Generative AI is still a (very) hot button topic in the writing world. Most authors I’ve heard from seem to range from being quite averse to the technology to actively hating it with a fiery passion. Of course, there are others out there who are diving completely in, and never mind if there might be jagged rocks just under the surface. There are certainly plenty of writers out there using it to write for them. (Of course, at that point, I do have to ask whether they’re still “writers,” but that’s beside the point.)
I definitely consider myself a writer. A full-fledged author, even, since I now have six traditionally published books under my belt. But I am also anything but antagonistic toward AI. In fact, I use it extensively throughout my process these days. I’ve found that instead of being an obstacle or a threat, Gen AI has helped me in numerous ways to become a better writer. Honest.
The first step to recognizing this is to face that fact that for me at least, Gen AI doesn’t do the writing. Well, that’s not entirely true. I actually used AI exclusively to write a short story about a year ago, trying to see what exactly the process was like. But even then, I didn’t put in a prompt, hit enter, and then cut and paste the story into a Google Doc and call it a day. I worked on outlining the story, planning out what needed to happen, and then I wrote it piece by piece, editing it with AI prompts to get it just the way I wanted the story to be. (This went right down to telling AI things like “Insert [some phrase] right into the third sentence after [some other phrase].” In other words, I was very granular about the writing process.
From that experience, I know for a certainty that it’s not something I enjoy. It’s much easier for me to do the actual writing, instead of having AI do it for me through a filter. (That said, I also think it’s possible for an author to use AI in their process, and I believe the end product of that process should be copyrightable, but that’s a topic for a different post.)
So let’s assume from here on that a writer using AI actually wants to write, and not just have AI do it all for them. Is there still a place for AI in that situation?
Most definitely.
I use AI to give me immediate feedback on ideas. What’s working? What’s not? Are there spots that are too slow? Too fast? Does the plot make sense? Are my characters consistent? It used to be I’d have to write a book, send it to a beta reader, wait for them to read the whole thing, and then ask them questions to try and get some sort of a sense for how the book was playing with someone other than myself. Now? I can get that right away. I can even have AI “read” it from multiple angles, to see how it hits in different ways.
Is this as useful as a flesh and blood reader? Um . . . hard to say. I would still take an experienced beta reader over AI any day of the week. But this is awfully close, especially when you take into account the fact that I don’t have to listen to what it says if I don’t want to. Basically, it lets me view my writing from another lens, and that’s very useful.
But AI helps more than just after I’ve written. I’ve been working on plotting a new book, and that can often be a convoluted process. I turned ChatGPT to audio mode and had several conversations with it as I drove, talking over different aspects of the plot, and getting feedback on different approaches. There were plenty of times when I hated its suggestions, but those suggestions helped me focus what I actually wanted out of the plot instead, so even those contributed to the process. Best of all? AI remembered everything that I’d had told it, so I didn’t need to worry about taking notes. I’d just ask it.
I don’t know how I’d use it if I weren’t already as experienced with writing as I am. It takes time to know what will work for a writer and what won’t. Time to find out own voice. Time to develop an approach to writing. I can see that it would be tempting to turn to AI as a crutch or a shortcut, and that could be quite detrimental to the process. But used in the right way, I don’t see a threat here at all. Not if you still want to be the person writing. It’s a tool, the same as any other. A saw doesn’t sit back and say it built a house. The carpenter says that.
(Though yes, it’s true that eventually with AI, you’ll be able to ask it to write a book, and it could do the whole thing. It might even do it all very well. Maybe even better than you could do it on your own. But I’m not sure it’ll be something other people actually want to read. When Milli Vanilli were revealed to by nothing more than lip-synching frauds back in the 80s. their career was done. People didn’t just want music. They wanted a connection to the musicians and the artists. I’m actually reminded of the finale of Singin’ in the Rain, where the Lina Lamont wants to be a famous singer but has zero capacity for that. So she relies on Kathy Selden to do the singing for her. It works fine, right up until the people want her to sing on demand.)
Art is all about connection, human to human. The tools might change, but I don’t think that demand for connection is ever going to go away. Yes, you might have 1,000 Lina Lamonts out there trying to scheme a way to appear to be Kathy Selden, but the more that happens, the more valued the real Kathy Seldens in the world become.
Anyway. I’m out of time for today, so I’ll leave it at that. Thanks for reading!