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Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models
Hi HN. I built 1667 for my own fiction work and now use it each day. This probably has a limited audience. Maybe an audience of one...
Why a terminal interface for story writing? I'm a dev. I like to use terminals for a lot of stuff. Most WebUIs feel off to me. That's the only reason.
One thing that bothers me about writing in existing tools is that they don't fit the way I write. The mental model of my story is a tree. I try many takes usually continue with just one, but sometimes I want to try an alternate route and see where this goes. And that can branch again in many places. See what happens if I kill off this character or they don't take the job or whatever.
1667 is a full-screen terminal app for long-form fiction. Each story part can have several takes. All takes stay in a tree. You select one path through that tree as the story line. Export writes that line to Markdown in the project folder.
Some technical details:
- A project stores its stories and settings in a `.1667/` directory. Exported Markdown sits beside it.
- Provider secrets stay in private machine files. Requests go to the provider that the writer selects.
- An optional Vault Password seals project files at rest.
- An operating-system lock permits one writer process for each project.
- The request viewer shows the next provider request without its credential.
- Each generated take keeps a Generation Record with its model and effective settings.
Version 0.9.5 runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows x64. The website has Shell and PowerShell installers. An npm package is also available.
1667 imports Markdown, SillyTavern chats and cards, and NovelAI archives. It can use OpenAI-compatible, Anthropic, and local endpoints such as Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, and KoboldCpp.
Current limits: the release is pre-1.0. The interface is a terminal. There is no account or cloud sync, and I don't plan to add any. No tracking.
- BrucecarlL 2mo agoThe UI looks beautiful,I like its style.
- Z4cki 2mo agoLove the style! very creative
- refsab 2mo agoThank you. I added different themes but I liked this one the best
- bubblegumcrisis 2mo agoThis is so depressing for me. The drip will be everywhere.
- sesteel 2mo agoI think I am going to move into a rural area and be a glassblower. I'll never be Chihuly, but my work will be my work.
- refsab 2mo agoThis is not a slop book producer. I mean it is but mostly for a niche of off grid weirdos like me. We are not writing for the public. It's like fanfic. On off grid forums and discords. I think if someone wanted to produce a slop book for amazon with 1667 there are easier tools for that.
- bubblegumcrisis 2mo agoHere's a question. Tangential I know. "Digression!" If you had a kid, let's say 6 years old, and they had a "super hero" they wrote stories about. What would it mean, if you took away their creative process and replaced it with this. Does that child have a lesser "life-experience?" Or not? What about you?
- refsab 2mo agoBut I'm not taking it away. I'm adding to it. I'm also writing my own stories. My post marketed it the wrong way I think. I'm suddenly getting a lot of hate mail in my inbox. What it really is is a kind of choose your own adventure. You can be 6 years old and write stories and then an hour later play a choose-your-own-adventure game and no one would find that weird
- bubblegumcrisis 2mo agoThe next generation is so f*cked. It's going to be far worse than I imagined before. We are going to have kids who, instead of imagining their own fantasy lands, are given them by AI. Of course the AI will be far superior to a 6 year old- how will they be able to resist the AI drip, when even adults can't. A generation growing up without imagining. So depressing. I guess we have a few years before it starts. Or maybe it already has. Wow. I hope this doesn't happen. I hope the kids are smarter than us.
- DC-3 2mo agoWhy would you want to write fiction with language models? Serious question. What you would become, in effect, is the fictional Soviet 'writer' from Sam Kriss' 2011 short story 'The Machine'. https://samkriss.com/2011/10/01/the-machine/ https://samkriss.com/2011/10/01/the-machine/ I do not think there is anything to aspire to in that.
- refsab 2mo agoIt's a form of low tech holodeck. You write the stories you want to read. I love these vintage pulp detective novels but no one writes them anymore so I write them myself for myself, and a few of my fellow weirdos on weird discords.
- DC-3 2mo agoI suppose I am sympathetic to the feeling of having weird tastes uncatered to by the market. But in that instance, why not actually try and write such stories yourself? And as a reader, what is the appeal of reading stories regurgitated by a stochastic algorithm when the possibility is there instead of connecting to another human soul?
- refsab 2mo agoOh I do. They are just utter garbage but that's beside the point. This caters to a different lets say need. Like I said in another post it's more like low tech holodeck or maybe create your own adventure. Where the story evolves based on simple directives
- DC-3 2mo ago> They are just utter garbage As someone once said, "Fail again. Fail better." And, anyway, so what if they are bad? They are authentically the product of a single human soul rather than some grey-gruel average of millions. There is an awful lot of value in that.
- 2mo ago
- j4cobgarby 2mo agoI assume the several comments complementing the style of this app are being sarcastic, because.. come on..
- refsab 2mo agoMy god. I'm getting anxiety. I shouldn't have posted this
- pbowyer 2mo agoI like seeing what people create, and you've created something with some interesting features, particularly around the path map and keeping all drafts. I'm forever duplicating a paragraph and rewording it 6 or 7 times, then deleting the rest - and the next day think "no try #2 was better than the one I kept". Ignore the haters, they're a HN rite of passage. Good luck with your writing!
- refsab 2mo agoThank you. Really appreciate it. Makes me feel better. Yeah I spent a lot of time thinking about this problem. Wanted to make it easy to navigate multiple takes and multiple branches. It's a difficult UX problem. I feel like the path view of the map works reasonably well but tree/mass not so much. Needs more thinking
- arecsu 2mo agoI think you've built some awesome. Even if, as you said, it proves to be for an audience of one (you), I know some people out there are grateful for you sharing it. Comments are not reality most of the times. There is a silent portion which would like your idea and you just don't know. People here in HN tend to be very polarized towards a certain idea, come up with intellectual arguments to justify their emotional reactions. Of course you can find some light in negative comments, but still, to be taken with a grain of salt. Someone said "a generation growing up without imagining. So depressing." This reads like old man yells to clouds. Through history you can find these comments about upcoming generations all over the place... We can make the same arguments in the past "oh you spend so much time reading others stories instead of writing your own? Yeah, you lack imagination kid, you're in big trouble." To have nuance and avoid over-generalizing is a good exercise in today's society I guess.
- greenie_beans 2mo agoi just use track changes for that + a "trash" doc, or an entirely new story if it needs more space, but go off. i also made an app for my writing process and quickly realized it was a distraction from the actual work of writing
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- refsab 2mo agoSaw your edit. Yeah I had that too. But I wanted something more ai driven because I'm not a trash writer. I want that lowtech holodeck feel where I tell the model to take the story and it writes a chapter for me. Plus wanted to keep branching trees of different versions
- greenie_beans 2mo agosorry i'm a writer who edits... this project is genuinely interesting and i'm curious to see where it goes. i would try to market it as ML instead of AI, given the current temperature of AI in publishing and writing circles. if somebody can improve upon track changes in a git-like, narrative-tree way, then that might be super useful tool!
- refsab 2mo agoYeah I noticed that my god. I regret even posting it. I'm suddenly getting a lot of weird mail I'm not used to hate like that.
- colesantiago 2mo agoWhat type of hate are you getting if you don't mind me asking? I like your tool by the way, I don't understand what sort of person would have such visceral hate towards someone's creation. They don't have to use it but it is nice for you to share your creation. Don't be put off by them, they actually secretly use LLMs for their own work and they are embarrassed of putting it out there to protect their own 'programmer' ego. Keep going!
- therrop 2mo ago[flagged]
- jtbayly 2mo agoMakes me curious. What context is sent? Whole story, including later chapters? Just up to that paragraph? Planning and character description documents? Any way to control all of that?
- refsab 2mo agoWhole story up to the context limit. Then it starts dropping stuff. But I didn't want auto dropping or auto summaries like what other tools do. I like to be strategic summarize the correct places when the context gets full. There is a request inspector that shows everything that is sent. I'm experimenting with prompt ordering strategies as well. this is surprisingly complext when you take into account the different model providers. For example local models usually do a different form of prompt caching than for example openai and anthropic
- crow9292 2mo agoGreat UI
- bennettpompi1 2mo agoThis sucks. Sorry. If you can't write on your own, don't write at all. Extremely disappointed that anyone is giving this votes.
- khalic 2mo agoThere are some good use cases, personal fiction, etc. The issue is mostly people not disclaiming it’s AI. I can’t get mad at the tool builder. Neither can I assume the worse of every user. That being said, I wouldn’t have published something like this because I do assume the worse. But it’s morally wrong to assume every one lacks honesty… Tough one
- bennettpompi1 2mo agoI just fundamentally disagree with this. On one hand, sure, you can argue that there is no direct harm caused by using LLMs to generate fiction for personal consumption. But on the other hand, I feel like there is a deep spiritual deadening that arises when we no longer must engage with the works of others to find fiction that satisfies our tastes. You have niche interests? What you want to read doesn't exist in a meaningful quantity or even at all? Great! You should write it! But you should do so yourself rather than asking a computer to regress your great idea to the mean.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- khalic 2mo agoI agree, and I personally don't need an Isekai generator to feel good, but who am I to tell someone else it's not ok? The thought police? The guardian of "good" distraction? Less colloquially, is "spiritual deadening" something we should/can force people away from?
- bennettpompi1 2mo agoI absolutely, 100% think that we should attempt to stigmatize the use of LLMs as a junk-food substitute for engaging with real, human writing, yeah. I just don't / cannot bring myself to accept the "let people enjoy things" approach here
- docheinestages 2mo agoCan we get a tool that does the opposite for the readers?
- refsab 2mo agoWhat do you mean? Can you elaborate?
- yesacs 2mo agoThis is embarrassing. If you actually created this for your 'own fiction work' you've missing the entire point of writing fiction.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- thegagne 2mo agoHm, I want something like this, except it doesn't write for you at all, instead it helps you build out your storyline, gives you writing prompts and feedback, maybe sometimes suggests ideas if you feel stuck, helps keep your character/story bible in order and text aligned with it, and gives you encouragement and visual feedback as you go along.| Maybe add in some different "AI reviewer" type things, one to read broadly for enjoyment and give feedback, another as an editor to fine-tune particular sections. Even with these it should provide feedback, not re-written sections. But I love the TUI approach and keeping things simple and organized for you, so you don't have to bother with all that. Bonus if it had some nice LaTeX / epub / PDF / html reader output.
- 0gs 2mo agowhat you are describing is exactly what i built (or tried/am trying to). it's called enough: github.com/0gsd/enough. it is difficult to evangelize because most LLM tools for writers generate prose. i suspect eventually an audience will come around to it, but who knows.
- refsab 2mo agoThis is really cool. Like a q/a system you can plug on top of your own files. I starred and will be trying it on some of markdown files. Thanks of the tip
- barbazoo 2mo agoAgree, the application of LLM often feels too literal. I like when LLM inform the UX but a layer or two removed for example like you said by giving feedback on things produced by the user or combining multiple things that happened over time and acting on that. That's where the magic lies and where I see users actually be happy having AI in their workflow.
- awsglkhj 2mo agoI have decided that I don't want an LLM, or Joe at the bar, to write anything for me. What I do use them for, at different times, is feedback. "Here's a draft of X; where is it weak, and where is it strong?" Or, "Give me your best counterargument." I read or listen to what comes, accepting some parts, defending against others, and dismissing the rest. And then close the tab or walk away. There's time and space between those exchanges and the next time I so much as look at the draft.
- jerjerjer 2mo agoIs it SillyTavern but TUI or is the flow different? I know SillyTavern is more dialogue focused, but surely it can be configured for novel writing instead? Not sure why you're getting so much hate. Internet is already chock-full of slop, a new TUI-based tool is not going to make it measurably worse.
- refsab 2mo agoYes. But SillyTavern didn't work for me. I didn't like the character focused chat interaction. You can configure it for novel writing. The way it treats alternate takes feels wrong to me. It's not branching off of alternates if you know what I mean.
- refsab 2mo agoAs for the hate I think it's because I called it AI writing tool that brings is a crowd that I really didn't want to address or ever envision as users.
- dbspin 2mo agoSo... You don't write with language models... You have a language model write for you... You can spend all the time you like developing structure and ideas, but if you don't actually do the writing you haven't written it. This is spectacularly wrong headed. If you want a book with your name on it for adulation or career reasons, but lack the interest, time or talent to produce one - hire a ghost writer. Writers are affordable and plentiful. Similarly if you have a hyperspecific interest, kink or genre preference - use your position as a presumably well remunerated tech person to hire a writer to cater to it. Trust me, we need the patronage. If you're looking for the pleasure of writing, you will unfortunately have to undergo, as all writers have through history, the process of suffering and discovery that we call writing.
- dbspin 2mo agoDownvotes are disturbing and ideologically motivated rather than bothering to engage with the point. You're not a musician if you hop onto Suno and generate a song. You're not a filmmaker if you open Gemini Omni and prompt some video. And you're not a bloody writer if you have an LLM do it for you. Talk about wheelchairs for the mind...
- codeduck 2mo agoWe're setting ourselves up to the be the humans on the ship Axiom from WALL-E
- TaLiTr 2mo agoTo "engage with your point": > hire a ghost writer. Writers are affordable and plentiful. > use your position as a presumably well remunerated tech person to hire a writer to cater to it. Ah yes "fuck you, pay me." You aren't entitled to his or anyone else's money. So many comments in this thread feel like some kind of writer's union demanding that everyone only write in the approved fashion or hire someone from the union. > If you're looking for the pleasure of writing, you will unfortunately have to undergo, as all writers have through history, the process of suffering and discovery that we call writing. He writes, he gets pleasure from it. Who are you to tell him he's doing it wrong?
- Stwerner 2mo agoThis is really cool! I've started building a similar tool with some different ideas based around the way I like to ideate with LLMs and write. Debating whether to open source it because it's so tied to my process. Will be interesting to see where you take this. I'd love to see more experimentation around AI tooling and UX to support creativity.
- refsab 2mo agoThis was also tied pretty much to my process. Just publish it. Would love to exchange ideas. The only thing I would avoid is calling it an AI writing tool haha. I didn't realize this was such a sore topic. Probably naive of me
- Stwerner 2mo agoI know it's easier said than done, but don't let the anti-AI crowd get to you. Would love to exchange ideas (and be emotional support if the mean comments are taking their toll)! Definitely reach out (I'm scott@ (the domain in my profile))
- drbscl 2mo ago> context window: 32,768 Seems a bit low to me. Yeah, I know that's way bigger than a book, but surely there is conversation, iteration history, etc
- refsab 2mo agoContext window depends on the model used. I used gemma4 I think and set it to 32k so startup is faster. I think even gemma supports up to 200k
- colesantiago 2mo agoTo those on HN that are hating on this, why? There isn't even any tracking or account setup with the OP's software? I'm curious if you have your own creation that doesn't use LLMs at all that you think everyone can benefit from? We should encourage people to create software even if they use AI to help them. Calling something 'slop' without any further arguments or constructive criticism for the OP isn't in the spirit of HN.
- codeduck 2mo agoThe reaction is not because the OP used AI to create software. The reaction is because OP's software facilitates the outsourcing of creative writing to a agentic content mill, and many HN users take issue with that.
- colesantiago 2mo ago> many HN users take issue with that. It seems that the only people who are hating on this aren't even writers themselves. But very grumpy programmers on HN who probably don't write (except probably documentation) and probably AI anyway in their READMEs and even their docs. I think that many who are angry on here are angry on behalf of writers, I've seen a writer who is actually interested in this tool, myself included.
- codeduck 2mo ago> It seems that the only people who are hating on this aren't even writers themselves. I will gladly be the counter-example, then. I program. I'm grumpy. I also, however, write fiction - and have for well over twenty years now. Writing is a skill I acquired and honed through hard work, diligence, and practice. I would no more cede "creative" control of my stories to a LLM than I would load a MIDI track onto my piano and claim the piano's perfect rendition as my own. But feel free to characterise I - and others - as "grumpy coders who probably don't write".
- colesantiago 2mo ago
- gabriel666smith 2mo agoThere are a lot of negative comments already - many are not in-keeping with the HN guidelines. Hopefully this won't end up getting your Show HN post flagged. The strength of feeling in those comments - such as this one - is really interesting: >"you've missing [sic] the entire point of writing fiction." Some would argue that if art makes you feel anything this strongly, it's 100% doing its job. Maybe you're not missing the point at all! I'm interested to try it out, and perhaps build some features on top of what it's doing already. I've been using trees a lot for the novel I've been working on for the last couple of years, but haven't managed to find the best way to visualise them in a UI, so I'm excited to see what you settled on. Trees can get really unwieldy really fast, with basically infinite combinations - especially if you're working at a very granular level. I'm curious about anyone else here who has run into the same or a similar problem, and how they approached it. There are more plausible paths through this manuscript than I can personally hold in my head, which is quite different from approaches I've used in the past, where structures have been more formalised and deviation from them was thus quite limited. Thanks for sharing this!
- refsab 2mo ago>but haven't managed to find the best way to visualise them in a UI, so I'm excited to see what you settled on yes exactly. My main motivation for writing this was to try my hand at it. I'm not happy yet. First started looking at loom interfaces but all have the same problem of how you visualize it. My try is a in the map (m) if you want to check it out. I feel like the path view works reasonably well but tree and mass not so much. This is really difficult to solve. Happy to hear your ideas or see your solutions
- gabriel666smith 2mo agoYeah, I started off with looms too, and got frustrated with them. My current hunch is that it requires a Z axis. Google Earth, for example, manages to convey quite a lot of interesting variables simply (and has maybe been underutilised as a type of UI): - Longitude - Latitude - Granularity / altitude ("the same, but different") - Paths between destinations - On Msoft Flight Sim, a slider can amend the time (to change weather, the sun, etc). This gives you another variable to work with. I haven't tested implementing UIs from this hunch yet, but that's where I'm at currently. It feels like there's a lot of useful parallels.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- ChicagoDave 2mo agoI went down this road six months ago with tool called Lantern though specifically for writing text adventure games. I had it working and then realized that no matter how hard I put walls up between my artistic abilities and the llm was impossible. The llm’s interference would eventually corrupt my own thinking process. I tossed it and know anything I write will stand apart from GenAI.
- dleeftink 2mo agoThey say to throw away the first page. It needs to hurt a bit as we go. For 'context priming' I'd like to see an interface that supports this. Not just alts and variations, but an assistant or companion that challenges what's already on the page, and sometimes doesn't even look back at what's been thrown out. Forgetting can be just as effective as capturing.
- drivingmenuts 2mo agohttps://www.keranews.org/news/2026-08-13/generative-artificial-intelligence-southern-methodist-university-allegations https://www.keranews.org/news/2026-08-13/generative-artifici... The article describes a much more practical reason to avoid using LLMs for writing fiction - you could lose a book deal if you do (and you have a desire to publish for money). There are probably ways to achieve the same end result without going through a publishing house, but I imagine they aren't quite as lucrative nor able to provide the funds up front like a publisher can.
- anoop_kumar 2mo agoI really like the way this is framed. I don't like the fact that AI is the one writing the novel, but honestly, who cares as long as the novel is good. What I would really like is a fiction writing tool that helps me brainstorm and research as I'm writing specific topics. for example I would write certain things I would click on it highlight and say go do research it'll go do research on that particular line come back to me and then present me with the analysis and also how I should reframe that line I think that in my opinion is going to be super helpful I wish somebody would build a tool for that.
- refsab 2mo agoA few others have commented about that. But I think there are tools that already, right? From my limited search. If you mean command line tui tools then yeah maybe that is a niche