Okay, let’s just get it out there straight away – I don’t use AI to do the writing for me. In other words I’m not one of those people (you know who you are!) who claim to be the author whilst hiding that fact that everything they’ve produced was all written by an AI.
To be honest, I’ve tried.
I’ve asked, I’ve cajoled, I’ve nudged, I’ve coached. But as of the time of writing, I am convinced that the current AI technology available just isn’t up to the job.
Sure, AI will produce a book-length manuscript. It will have a book-length number of words in it. Some parts of it will read well. It will have the occasional turn of phrase that will stop you in your tracks. But it will be full of inconsistencies in the characters, in the plot and in the timeline. It will also forget to connect together key aspects of the plot, if they are several chapters apart. It is also likely to omit the cunning twist, or the spark of surprise that delights us from an accomplished author.
You could, of course, prompt your way around all of these issues and get to a reasonably credible piece of writing. But that’s getting close to you writing the work yourself, in the first place.
So, AI and I have managed to wrangle each other to what I believe is a great working relationship for writing fiction. It boils down to five jobs we do together (described in more detail here):
- Research: I use AI to fact-check and ensure my plot and settings remain consistent with reality. Most AI platforms now offer Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), allowing them to search external sources and undertake deep research on challenging topics.
- Summarising and synthesising information: To avoid disappearing down research “rabbit holes,” I use AI to produce background essays on characters, organizations, and locations. This also helps synthesize complex scientific and philosophical issues regarding machine consciousness relevant to my story.
- Maintaining overviews of my novel: I keep a “Scene and Beat Analysis” and a detailed chronological timeline to track events and dates. After writing new sections, I run a specific “super-prompt” that checks the new material against these documents to update the timeline and ensure sequencing is accurate.
- Idea Weaving: This is my term for creative sessions where I “riff” back and forth with the AI to solve narrative problems. By uploading context and constraints, I ask for critical reviews of my thinking, using the AI as a companion to clear the way for me to write the actual scene.
- Editorial feedback: While professional human editing is invaluable, AI offers the advantage of being available whenever I need it. I use it for everything from broad feedback on character arcs to specific checks on spelling and GB-English versus US-English punctuation.
Ultimately, this approach allows me to treat AI not as a ghostwriter, but as a dedicated writing companion. By assigning it these specific roles, from research assistant to on-call editor, we have reached a productive working relationship that supports the creation of Autobiography of an Artificial Mind without sacrificing any of the sovereignty of the author.