Your Writing Partners Have Moved

If you have used Location Scout, Character-Smith, or the Writers’ Group, you’ve been using a custom GPT. If you have used Compost Mode, that was a Gemini Gem, and GrammarCoach ran on Google’s Opal. All three of those platforms are going away.

The tools aren’t. They’ve moved, and I think they’re better for it.

What’s being retired

OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs. Its current schedule shuts them down on December 11, 2026, and after that the GPT pages stop working, including the links on this site. Google is replacing Gems with skills, starting with personal Google accounts in November 2026, then Workspace business accounts in March 2027 and education accounts in June 2027. Opal is going away in November as well.

Both companies say the dates could change. Either way, the links many of you bookmarked have a short shelf life.

What replaces them: skills

A custom GPT was a chatbot that lived inside one company’s app. A skill is simpler and more portable. It’s a set of instructions, saved in a plain text file called SKILL.md, that you add to your AI once. From then on, your AI pulls it up whenever the work calls for it. Paste in a scene with flat dialogue and the dialogue skill steps in; ask for a location dossier and the Location Scout does.

Three things about skills matter to me.

1. They aren’t locked to one company. Skills follow an open standard, so the same file works in Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. If you switch AI tools next year, your writing partners come with you.
2. You can read every word. A GPT’s instructions were hidden. A skill is a text file you can open before you install it, so you can see exactly what it tells your AI to do and what it forbids.
3. You can change them. Don’t like how Grammar Coach handles comma splices in dialogue? Open the file, change the rule, and upload your version. It’s yours.

What moved, and what’s new

I didn’t just copy the old instructions across. I rebuilt each tool to the same standard as the rest of the library. They quote your actual pages instead of paraphrasing them, label guesses as guesses, and leave decisions with you. None of them will write your book for you, and if you ask, they’ll politely refuse.

A few of them got real upgrades in the move. Location Scout now separates what is documented from what is merely plausible, and tells you which details to verify before your scene goes out. Storyboarder still works only from writing you supply, never from a premise, and now keeps characters and locations consistent from panel to panel. Grammar Coach combines GrammarCoach and StrunkSensei into one patient tutor that teaches the rules behind your own sentences and leaves deliberate style alone. Compost Mode lives on inside Find What’s Alive, which was already doing the same job: sorting the pile for what still has heat.

I also built four new ones:

1. Dialogue Ear listens for voices that blur together, lines that say the subtext out loud, and conversations where nothing changes.
2. Query Letter Coach reads your query the way a busy agent would, and shows you where attention rises and where it drops.
3. Close Reading Companion walks you through a passage you admire until you can see how the author did it, then gives you an exercise to try the move yourself.
4. AI Disclosure Helper helps you account honestly for how you used AI, checks that against a magazine’s or publisher’s policy, and drafts a disclosure in your own words.

Together with the six editing skills already in the library, that makes fifteen, all free, on the writing skills page.

How to add one

It takes about a minute. Download a skill, then upload it:

1. Claude: Customize → Skills → + → Upload a skill. Code execution needs to be on in your settings.
2. ChatGPT: Plugins → Skills → Create → Upload from your computer.
3. Gemini: Settings → Skills → Upload, on the web or the Mac app, using the single SKILL.md file.

Availability depends on your plan and account. Gemini’s skills are currently for personal Google accounts and people 18 and over, and ChatGPT has been rolling skills out plan by plan. The install guide has step-by-step instructions for all three apps and what to do if something doesn’t work.

One more thing worth knowing if you write in Google Docs: Claude’s connectors can link it to Google Drive and search your files there. Pair that with a skill and you can point Writers’ Group at a chapter where it already lives, instead of copying and pasting it in. Claude’s help center explains how to set up connectors.

A goodbye: the Writer’s Circle

A year ago I opened the Writer’s Circle, a members-only space for posts, comments, events, and conversation. I hoped it would become a place where the writers who use this site could find each other.

It didn’t.

Very few people used it, and keeping a social space running takes time I would rather spend on courses, essays, and tools. So I’ve closed it, along with the feedback forms that lived inside it. Old Circle links now bring you back to the homepage.

I don’t regard this as a failure so much as an answer. You’ve told me, by where you actually spend your time here, what you come for: courses you can work through at your own pace, tools that respect your pages, and essays about the craft. That’s where my effort will go.

If you had a Circle account and want your data deleted, or if you have feedback, ideas, or a bug to report, email me at message@aiwritersretreat.com. I read everything.

What to do this week

1. Replace your bookmarks. If you use any of the old GPTs, Gems, or GrammarCoach, install its skill now rather than finding out the hard way in December.
2. Read one skill before you install it. Open the SKILL.md. It’s worth knowing what you’re asking your AI to do.
3. Try one new one on real pages. I’d start with Dialogue Ear on the scene you’re least sure about.

The platforms will keep changing. The work doesn’t: you still have to sit down, write the pages, and make the decisions. These tools are just here to help you see the pages more clearly while you do.

I’ll see you at the retreat. Bring pages.