Why are we vilifying using AI for fiction?
How dare you resort to AI to help you with your creative work? The purists will be after you. They will get you canceled.
I have seen it everywhere. Using AI for fiction is frowned upon—a dirty act, bordering on an illegal stunt. You are a writer. You are filled with creativity. How dare you resort to AI to help you with your creative work! The purists will be after you. They will get you canceled. The publishers will dump you. You are a sinner, through and through.
The use of AI in fiction is alleged to devalue human creativity and lead to lower-quality storytelling. From the Writers Guild of America striking for AI regulations to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association issuing statements of concern, the literary world is pushing back against AI's growing presence in fiction.
Even in publishing contracts, new clauses have been added that make writers vow not to use AI in fiction. While using AI for imagery is widely accepted, somehow using AI for creative text, especially fiction, is the mother of all sins.
So here is my spikey point of view: What's wrong with asking a writing assistant to look at your draft if that writing assistant didn't have a pulse? At a time where beta writers and writing groups are all the rage, why is it kosher/halal to ask a human for writing feedback but not a machine?
What's wrong with asking it to help you hash out a particular scene? What's wrong if you ask AI for feedback on a chapter?
I am not saying use AI to write your book (even if you do, no judgment here, you do you), but rather as a writing assistant, who can help you brainstorm and unstuck you when you feel you can't do your craft anymore.
Fear of change
This aversion to using AI for fiction made me contemplate how humans have resisted change throughout history. Mankind is well known for avoiding change. We rebelled against many innovations, from the TV to vaccines.
When electricity started arriving on the scene in the 18th and 19th century, many people were too afraid to use it.
US President Benjamin Harrison was one of them. Harrison reportedly had his White House staff turn the lights on and off because he was scared of getting electrocuted.
Just take a look at this anti-electricity cartoon below from 1900, and how using electricity was seen as something dangerous.
Look how it was vilified.
‘Legitimate’ ways AI can help you with fiction work
Here are some suggested ways you can use AI for fiction that won't make you feel like you are cheating the system or that you are, gulp, a fraud:
Feedback on chapters: What's wrong if you ask AI to give you some feedback on a chapter? Don't many writers have beta readers who give them traditional feedback? AI can easily give you immediate, unbiased feedback on elements such as pacing, coherence, and emotional impact. This can be useful in the early stages of writing, allowing you to make improvements quickly.
Enhancing character development: What's wrong with asking a writing assistant if your character development is believable? AI can analyze character arcs, providing consistency, depth, and growth feedback.
Scene crafting: When you're stuck on a crucial scene, AI can offer suggestions, help brainstorm different directions, and provide new perspectives you might not have considered otherwise. Is that a crime?
Typos: AI is great at catching typos. Even if you use all the tools in the world, like Grammarly and others, there will always be typos. Always. So having an AI assistant as a second pair of eyes doesn’t hurt.
Those who dare greatly
There are a few independent authors out there who are vocal about their use of AI. They experiment with various tools and blog about it. They dare greatly. Maybe because they are independent and not worried about the whims of the publishing industry. They can do whatever the hell they want to when they have enough audience who constantly support them and invest in their work. They are their own writers, their own publishers and the captain of their ships.
Among them is Joanna Penn who hosts the Creative Penn podcast (one that every writer should listen to). In this blog post, for example, Penn writes about how she used AI to help her craft a short story. She used some tools I had never heard of, like Sudowrite, which describes itself as a "non-judgemental, infinitely creative AI writing tool that helps you turn half-finished first drafts into fully published work.”
I love that they included the "non-judgmental" description because, well, you know, those without a shred of AI ink in their writing should be the first to cast a stone.
I might or might have not used AI to create creative text. I will keep you guessing. And if I have, I wonder if some day I will dare to confess my crime online like Joanna Penn, who is doing an amazing job educating writers on how to use AI.
Or maybe I should just take this alleged sin to my grave? Because it's possible that just like that man in the cartoon above, I'm really worried about being electrocuted If I dare to toe the line.
Now excuse me while I go run this piece through AI to see if it has any suggestions for improvement. Just kidding (or maybe I'm not).
Yes. I have and do use AI tools to help create a story - but do not use them to write it. Most of my use for AI is helping fix my grammar and punctuation. I have even asked AI to add a bit of descriptors to help punch up what I have already written - From there, I will turn around and rewrite it so that AI's suggestions are still my own words.
But I've played around with AI enough to learn what AI spits out to be able to tell when an author is using it. I can plug it into an AI checker and it comes out 75-100%, then I know that the author is using them for more than a little assistance to get through a tough scene. They can deny it all they want, saying they are just that great of a writer when it's bullshit - we both know it.
I think if a author is going to be utilizing AI to help write the story they have in their head, have the balls enough to state the fact that they used it.
There are acceptable ways to use AI, and not... For example, I can take a summary of the movie Die Hard and asked AI to write a 5-Act synopsis for a new story along the same lines. It will shoot out 800 words with great ideas. I would not use those 800 words in a story but I might take the first act and ask AI to break it down into 3-5 chapters. Again, it will do the work for what might happen in those chapters. I am not asking AI to write the chapters but more so outline it for me.
It's up to the writer to write it. Now... If I did write the chapter, then asked AI to rewrite it for me so that it sounds better and more descriptive, and then I use it... I think we have a basis for cheating. It will come back as 100% AI - I don't care how much of your brain you used to generate the scene. If AI is gonna write 2000 words of your 800 word summary - that is cheating. ***At least be honest that you used AI. That is my long winded opinion.
Nope. Not using AI for fiction. What is the point of doing that? There isn't one. The act of creating art is what serves society and moves culture forward. AI just churns through things that someone has already created. If you need AI to create, just stop creating.