I’m a writer who likes Chat GPT.
As a writer and a web developer with a basic understanding of artificial intelligence (AI), I am interested in the release of Chat GPT and other AI tools. We are on the verge of a whole new world.
AI is data processing that can learn from a set of data and then generate based on that learning. An engineer will tell it ‘this is this’ and ‘that is that’ and then it will generate a response based on those rules. At my job we use basic AI to read handwriting on images. Some AI generates images that were entirely new.
AI’s can be trained to be transformative or derivative. If it is derivative, the results could come directly from another source. That could potentially be considered plagiarism. Transformative results should not exist anywhere else.
As a writer I was interested to see if the AI could be good enough to replace writers. Apparently there is a 49% chance of that. I tested different uses of ChatGPT in particular and found that I actually liked using it for research. This was done using ChatGPT 3. I understand that ChatGPT 4 is even more powerful, but is also a paid subscription. This was inspired by The Creative Penn podcast. Joanne Penn wrote an entire book using ChatGPT. This was not a simple copy/paste, but a back and forth relationship that required her to hone her prompting skills.
I want to say that I understand AI in the future probably will take over some jobs, including writing jobs. I do not want to make light of that. In each age of industrialism, some people — especially lower and mid class — have paid very high prices. I have been listening to Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation by Kevin Roose which discusses how we can survive the onslaught of AI. My main takeaway is to add the human touch to everything I do. An AI will not be able to tell my personal experiences.
I broached the subject with other authors I am in contact with and the response was overwhelmingly negative. I was surprised, but decided to see for myself.
Here is some fun I had with ChatGPT:
The high-level outline for this next part was generated using ChatGPT. I asked what it can do for writers and this is what it said.
Can it help with writer’s block?
Given that AI is generated off of things that exist, I would be surprised if it gave any story ideas that haven’t been done. As I expected, it gave generic epic fantasy prompts. Still, I think with a little more thought, these stories could be excellent books. I have seen ideas like these work before.
I could see this being very useful for writers who get stuck with their story. Getting someone else to bounce ideas off of, even if it is a bot, can be useful.
When I asked it for blog post ideas for a fantasy writer, the ideas weren’t very exciting. They were things like write tips for creating a compelling story. The most interesting was ‘Exploring the impact of fantasy on popular culture’. Boooring.
Can I use it for research?
When I asked for it to give me resources for books relative to a story I am writing, it did not disappoint. There were actual books and they are relevant. I will be using this list.
I have also used it to find comp titles for the book I am self-publishing. I was able to tweak the response in order to get the ones closest to my title.
The chat bot also was able to generate dialogue for me in different styles. I asked it to say ‘I love you’ from Australia, Ghana, as an 18th century dandy, and from the southside of Chicago. There were phrases in these that I never would have known beforehand.
I also asked it to give me an example of gossip from an old lady in the early 1900s.
"Now, I don't mean to cause a stir, but I heard from Mrs. Jenkins that there's been some talk about Mrs. Smith and that new fella who moved into town. They were seen together down by the river, if you know what I mean. And that's not all - I heard from Mrs. Brown that Mrs. Smith's husband has been away on business for quite some time. It's a shame, really. Such a nice family, but it just goes to show you never know what goes on behind closed doors."
I have also used it as an extra powerful thesaurus with requests like ‘give me a phrase similar to a coming-of-age type of book that is common’ and ‘give me a word like happy in the style of Stephen King’.
Can it edit my work?
Here is where I am nor sure if it excels. I’m curious to see if ChatGPT 4 would be any better. I gave ChatGPT 3 a passage from my work-in-progress manuscript. I asked for tone and it told me what I already know. Then I asked it to edit it and it just replaced some words with other similar words. It felt very robotic and stiff. When I asked for an analysis of the sentence structure, it gave a list of each sentence with the structure next to it.
"Her whispered drawl is so much quieter than my four younger siblings." - This is a complex sentence with the subject "drawl" and the verb "is". The clause "so much quieter than my four younger siblings" is a dependent clause.
I was able to get it to list out the most common words. I think that could be useful. But I am not sure if it could handle an entire manuscript at once. It would probably take a while to process it.
It was able to catch punctuation and spelling errors, including words that are spelled correctly but are used incorrectly.
I do think however that AI specifically made to edit will emerge (if it hasn’t already) and that it would be extremely useful.
Can it give me an outside perspective?
Apart from generating ideas like I mentioned earlier and generating text like I explore in the next section, I’m not sure what other perspective it can give.
Can it generate text?
ChatGPT claims it can save time and increase productivity by helping writers generate mundane things like summaries or outlines, so I put it to the test.
I tried many times to generate a book cover blurb. I love that it is smart enough to remember the basic summary I entered at the beginning. Then I kept changing styles according to my comparative titles. I noticed that the formula for the blurb stayed the same for the genre I was writing. When I changed the genre, it changed the format. It gave me some very typical phrases for books that I could then tweak to fit my book. It is useful for this, especially if you don’t like writing the cover blurb.
When I asked it to generate a bio using my summary but cut down to one hundred words, it didn’t give me any surprising results. It did combine some of my sentences, which was nice.
When I asked it to create an outline for this article, the result was boring. I did however use its list of potential uses for writers as a partial outline.
I wanted to see how powerful it was so I asked it to write a novel with the following prompts:
generate story ideas for an epic fantasy about a cat
write an outline using Save the Cat method about prompt number one
Generate a story out of that outline
Write chapter one
The idea generation was similar to ones I have seen before. I think they could make good stories, but they are a bit generic. It would require more tweaking to get novel ideas, but by then it really is just the prompter’s idea in the end.
Using the Save the Cat method to write an outline worked pretty well, but was also kind of generic and didn’t flow nicely. With some modifications I’m sure it could work as an outline.
The story that it wrote was a three act summary, which wasn’t any more useful than that outline it gave me. Also it randomly changed the name of the protagonist.
The first Chapter One was very boring. I wasn’t impressed. I told it to write it in the style of Brandon Sanderson and got the following. It didn’t follow the outline above. I think it is very impressive for an AI, but Brandon Sanderson would still write it better. It is wordy and predictable.
The cat emerged from the shadows, its fur glistening under the pale moonlight. Its eyes glowed with a fierce intelligence as it surveyed the scene before it. The ruins of the once-great city lay in front of it, their crumbling walls a testament to the passage of time. The cat had seen much in its long life, but this place still held mysteries that intrigued it.
As it padded silently through the rubble, the cat's sharp senses picked up on a faint sound. It crept closer, ears pricked, and saw a figure huddled in the shadows. The cat approached cautiously, its eyes narrowed. The figure didn't move, but the cat sensed a strong magic emanating from it.
Without warning, the figure sprang up and lunged at the cat. The cat dodged quickly, its lithe body moving with an almost supernatural grace. As the figure landed on the ground with a thud, the cat saw that it was a young woman, dressed in tattered robes.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "This place is cursed."
The cat regarded her with interest. "I've seen many cursed places," it said. "What makes this one so special?"
The woman hesitated, then seemed to make up her mind. "Come with me," she said, beckoning to the cat. "I'll show you."
The cat followed her through the ruins, its senses alert. It sensed danger lurking in the shadows, but it trusted its own abilities to protect itself. As they walked, the woman told the cat of the city's history, of the magic that had once flowed through its streets like a river, and of the curse that had befallen it.
They arrived at a towering structure, its walls covered in strange markings. The woman pointed to the symbols, and the cat recognized them as a form of ancient magic. As they drew closer, the cat felt a pull, a tugging at the edges of its own magic.
Without warning, the structure rumbled, and the ground shook beneath their feet. The woman grabbed the cat and pulled it to safety as the structure collapsed in on itself, a cloud of dust and debris rising into the air.
The cat regarded the ruins with renewed interest. It had stumbled upon something truly remarkable, and it knew that it was only the beginning of a grand adventure.
It’s another tool
I understand why some people do not want to use AI for their writing. It can be predictable, and borderline plagiarism. I do think however, that with careful judgement, it can be used as a tool that can lengthen a writer’s reach far wider than they could before.
