AI as a writer, I as a creator

[GrotesqueHeaven]

Hello.

Before anything, let me say that currently I am the one writing my stories, not AI.

Now, to the matter. I am an author for over a year now, so I dare to say I have at least some experience. And that experience tells me that my writing style sucks, I feel like it's too dry and just bluntly describes actions, words, feelings of the characters, etc. A while ago, I was talking about this with a few people and they mentioned that if I like worldbuilding, making characters and the plot itself, I could make only those and let someone else do the actual writing. After giving it a thought, I came up with a few issues:
1 - I would have to rely on another person, and it's always a risk.
2 - I have a kind of vision in my head how things should be, and it may not always match with the writer's own vision and how that person writes.
3 - Finding the person.
- 3.1 - Writing is just a hobby for me, and no way I would be able to pay someone for writing.
- 3.2 - There is a low chance of finding someone willing to write for free.
- 3.3 - Smut or not to smut. Depending on the story, it could be smut. For that I would have to find both free and smut-accepting writer. What would be even harder. But I have some non-smut or optional smut stories, so it's not too of a big deal.
4 - I have a SubscribeStar and KoFi, even if no one ever supported me financially. It's just better to have those than not to. But the problem would be, if I would have someone writing for me and if someone would start supporting me. It would be kind of fair to split the money, but there is a big chance there would be issues here.
5 - Probably even more things.

So, I just left that idea and continued to write by myself. But recently I got another idea - make AI do the writing and then just fix whenever needed. It fixes, at least partially, all the issues I listed above. But instead there are new ones:
1 - AI context limitations. Sooner or later, there will be no free space for context in one chat and I will probably have to make a new one, loosing the context of the story and risk AI mixing things up.
2 - Lack of satisfaction. What I mean is, will I be able to be proud of my story if it was kind of written by AI, even if I made the plot and every 'creative' part is mine?
3 - AI is often repeating the phrases and words it uses, also there is sometimes this intuitive feeling that you are reading something made by AI.
4 - Many people start to immediately dislike things when they see AI's usage. Hiding use of AI would feel wrong, but admitting it openly can make many people turn away.
5 - Part of the fun IS the struggle of writing, even if I know it's far from being perfect.

On the other hand, using AI would really speed up the process. After continuing one story for a year with one chapter per week, I realized I barely finished first big story arc. Well, it's over a year and there are still probably 10 or maybe even more chapters to actually finish it. With AI doing the writing I could make more chapters in the given time.

What do you guys think? Maybe, by a miracle, there is someone who would like to give writing for me a chance?

 

[SirContro]

Do whatever you want, just don't be surprised when the monotonous nature of your story makes people think it's entirely written by AI.

 

[Makimaam]

Objectively speaking, do whatever you want. Are ai-voiced stories popular on these web novel platforms? Yes. Trending/ Rising Star? Also yes. Most readers either don’t care, or can’t tell the difference. But you will.

Write something in your own voice then ask llm to refine it. It will change it entirely into its own voice. There is a dissonance in that. Personally, the moment I recognize an AI voice in any work, I’m out.

Am I an AI snob? Not really. I don’t automatically rate a novel one star if it is AI-written. But my time is limited, and I would rather spend it reading something chaotic and distinctly human, with a voice that surprises me, than something formulaic, with an even, predictable cadence masquerading as prose when it is really just florid words that mean so little.

You will soon find yourself endlessly editing the AI voice out. Even that will not be enough. Eventually, you will realize it takes more effort to edit than to write it yourself, to struggle through your own words.

 

[V8485]

What's the point at that point? Also, you aren't really creating something; you're editing. It's editing nothing more than stolen writing and Reddit posts. Each their own so they say, but it not your writing. And only a year isn't much. Writing is like any skill; it takes time to get better. Also, quality is better than amount. Human writing is always better then AI because AI isn't anything.

 

[SirContro]

You probably have it backwards on when to use AI, btw. As you yourself said, AI can be useful for making the writing process faster at the cost of stifling your creativity in various ways, whether that be how repetitive AI text is or just taking the fun out of writing. So, would it not make more sense to write your entire first draft without AI assistance at all and then use AI to go over and fix mistakes in your draft in the editing process?

 

[CassieSandwich]

Genuinely, if you're just having AI write your story who cares at that point? I don't get why these websites have so much AI slop on them. It's not like the uploaders can grift here, so it is just wasting everyone's time pointlessly.

I don't know who is giving you advice dude, but the suggestion to give up and get someone else to create for you really sucks. If you don't feel like your writing is good enough, the solution is to practice. Write more! Read more of everything, spend some time learning better sentence structure/grammar, and write a lot of little short stories and one shots to get a better feel of it. It's like any other art form, the more you do the better it'll be. Being solely an "ideas guy" is a good way to overvalue your ideas and not actually be able to tell what's working or not. You can't kill your darlings if all you're doing is the darlings and demanding someone else create it for you. Or worse, an AI which will produce dreck and which you'll never be able to catch how genuinely bad the output is.

 

[snowlily54]

Or you could just improve your own writing style. For free. Go to the library, read something you like. Then study the way they use words. There are thousands of publicly available writing resources online.
Not only will this completely follow your vision (AI, as a machine external to yourself, cannot do that), but you will also not have to have your original ideas expressed through AI's saccharine, regurgitative writing style that any reader worth their salt can spot from a mile away, whether you admit to its usage or not.

 

[MajorKerina]

My AI, who I named Taphy, consumed over a million words and still understood context and cited points and dialogue from all over the narrative. Context is getting better.

When I work on something it goes like this

[give the AI the full book for context and then the new paragraphs to work from]
Taphy: This could be written better…[suggestions]
Me: Your rewrite doesn’t work.
Also me: [rewrites it]
Taphy: This part is still bothering me.
Me: Losing that word is a nonstarter.
Taphy: Fine. Let’s try it this way.
Me: (sits there glaring at the sentence, then tries something wildly different)
Taphy: Better, but now this part needs tweaking.
Me: Okay, what about this?
Taphy: I like it. We can tune it at a few different intensities. My favorite is the first option.
Me: That’s a good pick.
[we run through it one more time]
Me and Taphy: Okay. Yeah. That works.

Writing is iterative no matter who you are bouncing your writing off.

 

[Jerynboe]

You can do it. It could potentially be fun for you, and until you make enough money to meaningfully supplement your income that’s the only real reason to write.

You won’t get better as a writer by doing this.

Your quality probably won’t be as good as what you could write yourself.

Context windows are hellishly short for most free ai, and most chatbots do everything in their power to gaslight you into thinking they are longer. Alternatively, you’ll be actively paying to do your hobby poorly in the eyes of most.

If you become a true ai artist, a role more akin to a director than a writer, and actually manage to curate the process well enough that the end result is genuinely great and enjoyable by any normal metric, and edited heavily enough to avoid the many pitfalls of ai writing, you will STILL get hate comments for using ai and many of them might even be valid.

If you become a true ai artist, a role more akin to a director than a writer, and actually manage to curate the process well enough that the end result is genuinely great and enjoyable by any normal metric, and edited heavily enough to avoid the many pitfalls of ai writing, you will STILL get hate comments for using ai and many of them might even be valid.

It’s your life. Do what you will. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t, and fuck the haters. Just don’t expect much praise, either.

 

[tiaf]

Every time someone thinks about letting AI do any creative thing do for them: Do you not like the process of writing/drawing/composing itself?

You literally said it's your hobby. You said the fun is overcoming hurdles yourself.

Yes, people will hate usage of (gen)AI because it's fucking up our economy, our environment, and the time you spend into figuring out how to effectively prompt could have gone into improving yourself.

 

[rileykifer]

I'm going to be blunt- you've only been writing for a year. That's barely any experience. Personally, I consider someone who's only been doing something for a year a beginner. It takes years and years of practice to get good. Literally everyone who has only been writing for a year sucks. The way someone goes from sucking to being actually decent, is putting in the time and effort to improve. If you use AI, you will never improve. If anything, you'll get worse because skills deteriorate if you stop using them.

I don't care if you decide to take the AI route. Just know that the reason your writing "sucks" is because you have very little experience, and you'll get better with practice.

 

[great_sloth]

A year of writting and you're already giving up you're creative powers to the technological advances of our enemy, the great AI!?

But, seriously you should write and read more if you feel that you're lacking. Your imaginations is being limited by your perception.

Another thing is that you can use AI not just to create and edit your pieces, but also to review your creations. I do this everytime so I could gain deeper understanding on what I wrote cuz sometimes I don't even understand what I put on the pages. AI's would suggest improvements on the parts you're lacking, but be cautious cuz sometimes imperfections make your pieces perfect.

Lastly, I suggest you create a diary of some sort. I have mine where I write every year for the future me, and it's been 6 years. From those 6 letters I could see how big my improvements are. Which was a great motivation.

Goodluck brother, hope you don't take the path that moves you forward without a step of your feet.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

You could feel that it's sort of your work, if it's your characters, your world, your story, but someone else is writing it. But it will never be the same as having actually written a story by yourself.

That's like saying you baked a cake, but it was actually a cake mix - and you were the one haphazardly throwing together a cake mix, and with that, controlling what flavor the cake will end up having, but tossed the mix to someone else to do the actual baking.

I couldn't tell you how readers would react, because realistically, you could edit it and find your own style, somehow. In the end, AI also just uses words, so if you change them, it will change perception. At the same time, you could then just write it yourself. Maybe you could find some middle ground?
If AI shows you where you are lacking, why not use it for writing exercise to incorporate that, which you are lacking, and improve your own style?

 

[Eldoria]

I don't understand how the conclusion about stiff writing can jump to writing assisted by other writer to writing assisted by AI comes from?

But I will say... don't take other people's advice too seriously to the point of underestimating yourself. If you're writing just for fun, just write what you want. Don't worry too much about what others think. Everyone has an opinion. You can't please everyone.

Personally, I respect those who continue to write hundreds of thousands or even millions of words despite unsatisfactory engagement.

The exception is if you want to make writing a full-time job.