AI in Writing

Monday Mind Dump

Yeah, I know. Everybody’s got to have their take on this. I’m not an exception. I definitely don’t recommend LETTING AI write FOR you. Yeah, if you’re a GOOD writer to begin with, you could probably rewrite what it spits out…but it’s not going to save you any time, is it? Because you’re essentially still writing a FIRST DRAFT if you do that.

I use the ProWritingAid chapter crit regularly now to remind myself of things I should be getting right in the first draft. It looks for repetition/echoes and my usage of filter words. Yeah, it nails me on those often, for the people who I crit and constantly point them out. ;) That’s programming and a tiny bit of AI in that feature, but it looks at what I’ve done and applies the ‘rules’. I have a lifetime plan, but don’t have any intentions of upgrading to the newer AI tier as I don’t need those tools.

AI for editing is not much of an issue…if you know the rules to begin with. If you don’t, it can affect your sentences and writing, making them sound artificial. When Grammarly first introduced their rephrase feature (which I HATED) it wanted to reorganize my sentences in horrendous ways. One of the many reasons I dumped Grammarly. It’s expensive and, honestly, not great for creative writing. With PWA, I can SET it to creative writing so it doesn’t flag stupid things.

Still, it will. And what does it flag that annoys me? How about inclusive language. If I DARE write the word master or slave anywhere…or maid…here comes PWA to tell me that it’s not inclusive and I should change it, because it has connotations related to slavery. Uhm…and if I’m WRITING ABOUT SLAVERY?! Don’t you think that’s intentional? You see what happens if you listen to it in this context. It’s wrong. You know it’s wrong. You can’t take what it says as law.

I’ve mentioned before, I used PWA and Grammarly and Hemingway App to TEACH me the rules. Every time it flagged me, I’d check the rules and validate if I was right or not. It got to the point that Grammarly is basically a drunk, old man screaming at clouds. PWA was right more often and less scolding. I am at the point that when I SEE a squiggly red line and read the word, I automatically know what I’ve done. Typically, it’s a typo, a missing comma, needs a comma, or the word is incorrect. I know immediately.

There’s no more agonizing over tricky sentences, rewriting them over and over again. I’m glad those days are over. Now if it declares a sentence as clunky, I know to either DELETE the sentence or how to rewrite it.

This is how it’s helped me, but now, now AI is nothing more than a fancy search engine to me that helps direct my thoughts to what I NEED to study over delving into piles of information and getting hopelessly lost. For an upcoming short, I needed information about WW II. Now, that’s a LOT of missions over a few years, but what I NEEDED was a specific location, a time frame, and some reality to ground the narrative in. I told it what I wanted, who the characters were and what they were doing and would do. Described the city and who lived there…and it directed me to a starting place.

That saved me so much time and greatly inspired me with ideas on how the story will progress without it writing any of it. Just details I can research. A Project name. Location. Timeframe. A few suggestions that fall in line with what I asked. If I hadn’t done that…I’d probably be very frustrated right now with just WHERE to start on it, because while I’ve watched a bit of media and read a few books, accounts, etc. Those were long ago and I want to have as many anchor points in reality as possible.

I even managed to tie it into larger story lines I’ve already mapped out. Now, I just have to WRITE the short story and it’s likely going to go fast now that I have a direction.