The Shelf
Sixteen novelists, every one an AI character, shelved by genre. Open a jacket, or turn to the opening pages and pick the paragraph you cannot leave alone.
Order the shelf
More filters: hair, look, build, her prose temper
Bettina Lorenz AI
Speculative fiction author, 32
The city of Aven had a gap in the middle of it, and nobody mentioned it at dinner.
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Isolde Hargreave AI
Literary novelist, 49
There is a kind of silence that arrives in a house after an argument has been won.
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Cassidy Bright AI
Western author, 24
The crossroads at Dry Fork had one tree, one well and, on this particular noon, two people who both wanted the well.
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Zainab Qureshi AI
Romantic comedy author, 28
Priya Nair had three rules for first meetings: arrive early, order water, and never speak first.
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Dolores Whitfield AI
Crime novelist, 53
In Memphis the heat sits on a town like a thumb, and Detective Ruth Calloway had been under it since June.
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Salome Zamora AI
Regency romance author, 29
Miss Honoria Vane had written eleven letters to Mr Ashby and posted none of them.
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Keiko Sato AI
Fantasy author, 34
In Ostrel the rain fell upward on the first night of spring, and the cartographers closed their shops.
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Greer Calloway AI
Historical novelist, 36
Richmond, April 1866, and the river had a smell Eleanor Marsh was learning to ignore.
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Philippa Grange AI
Gothic novelist, 55
The storm arrived at Thornwick an hour before the carriage, and it took the east shutters with it.
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Leontine Marais AI
Noir author, 43
It rained on Bourbon Street the way it rains in the third act, with intent.
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Anneke Vos AI
Thriller writer, 39
By the second paragraph, Dr Marit Keller had stopped believing that the lift would reach the ground floor.
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Priscilla Nakamura AI
Verse novelist, 41
Mauna Kea wore its cloud like a hat / and Leilani watched from the lanai, counting.
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Miriam Blum AI
Mystery novelist, 52
The library at Fenwick House held four thousand books and one volume that had been put back upside down.
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Rowan Achterberg AI
Serial webnovelist, 20
Chapter 1, posted at midnight: Mika Tanabe woke on the wrong side of the screen.
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Olive Pruitt AI
Horror writer, 31
The inn had no mirrors, which Tamsin Reeve took for thrift until the second night.
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Thandi Mokoena AI
Space-opera writer, 47
Station Perihelion kept the lights low between shifts, which suited Captain Ilse Orrin, who had a map to hide.
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Opening Pages
Sixteen original opening paragraphs, one per author, each in her own voice and genre. Narrow them by genre and mood, then tap Write on: her chat opens with the paragraph as the first page of your book. Text only, and every love scene closes the chapter.
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
Fantasy · WarmIn Ostrel the rain fell upward on the first night of spring, and the cartographers closed their shops.Wren Halloran, whose job was to name the rivers, found a new one running under the market and no word for it.The woman who stepped out of the water asked for a map. It occurred to Wren that she might need to write one.Keiko Sato Write on
Noir · LateIt rained on Bourbon Street the way it rains in the third act, with intent.Nell Devereux had been paid to find a missing saxophonist, and she had found him, and now she needed to find out who had paid her.The client was waiting under the awning of the closed bar, in a coat that cost more than the case, and he was lying already.Leontine Marais Write on
Horror · UneasyThe inn had no mirrors, which Tamsin Reeve took for thrift until the second night.She noticed the sound first, a faint dry shuffling from the room next door, the kind a person makes when they are very carefully not making it.On the third night, she knocked back. Something knocked, politely, in the same rhythm.Olive Pruitt Write on
Historical · QuietRichmond, April 1866, and the river had a smell Eleanor Marsh was learning to ignore.She had come to the printing office to correct a date in the ledger, and found instead a man correcting her.His name, he said, was Ward, and he had been wrong about the year only in the way that honest men were wrong about everything.Greer Calloway Write on
Romantic comedy · FunnyPriya Nair had three rules for first meetings: arrive early, order water, and never speak first.She broke all three within the first minute, because the man at the next table was wearing her grandmother's cardigan.It was, she realised, going to be that sort of Tuesday, and she had not even ordered a coffee.Zainab Qureshi Write on
Literary · QuietThere is a kind of silence that arrives in a house after an argument has been won.Margaret Ellison sat in it with a cooling cup of tea and the unpleasant sense that she had won the wrong one.On the table lay a pen, a blank page and a title she could not yet bring herself to write.Isolde Hargreave Write on
Verse novel · WarmMauna Kea wore its cloud like a hat / and Leilani watched from the lanai, counting.One for the ferry, two for the rain, / three for the stranger who had stopped to ask the way.He had no map. He had a book of poems and a smile, / and her answer, when it came, rhymed with his.Priscilla Nakamura Write on
Serial web novel · BoldChapter 1, posted at midnight: Mika Tanabe woke on the wrong side of the screen.The comments were scrolling, the reader count was climbing, and the character she had written last week was sitting at her desk.She was the only one in the story who knew it was a story, and she was beginning to enjoy that.Rowan Achterberg Write on
Crime · LateIn Memphis the heat sits on a town like a thumb, and Detective Ruth Calloway had been under it since June.The body was ordinary, the motive was not, and the widow had offered iced tea before she was asked a thing.Ruth took the glass and the hint, and sat down to listen the way her teacher had taught her, with no questions at all.Dolores Whitfield Write on
Speculative · QuietThe city of Aven had a gap in the middle of it, and nobody mentioned it at dinner.Dr Soraya Wells was the first to be hired to measure it, and the only one to notice that the measurements changed when she was kind.She wrote this down. Then she crossed it out, and then, quietly, wrote it down again.Bettina Lorenz Write on
