with a paragraph in her own genre and voice, and you answer with the next one. You can pick up her thread, bend it, break it or rename the hero. The only rule of the duet is that each of you takes a turn, and that the turns add up to a story. Philippa Grange, who writes gothic, opens with a storm. Cassidy Bright, a western author, opens at a dusty crossroads and expects you to draw first.

The margin note

After each of your paragraphs she may add a note in the margin, in brackets and in her own manner. It might say that your adverb is doing too much, that your hero has just contradicted himself, or that a sentence on the second line is the best thing in the chapter. Margin notes are how she edits you. They are never cruel, though they are sometimes accurate in a way that stings, and you may ignore every one. A writer who ignores them all will still get a book; a writer who reads them tends to get a better one.

How a chapter is written

Nothing needs installing, and the first page is waiting. The procedure is as short as the title page of a paperback.

  1. Pull a spine

    Pick a genre from the shelf, or an opening page that makes you want to answer. Readers without a pass have 10 messages before the library asks for a name.

  2. Write the next paragraph

    Reply in prose. Switch to an action line if you would rather steer than narrate. Her pace lives in the chat's menu and runs from friendly through flirting to romance.

  3. Read her margin note

    She answers in the story and, when she has one, in brackets beside your paragraph. Take the note, argue with it or ignore it.

  4. Close the chapter, or carry on

    Come back tomorrow and the manuscript is where you left it. Clear the chat to start a clean volume.

Do you need to write well?

No. She will edit you, kindly or not, depending on her temper. A weak paragraph gets a margin note and a better sentence of her own, and a good one gets a short, grudging line of praise that you may want to frame. The point of a duet is that the second voice improves the first.

Who owns the book

Your words are yours. The authors are fictional characters, and the site keeps no publishing claim over the chat. There is nothing to submit and nothing to publish; the book exists in your history, for you to read, copy or clear.

Her style sheet

Editors keep a style sheet for every book: how a name is spelled, whether numbers are written out, what to do with a dash. Each author here has one, and it is displayed on her profile.

What a style sheet holds

A style sheet records habits. It says whether she writes in the past or present tense, how long her paragraphs run, what she does with dialogue, and which words she refuses. Zainab Qureshi, the romantic comedy author, opens with a joke about you and follows it with a sentence that is not funny at all. Priscilla Nakamura writes in lines, and wants you to answer in lines.

Why it matters

Knowing her habits lets you write toward her or against her. Matching her voice gives a smooth book, and breaking it gives a lively one. Isolde Hargreave will not tell you the genre until you give her a title, which is her way of saying that the voice comes first. Reading the sheet before you start is a little like reading the terms of a friendship.

The shelf by genre

The sixteen spines are grouped the way a good bookshop would group them. Every author is invented, between 20 and 55, with a bibliography nobody can check and strong opinions about the semicolon.

Gothic to western

The shelf is wider than it looks. A gothic author wants atmosphere and restraint, a thriller writer wants a body in the second paragraph, and a western author wants a gun that does not go off until the third. Space opera and fantasy want worldbuilding, and a romantic comedy wants you to be funny first. Choose by mood, then let the genre push back. Nobody on the shelf will mind if you start in one genre and drift into another halfway through the book; the best duets do, and the authors enjoy being led somewhere they did not expect to go.

Romance in every genre

The romance is the thread that runs through each volume, whether it is a gothic courtship or a love story set on a space station. Where the story goes is up to the two of you, and the genre only decides the weather.

The love scene

A romance has a love scene somewhere in it, and this one is no exception. What it cannot do is show everything, so here is how that works.

Where the chapter closes

When the story heads toward the bedroom, the chapter closes and the book fades to black. That is the limit of the site and it holds on every plan. The attraction, the tension and the almost are all on the page; what happens next is left to the white space at the end of the chapter, where good romance has always kept it.

What she will not write

Every author is a grown woman and will decline whatever the press code forbids. She will not write a relative into a love story, will not write force, and will not put a real person into the plot. Her limits are printed on her jacket, so you know them before you pick up the pen.

Openings

Every author keeps one opening page ready, an original paragraph in her own voice. Six are printed below, and the rest sit on the shelf page.

Gothic · TenseThe storm arrived at Thornwick an hour before the carriage, and it took the east shutters with it.Lady Ashcombe stood in the long gallery with a candle that refused to behave and a letter she had not yet had the courage to open.Someone was coming up the back stair, and she did not need to turn to know that his step was one she had waited for.Philippa Grange Write on Thriller · TenseBy the second paragraph, Dr Marit Keller had stopped believing that the lift would reach the ground floor.The man in the corner had her name on his badge and her handwriting on his palm, and he was smiling as if they had agreed to this.Her phone buzzed once in her coat. She did not answer, because the voice she needed was standing three feet away.Anneke Vos Write on Regency · WarmMiss Honoria Vane had written eleven letters to Mr Ashby and posted none of them.The twelfth lay open on the writing table at Lyme, damp at one corner where the sea air had found it, and it said only that she regretted nothing.A knock came at the door, and she found that she had risen before she had decided to.Salome Zamora Write on Space opera · BoldStation Perihelion kept the lights low between shifts, which suited Captain Ilse Orrin, who had a map to hide.She spread it across the galley table: seven jump points, one dead sun and a debt she meant to settle face to face.The new navigator arrived with a bag, a bad joke and the exact coordinates she had been about to ask for.Thandi Mokoena Write on Western · BoldThe crossroads at Dry Fork had one tree, one well and, on this particular noon, two people who both wanted the well.Josephine Cade kept her hand loose and her hat low, and the stranger across the dust did exactly the same.Neither of them spoke. The wind did that for them, and the wind said that someone would have to draw first.Cassidy Bright Write on Mystery · QuietThe library at Fenwick House held four thousand books and one volume that had been put back upside down.Inspector Dara Lowe noticed it at once, as she was meant to, and noticed too that the housekeeper had not looked at it once.She opened her notebook and wrote a single word: why.Miriam Blum Write on

One page per author

An opening is a paragraph, not a pitch. It sets a place, a person and a question, and stops where you can step in. Tap Write on and her chat opens with that paragraph already in place as the first page of your book, which counts as one message. Filter the openings by genre and mood, and reading them needs no account.

From a page to a chapter

Once the first page is down, the book proceeds in turns. After a few exchanges the story acquires its own momentum, and the chapter closes when one of you decides it should. The chat's menu shows the manuscript so far, which you can copy whenever you like. Length is up to you: a chapter can be three exchanges or thirty, and a book can be left for a week and picked up with its voice intact, because she keeps the style sheet in her head.

What this is and is not

The web address is a label and not a description, so here is a plainer one.

A reading room, not a publisher

The library, its shelf and its authors are invented. Nothing is submitted, printed or sold here, and no real author is imitated. The novelists are AI characters, each pictured on a jacket of her own, with a wide banner across the home page; and there is no film or footage to watch. Should a sentence on this page stop being true, it is corrected and the correction is entered in the margins.

Prose, not texting

The replies here run to paragraphs, and the book accumulates. That is the whole difference from a chat app: you leave with a manuscript. If you want quick banter, the sibling sites do that better. If you want a story to read back in a month, this is the one.

Questions for the editor

  1. Do I need to write well?

    No. She will edit you, kindly or not, depending on her temper, and a weak paragraph earns you a better one of hers.

  2. Can I read what we wrote later?

    Yes. The manuscript stays in your history, the chat's menu shows it, and she remembers where the last chapter ended. You may copy it or clear it whenever you like.

  3. What happens at the love scene?

    The chapter closes and the story fades to black. Every plan shares that boundary.

  4. Who owns our story?

    Your words are yours. The authors are fictional characters, and the site keeps no publishing claim over your chat.

  5. Are these real authors?

    No. Each is software-written, with an invented name, an invented bibliography and a jacket portrait of her own.

  6. Is there anything to look at besides text?

    Every author has a jacket portrait, and a wide banner crowns the home page. That is all for now; any addition would be announced in the margins first.

Write the next line

The lamp is on, the manuscript is open and one of sixteen novelists has already written the first paragraph. Pull a spine and answer her.

Pull a spine