ChatGPT Projects keeps story files and Memory keeps preferences, but chapters, setting updates and revisions stay manual. Compare workflow, price and regions.
ChatGPT suits brainstorming, drafting passages and polishing sentences. Projects keeps story files and instructions together, and Memory remembers preferences. In a long serial, how chapters are ordered, where to edit when a setting changes and what this draft changed are still for the author to arrange. Maliang puts volumes and chapters, character cards, story archives and revision comparison in one editor.
An author writing an urban-superpower story uses ChatGPT Projects to manage the book: the project holds a character sheet, a power-system document and volume outlines, and the instructions specify third person, short paragraphs and few adjectives. Each chapter starts in a new conversation and is copied back into the author’s own document when it is done. By chapter forty, the character sheet has been revised five times, the power system has gained two new rules, and the project files are close to the 25-file limit of the Plus tier. Now he has to decide which old file to delete and which to merge, and whether to paste the previous chapter’s ending into each new conversation again. Maliang hands this part to the editor and the background archives.
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| Dimension | Maliang Writer | ChatGPT | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product form | ✅ Web editor plus AI chat, ready to use in the browser | ✅ Web, iOS, Android, desktop apps and a Chrome extension; Plus and above also get an Office add-in | |
| Where story material lives | ✅ Characters, settings, foreshadowing and storylines are cards; volumes, chapters and chapter outlines are in the table of contents; the master outline is stored separately; style samples are documents | ⚠️ Projects holds chats, files and instructions; file limits are 5 on Free, 25 on Go and Plus, 40 on Pro; no official material found on novel-specific chapter or character management | |
| Memory | ✅ After a chapter is written, story archives are organized: character states, relationships, locations, foreshadowing; can be turned off | ✅ Global Memory can be viewed, corrected and deleted, and the official explanation says it does not keep every detail; a project can use “project-only memory” | |
| How much fits in one conversation | ✅ The writer agent brings in the preceding text and relevant characters this chapter needs according to the chapter outline, so the author doesn’t paste them by hand | ✅ GPT Instant: Free 27K, Go and Plus 54K, Pro 128K; reasoning models Plus 256K, Pro 400K | |
| Revision comparison | ✅ Red for deletions and green for additions in the editor; keep or restore each change | ⚠️ From 2026-05-28 new models no longer offer Canvas and writing moves into writing blocks; paid users can temporarily use older models; no official material found on word-by-word comparison of additions and deletions | |
| When you’re not satisfied | ✅ Undo the current round, branch from before the round, or edit and resend; the branch shares the same manuscript as the original conversation | ⚠️ No official material found on undoing a whole round against the manuscript | |
| When settings don’t match | ✅ Anything that conflicts with existing settings is listed as “pending confirmation” for the author to confirm | ⚠️ No official material found | |
| Old settings once you reach a new volume | ✅ Characters, places and foreshadowing that only appeared in earlier volumes are moved into the archive; AI no longer consults them when writing new chapters, but they can still be looked up when needed | ⚠️ No official material found | |
| Genre reference | ✅ When starting a book, consult the character and structure breakdowns of more than 1,500 popular serials in the public book library, learning methods rather than copying | ⚠️ No official material found | |
| Price | ✅ Free sign-up to try; credits are deducted by usage | ✅ Free $0; Go $8/month in the US; Plus $20/month; Pro $100/$200/$500 per month (checked 2026-10) | |
| Regions | ✅ A Chinese-language web product for Chinese-language authors | ❌ The official supported-country list does not include Mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau; the official site states that accessing from outside the list may lead to account suspension |
✅ Confirmed in official material or in the product ⚠️ Partly supported, or not stated in official material ❌ Officially not supported · Competitor information comes from their public material.
Volumes and chapters are in the left-hand table of contents; characters, settings, foreshadowing and storylines are cards; the master outline is stored separately and style samples are documents. New chapters and settings written by AI appear directly in the table of contents and the sidebar, with no copying and pasting back into your own documents.
After a chapter is written and this stretch of writing ends, the background organizes this chapter’s archive: whose state changed, how relationships changed, where people are, which foreshadowing advanced. Anything that conflicts with existing settings is listed as pending confirmation, and you make the call. It can be turned off.
When AI edits the text, deletions are struck through and additions are marked green; you can keep or restore each change, or keep all or restore all. If you are unhappy with a whole round, you can undo the current round, or change one sentence and send it again.
ChatGPT has many entry points (web, phone, desktop, Office add-in) and a low barrier to entry, which suits casual brainstorming and polishing sentences. Projects supports project-level instructions and “project-only memory”, with no limit on the number of projects; global Memory can be viewed and corrected. The context of reasoning models reaches 256K on the Plus tier. For short fiction, brainstorming and everyday writing, it is a very handy tool.
Every product suits some scenarios; the advice here covers only one: serialized long-form fiction in Chinese.
For this page, record in particular what earlier-chapter and character material has to be provided again before the next chapter starts, and, after switching to a new conversation, how you confirm it is still working from the current manuscript of this book. Rely on actual experience.
Below is a same-task trial checklist, not a finished comparison experiment. You can use the original teaching material “Jiehuo City” or a manuscript you have the right to handle; record the preparation, the output and the author’s edits for each tool.
Give both tools the same protagonist, core rules and reading preferences; compare the opening directions first, then organize the master outline, the first volume outline and the outlines for the first three chapters.
Check: Can it tell the roles of the three outline levels apart? Can the author confirm a plan before it continues? Were settings that hadn't been settled yet quietly written in as fact?
Use the same book-opening kitUse the same old manuscript you have the right to handle, specify how the last chapter ends and the goal of the next chapter; try writing one scene first, without changing the previous twenty chapters.
Check: What material did you prepare? Did character positions, items and open threads carry over? How are candidate drafts told apart from adopted ones?
See the import-and-continue task checklistPick a real rule that affects earlier chapters; first ask it to list the affected chapters and the evidence, then let the author choose the scope of the change.
Check: Does it say which parts it did not check? Can you review the changes first? Did it wrongly edit text outside the task or write an unadopted plan into the material?
See how to change a settingActually try keeping the text, the order of volumes and chapters, character profiles and world rules, and check whether the output is suitable for further editing; list what cannot be taken along.
Check: Are the format and order recognizable? What material is inside the platform account, what is in local files, and what is in the export? Do not infer usability from a marketing page alone.
Copy the task and result record cardRecord the models, plans or account conditions you actually used, and the time spent preparing materials and editing the text. Leave blank anything you have not tried or cannot confirm; do not let a feature name or a single generation stand in for the full experience.
It can write, but the author has to manage the skeleton of a long novel: where chapters go, which file to update when a setting changes, and which earlier text to bring along with each chapter. Projects can hold settings and instructions and Memory can remember preferences, but neither is organized by chapter or character.
According to OpenAI’s model release notes, from 2026-05-28 GPT-5.5 Instant / Thinking no longer offer Canvas and writing is done in writing blocks inside the conversation; paid users can use older models temporarily until those models are retired.
5 on Free, 25 on Go and Plus, 40 on Pro and enterprise tiers, and Google Drive and Slack links can also be added as sources (checked against the official Help Center in 2026-10).
It can remember some preferences and facts, which users can view and correct; the official explanation says Memory does not keep every detail. Chapter-by-chapter changes in a long book, such as character states and foreshadowing progress, still need to be organized separately. Maliang organizes story archives after each chapter is written.
There is a free tier; Go is $8/month in the US, Plus is $20/month, and Pro has three tiers at $100, $200 and $500 (checked 2026-10). Maliang is free to sign up and try, and then deducts credits by usage.
OpenAI’s official supported-country list does not include Mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau, and states that accessing from outside the list may lead to account suspension or deactivation.
Prose quality depends mainly on the model used and the instructions you give. Maliang lets you choose from several models, and the model that writes the body text can be chosen separately (see the in-product list for specifics); what sets Maliang apart is long-form management: cards, archives, revision comparison and chapter-ending checks.
No. After a chapter is written, Maliang organizes the archives and lists anything that conflicts with existing settings as pending confirmation, helping you spot problems earlier; the final decision on how to fix them is yours.
Claude suits discussing plot, drafting passages and revising, and Projects keeps settings and instructions together. In a long serial, which earlier text goes with each chapter, where to edit when a setting changes and what this version changed are all for the author to arrange. Maliang turns characters, settings and foreshadowing into cards, organizes story archives after each chapter is written, and shows AI changes right in the editor, where you can keep or restore each one.
Read the comparison →Gemini’s long context can take in a large amount of earlier text at once, Gems and Notebooks keep material fixed, and Canvas edits drafts directly and lets you page through earlier and later versions, which suits reading through, summarizing and rewriting whole passages. In a long serial, which setting is the latest, where a character is now and which sentence this draft changed are still for the author to manage. Maliang turns these into cards, story archives and revision comparison in the editor.
Read the comparison →After signing up, create a book or import existing chapters, tell the AI which chapter to continue, then look at what it wrote, what it changed and what it recorded in the archive, and decide whether to move your long novel over.