Writers: Show Your Manuscript Is Human-Written

TL;DR: Editors, agents and KDP sometimes ask whether a person wrote the book. You can show dated drafts, version history, and a record of your writing sessions, and none of them rests on a score from an AI detector.

Writers: DrawDog records your sessions and time, never your text. Free for 3 certificates a month: drawdog.art/download.

In 2023 the question a freelance writer got asked was "can you turn it around by Thursday". Now there is a second one, sometimes spoken and usually not: did a person write this? It sits underneath a magazine editor's slightly-too-careful email, in the ghostwriting contract that now has an AI clause, in an agent's form that asks how the manuscript was produced. Copywriters get it from clients who have been burned once by a "writer" running a chatbot. Novelists get it from Kindle Direct Publishing, which asks outright.

You cannot argue your way through that suspicion. You can only show your work, and writing, unlike a painting, leaves less visible work to show. This is what you have, weakest to strongest, and how much weight a skeptical reader will really give each piece.

Your own drafts, dated

The simplest record is a folder of drafts with dates in the filenames, or the same thing done by an app: Scrivener's automatic backups (switch on "Use date in backup file names" in Preferences > Backup on Mac, Tools > Options > Backup on Windows), Word's version history on OneDrive, or Pages, which keeps versions you can browse (File > Revert To > Browse All Versions). Each one is a dated snapshot of the manuscript at a size, and lined up they show a document that grew 500 words on Tuesday, 1,200 on Wednesday, went backwards on Thursday when you cut a 900-word scene, and finished 8 days later.

That shape is the strongest thing a writer has, because it is what generated text conspicuously lacks. Nobody prompting a model gets a chapter that shrinks. Send it as it is: a screenshot of the version list with dates visible, or the folder listing, plus the file. Do not annotate it. The lack of drama is the message.

Its weakness is that it is yours. The dates come from your clock, the files sit on your disk, and if the person asking wants to be difficult, they can say so. Version history that lives on Microsoft's or Apple's servers is a step better, because the dates are theirs, but it still lives inside your account.

Google Docs history, and why it cuts both ways

Google Docs keeps a version history: edits grouped into timestamped versions you can open and compare (File > Version history > See version history). Two catches. First, only Google holds it, and it lives in your account, so you are asking the reader to trust that you did not paste a generated draft in and then type over it, which the history might show if they compared versions carefully and would miss if they did not. Second, a lot of professional work is not done in Docs and should not be moved there for the sake of a record. Fine when it fits, not a system.

Detectors, and why not to volunteer them

Somebody will suggest running the manuscript through an AI detector and attaching the score. Don't. These tools flag clear, well-structured prose constantly, they disagree with each other, and the companies that make them publish their false-positive rates in the small print. A low score proves nothing, a high score on your own writing is a fight you did not need to start, and any client who is relying on one is a client to educate, gently, with the drafts and history above.

A record that isn't yours

The strongest position is a record that neither you nor the person asking controls: signed, timestamped by someone independent, and checkable without trusting anybody. That is what we built DrawDog to do for illustrators, and it works for writing the same way, so this is the one paragraph where we say so.

It runs on your Mac or PC while you write. It tracks working sessions and time spent, and how the file grows between saves. At the end it signs a summary of that and has it timestamped by an independent authority. It never reads the keyboard. It does not count keystrokes, and it does not ask for the permission that would let it, because that is the permission a keylogger needs. What it records is the shape of the work: a document that grew in small steps over three hours, versus one that arrived in a single paste. You get a link. The editor opens it, sees the session in plain English, and can drop your manuscript file on the page to confirm it is the exact one the record describes. What it can't prove is stated on the page too; a person can still type out something a model wrote for them, and a certificate cannot show what was in someone's head. Free for 3 certificates a month; see pricing.

What to send, and when

Send it before you are asked. A delivery email with the file, one line, and a folder or link: "Attached, plus the draft history if it's useful." Writers who do this every time stop getting the careful email. The suspicion does not leave the industry; it just stops landing on you.

For a book, keep the records with the manuscript: the dated drafts, the version history export, the certificate links in a text file. One folder. Three things. You will probably never need it. The authors who do, when a rights claim or a platform question arrives with no warning, are the ones who wish they had spent the minute a day. KDP's AI question is the most common version of that moment, and it has its own article.

Questions writers ask

Can I prove my manuscript was written by a person?

You can show how it was made. Dated drafts, a version history and a DrawDog certificate each show a file growing over time. A reader can check them. None of them can read your mind, and we say so on the certificate page.

Does an AI detector score show a manuscript is human-written?

No. Detectors often flag clear, well-organised writing, and different ones disagree. Most editors would rather see how the book was made. DrawDog is not an AI detector. It records working sessions and time spent, and it never reads your manuscript.

Does KDP ask if my book is AI-generated?

Yes. KDP asks you to say if your book has AI-generated text, images or translations. Text you wrote yourself and then edited or checked with an AI tool counts as AI-assisted, and you do not have to disclose that. Read the full rule in KDP's AI question.

What does DrawDog record when I write?

Working sessions and time spent, plus how the file grew between saves. It never reads the words in your file, your file names, your keystrokes or your screen. You get one link a publisher or client can open. The free plan includes 3 certificates a month. See the FAQ.

If you write in Word, here is how to see Word version history and what it can and can't show a publisher.

See what a reader sees when they open the link: drawdog.art/c/sample.