Write a Bestseller with AI in Just 7 Days

So you, too, can become dumber

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Is AI good or bad for writers?

AI is a tool, and like any other tool, it’s neither good nor bad.

Is a hammer good or bad? 

A hammer is a hammer, but what you use a hammer for can have good or bad consequences.

There are hundreds of ways to use a hammer. 

You can use it to:

  • smash your neighbour’s head;
  • build a hospital in a war zone;
  • defend yourself from a mugger;
  • destroy the car of your unfaithful partner;
  • shatter the window of a burning house so you can rescue a child.

Money, guns, helicopters, cars, bombs, Netflix, TikTok, Marijuana — these are all tools. 

It all depends on how you use them.

The same applies to AI.

Bad Use of AI for Writing

There are AI programs that can help you write a novel in no time.

They can write in your style, generate text when you get stuck, make your paragraphs more descriptive, rewrite your sentences, and even apply narrative techniques to your stories.

This is bad use of AI.

If you’ve signed up to be a writer, you’ve signed up to engage deeply with the invisible content of your mind. 

Writing is a superpower that helps you explore that content.

A writer’s real work is the endless winnowing of sentences,

The relentless exploration of possibilities,

The effort, over and over again, to see in what you started out to say the possibility of saying something you didn’t know you could.” –Verlyn Klingeborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing, p.14

“Effort” is the point.

Your thoughts may be clear to you in your head, but as soon as you start transcribing them to write a story, you may struggle to craft sentences that neatly convey what you want to express. 

That struggle should be okay with you. It’s what you signed up for, and it’s the very thing that helps you grow as a writer.

“You could rewrite the same sentence 100 times…or you could make the computer do it,” I read on the homepage of this AI software.

Rewriting a sentence 100 times may be frustrating and time-consuming, so you may be tempted to get the computer to do the hard work for you. 

You’ll go much faster that way. But that won’t matter because you’ll be going faster in the wrong direction.

Growth is the result of struggle.

As a writer, struggling is both your job and an opportunity.

How will you ever build muscles if you ask your personal trainer to lift weights for you?

Good Use of AI for Writing

Provided you know how to use it, AI can help you become a better writer.

In my experience, here are some ways to do that:

  • Ask AI technical questions about grammar and punctuation (e.g. In the following sentence, should I use “of” or “for”?)
  • Get suggestions about vocabulary (e.g. I need a verb whose meaning is ‘to avoid a difficult situation.’ Can you suggest some?) 
  • Get feedback on tone (e.g. Do I sound arrogant in this paragraph?)
  • Use AI for research (e.g. I want to write an article about X. Can you provide some reliable resources I could study?)
  • Use AI to brainstorm ideas that can improve your story (e.g. Here’s what I wrote. Is my argument flawed? What am I missing? What could I add?)
  • Ask AI to proofread your text (e.g. Are there any typos or mistakes in this sentence?)

Wouldn’t you be comfortable asking another writer these questions? 

This is good use of AI.

There’s a problem, though.

AI Isn’t a Good Editor

One of the things I learned in this editing course is this:

Good editors leave no fingerprints — they repair and polish writing so it looks just like the original, only better. — from Fundamentals of Editing (2023)

AI leaves fingerprints all over the place and is often arrogant. 

It alters your voice. It suggests phrases you’d never use. It starts rewriting your sentences even when you tell it not to. 

Be very careful not to let AI replace your voice — there’s only one like yours.

Churning Out and Selling Books Using AI May Be Profitable

If it’s money that you’re after, go ahead.

But if you’re interested in growing as a person, exploring who you are, practising your creativity, improving your craft, making art, and discovering what you didn’t know you could write, don’t delegate your thinking to a robot.

You may get richer — but dumber, too.

Joyfully embrace the struggle that comes with the process of becoming the best writer you could possibly be.

And use AI to help you do that.

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