Over the past few articles, I’ve explored different aspects of writing with technology: using AI as an assistant rather than a replacement, leveraging developer tools like Git for version control, and harnessing LaTeX’s custom commands for consistent formatting. Each piece addressed a specific problem, but they remained separate ideas—useful individually, yet not quite forming a complete workflow. This article brings everything together. I’ve created a LaTeX template specifically designed for fiction writers—one that incorporates the approaches I’ve discussed while remaining accessible to authors who’ve never touched LaTeX before. The template solves a problem I struggled with personally, and I’m sharing it because I suspect other writers face the same frustrations. The Problem I Needed to Solve The Problem I Needed to Solve When I first started using AI assistance for editing—the approach I described in my first article—I made a mistake that seemed minor at the time. I would write a passage, send it to AI for polish, and then paste the edited version directly over my original text. Why keep the rough draft? I reasoned that the AI chat history preserved everything. If I ever needed to recover my original writing, I could find it there. That reasoning collapsed the first time I actually needed to go back. Searching through dozens of chat sessions, trying to remember which conversation contained which chapter, scrolling through walls of back-and-forth exchanges looking for a specific paragraph—it was tedious, frustrating, and sometimes impossible. Chat histories aren’t organized by chapter or scene. They’re organized by when you happened to have the conversation, which has nothing to do with how your manuscript is structured. I needed a better system. I needed to preserve my original writing in a way that kept it connected to the edited version, so I could compare them, switch between them, or recover the original if an edit went wrong. At the same time, I was battling Microsoft Word. I’ve never made peace with Word’s formatting. Margins that shift inexplicably. Styles that don’t apply consistently. Headers that decide to renumber themselves. Every manuscript became a war between me and the software, and the software usually won. I’d spend hours fixing formatting issues that had nothing to do with the actual writing. LaTeX solved the formatting problem completely. The PDFs it produces are professionally typeset—consistent margins, proper typography, clean chapter headings. More importantly, the formatting just works. I define it once and forget about it. No more battles. But I still needed to solve the original-versus-edited problem within LaTeX. That’s where the template came from. The Dual-File Workflow The Dual-File Workflow The core innovation in this template is simple: every chapter part exists in two versions, stored in separate folders. The Original folder contains your raw writing—the first draft, exactly as it came out of your head. Rough, unpolished, probably riddled with passive voice and inconsistent punctuation. This is your authentic creative output, preserved permanently. Original The Edited folder contains the polished version—whether you edited it yourself, worked with a human editor, or used AI assistance. The story and voice remain the same; the execution is refined. Edited When you compile the manuscript into a PDF, the template automatically checks which version to use. If an edited version exists, it uses that. If not, it falls back to the original. You can also override this behavior globally—one setting in the configuration file switches the entire manuscript between original and edited versions. Why does this matter? First, you never lose your original writing. It’s always there, in a clearly labeled location, exactly as you wrote it. No digging through chat histories. No wondering which version is which. Second, you can compare versions easily. Open both files side by side and see exactly what changed. This is invaluable for learning from the editing process—understanding what AI or a human editor improved helps you write better first drafts over time. Third, you can revert selectively. If an edit went too far—if the polished version lost something important from the original—you can pull specific passages back. The original is always available as a reference. Fourth, the workflow integrates naturally with Git version control. Both your original and edited folders are tracked, giving you complete history of how your manuscript evolved. You get the benefits I described in my article on developer tools, applied to a structure that makes sense for fiction writing. What the Template Includes What the Template Includes Beyond the dual-file workflow, the template provides several features designed to make LaTeX accessible to authors who aren’t technically inclined. Page Format Options Page Format Options One line in the settings file controls your entire page layout. Choose from A5 novel size (the European standard for fiction), A4 for drafts and manuscripts, US Letter for American printing, 6×9 trade paperback, or 5×8 pocket book format. Change that single line, recompile, and your entire manuscript reformats itself. No manual adjustment required. Character Name Commands Character Name Commands As I discussed in my LaTeX article, custom commands let you define character names once and use shortcuts throughout your manuscript. The template includes a dedicated file for these definitions. Instead of typing “Lord Valdermort the Destroyer” every time your antagonist appears, you type \villain and the full name appears in the compiled PDF. This isn’t just convenient—it’s protective. You’ll never misspell a character name because you’re not typing it. And if you decide mid-draft that “Valdermort” is too close to a certain famous dark wizard, you change the definition once and every instance updates automatically. Built-In Dialogue and Scene Commands Built-In Dialogue and Scene Commands The template includes pre-built commands for common fiction elements: \say{Alice}{Hello, how are you?} — formats character dialogue consistently
\say{Bob}[whispering]{I’m not sure about this.} — dialogue with an optional modifier
\thought{Alice}{What is he hiding?} — internal thoughts, styled distinctly
\sceneBreak — a visual scene separator
\sfx{BOOM!} — sound effects with appropriate styling \say{Alice}{Hello, how are you?} — formats character dialogue consistently \say{Bob}[whispering]{I’m not sure about this.} — dialogue with an optional modifier \thought{Alice}{What is he hiding?} — internal thoughts, styled distinctly \sceneBreak — a visual scene separator \sfx{BOOM!} — sound effects with appropriate styling These commands ensure visual consistency across your manuscript. Every piece of dialogue looks the same. Every scene break uses identical formatting. You focus on the story; the template handles presentation. Professional Output Professional Output The template produces PDFs with drop caps at chapter openings, proper typography throughout, and a clickable table of contents. These are small details, but they add up to a document you can share without embarrassment—whether with beta readers, potential agents, or directly to readers if you’re self-publishing. The Character Profile System The Character Profile System The template includes a character profile template—a structured checklist for documenting everything about your characters. This isn’t a LaTeX feature specifically; it’s a reference document that lives alongside your manuscript. The profile covers basic information (name, age, role), physical characteristics, background and history, motivations and goals, personality traits, speech patterns with example dialogue, special abilities, character arc planning, relationships, and detailed visual descriptions for illustration purposes. You can fill these profiles manually, treating them as a structured way to think through your characters before and during writing. Alternatively, you can use AI to help generate or expand character details—paste the template into a conversation and ask AI to help flesh out a character based on your initial concept. The profile template also includes the LaTeX command definitions for each character, keeping everything in one place. When you create a new character, you document their details and define their name commands in the same file, then copy the commands to the main character definitions file. One note on the template’s design: it works entirely without AI if you prefer. Nothing in the template requires AI assistance. The structure is useful regardless of how you choose to fill it out. I’ve designed it this way deliberately—some authors want to embrace AI tools, others prefer to maintain distance, and the template should serve both approaches. Getting Started Getting Started The template is available on GitHub: [https://github.com/Burve/CreativeWritingLaTeXFramework] [https://github.com/Burve/CreativeWritingLaTeXFramework] https://github.com/Burve/CreativeWritingLaTeXFramework To use it, you’ll need a LaTeX distribution installed on your computer. On Windows, MiKTeX is the most common choice. On Mac, MacTeX. On Linux, TeX Live. All are free. You’ll also want a text editor—I recommend Visual Studio Code with the LaTeX Workshop extension, which provides syntax highlighting and one-click PDF compilation. The repository README includes detailed setup instructions, but the basic workflow is straightforward: First, fork or download the template from GitHub. First Second, edit the settings file with your book’s title, author name, and preferred page format. Second Third, add your character name commands to the characters file. Third Fourth, create your chapter content in the Original folder, using the provided chapter files as templates. Fourth Fifth, compile the main.tex file to generate your PDF. Fifth When you’re ready to edit, copy your original files to the Edited folder, make your changes (or use AI assistance), and recompile. The template handles the rest. Honest Limitations Honest Limitations This template isn’t for everyone, and I should be clear about its constraints. If you’re submitting to traditional publishers or agents who require Word documents, you’ll need to convert your LaTeX output. Tools like Pandoc can handle this, but it’s an extra step, and complex formatting may need manual adjustment. The template works best for self-publishing workflows or for authors who want a polished drafting environment and can convert for submission later. LaTeX has a learning curve. The template minimizes this by pre-configuring most settings, but you’ll still need to understand basic LaTeX syntax—how to use commands, how files relate to each other, how compilation works. Expect a few hours of orientation before things feel comfortable. Collaboration with non-LaTeX users requires workflow adjustments. If your editor works in Word, you’ll need to export, receive their changes, and manually incorporate them back into your LaTeX files. This is manageable but not seamless. The template provides structure, not magic. You still need to write the book. You still need to develop characters, craft plots, and do the hard creative work that no tool can automate. What the template offers is a framework that stays out of your way while keeping your work organized. Going Further Going Further The template I’ve shared provides everything you need to start writing fiction in LaTeX with a sensible original/edited workflow. It includes the basic commands, the file structure, and the configuration options to produce professional-quality PDFs. But it’s intentionally a starting point, not an endpoint. I’ve developed additional custom commands for my own writing—specialized formatting for flashbacks, letters, different narrative modes, and various stylistic elements. I’ve also developed prompts for using AI assistance effectively with this workflow, including structured approaches for character development, dialogue refinement, and consistent voice editing. If you want access to those additional resources, ready-made prompts, and a community of authors using this approach to share techniques and solve problems together, I’ve created a space for that: [https://www.skool.com/burve-story-lab-5890] [https://www.skool.com/burve-story-lab-5890] https://www.skool.com/burve-story-lab-5890 The community includes expanded command libraries, AI prompt templates for various writing tasks, and direct access to ask questions and get help with LaTeX issues. It’s a paid community because maintaining it takes time, and I want to ensure everyone there is genuinely invested in the approach. That said, the free template on GitHub is fully functional. You don’t need the community to benefit from the dual-file workflow, the character commands, or the professional formatting. Everything I’ve described in this article works out of the box. The community is for authors who want to go deeper—more commands, more prompts, more collaboration with like-minded writers. Conclusion Conclusion This series has been about finding better ways to write—not replacing the creative work, but removing friction from everything around it. AI assistance handles polish without taking over your voice. Version control protects your work while enabling fearless experimentation. LaTeX commands automate consistency so you can focus on story. And now, a template that brings these pieces together into a coherent workflow. The tools don’t make you a better writer. Practice does. Reading widely does. Putting in the hours does. But the right tools can make the process less frustrating, more organized, and ultimately more sustainable. They can help you spend more time on the creative work that matters and less time fighting with software that doesn’t care about your story. I built this template because I needed it. I’m sharing it because I suspect you might need it too. Happy writing.

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A LaTeX Template for Fiction Writers That Keeps Every Draft (Original + Edited)

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