Do Writers Have Competition from AI writing novels?
Recently there has been an increase in the use of artificial intelligence for various types of writing, including fiction.Many writers have expressed concerns about ai writing novels and what this means for the publishing industry. Can authors compete with AI programs that can write in minutes what would take an author days or months?It all comes down to whether an AI story generator is good enough at writing fiction to be your competition.
Are AI programs good at writing fiction?
Writing is a creative process, and creativity is not something AI programs are known for.They cannot come up with original ideas on their own.You use your imagination to come up with new ideas. They don’t have one. In order to produce text that is useful or interesting, a human needs to give them specific prompts.While an AI can write fiction with just the click of a button, if that’s the only work that goes into it, the end result won’t be any good and readers won’t want to read it.
Can humans use AI to write good fiction?
For an AI to be able to write fiction that’s worth reading, there needs to be a human behind it supplying creativity and original ideas.And if that person is doing a good job, they can use AI to create good fiction. But just like normal writing, it does take a lot of time and energy.An author who knows how to use an AI story writer may cut down on their writing time by using AI. But it still will take a significant amount of time for them to write a novel.
You don’t have as much competition from AI writing novels as you think
Fiction that’s written using an ai story generator is often low quality. And low-quality novels are not your competition unless you’re extremely bad at writing.The high-quality fiction that’s written using AI may be your competition, but that writing is more of a collaboration between the human author and the AI program. It takes time to create, and the human author needs to already be a skilled writer.
Competition from AI won’t take away your job
A skilled writer may be able to use AI to write a story that competes with yours, but it’s not that different from the competition you have already from other writers who aren’t using AI.Most of the people who use story writing ai aren’t putting in the energy to learn how to use it properly. And the ones that do are putting a lot of time into good planning and editing.Nobody is using an ai story generator to instantly create a novel that authors have to compete with.
Consider testing out an AI story writer yourself
Maybe you’re curious about whether AI could help you write more efficiently. Or maybe you just want reassurance that it really isn’t as good at creative tasks as some people worry it might be.Either way, consider finding an AI story generator and trying it out.It may cut down on the amount of time it takes to finish your book, but you’ll find that there’s still a lot of time and energy that goes into it.Using an AI story generator isn’t a way to instantly write a novel if you want something that has value and is free of plagiarism.
What an AI story generator will struggle with
If you want to use AI to write a story, it’s important to be aware of its strengths and weaknesses.An ai story writer will need a lot of direction from authors, especially for big-picture thinking.The creativity and planning will still be your job.You’ll need to supply plot arcs that make sense and have a meaningful trajectory.You’ll also need to spend a significant amount of time creating characters, deciding on their goals and motivations, and communicating that information to the AI.
An AI story generator will often have trouble with dialogue
AI often has trouble writing dialogue that feels natural.This is because it’s hard for a computer program to understand the nuances of human speech. Language is complicated, and while writing in general is relatively standardized, speech is much less so.But dialogue needs to sound like speech or something will feel off and readers will get pulled out of the story.In addition, different characters tend to speak differently, and each character needs to consistently sound like themself.And AI can struggle with things like sarcasm, metaphors, implications, and deeper meanings behind what is being said.
It takes time to get an AI story writer to do what you want
When something is outside of an AI’s skillset, it can be hard to find ways to get the program to do what you want.That means extra time and energy that you’ll need to expend in coming up with ideas and testing them out to see what works.And at a certain point, trying to get the AI story generator to write what you want it to write may start taking longer than it would have taken for you to write it yourself. This is especially true if you don’t know a lot about the AI program and how to give in the right instructions.
Using AI to become more efficient only works long-term
If you really want to use AI to write faster, it’s a long-term strategy.In the short term you’ll likely end up spending more time, not less, because it takes time to learn the program and figure out how to get it to write something valuable.And it only works if you already know how to write. Whether you write everything from scratch or use an AI story writer to speed the process along, you need to continually improve your craft as a writer and develop your understanding of the rules and best practices of writing and storytelling.
Plagiarism and quality issues with AI
AI can’t do creative things. It can only copy.And this means that anything written by AI could encounter issues with plagiarism.Because AI writing is so new, the laws haven’t caught up with it yet. But they will.So if you’re publishing AI-generated stories, it could get you in trouble in the future when the laws do catch up.Even if you only care about the present, lack of originality is a significant issue with over-reliance on AI. Readers don’t want to read something that’s unoriginal and sounds too much like something they’ve read before.
Revise AI writing to make it your own
If you decide to use AI for writing, make sure you’re revising it thoroughly to make it your own.And you can’t just send it to an editor.If an author sent me something AI-generated that they hadn’t made any revisions to, I’d probably have to send it back with a note that it wasn’t ready for editing.There’s a point at which a piece of writing isn’t written well enough for me to be able to tell what the author was trying to say. At that point it becomes very difficult to edit without taking more creative license than good editing allows for.
Quality issues with AI writing
And AI writing tends to have a distinctive quality of looking polished while lacking the substance it would need to be clear and meaningful.So you’ll need to put in the work to turn the AI-generated writing into something worth reading and add your own creativity and writing style to it.AI is a tool. It can’t write for you, it’s just something that you can use to improve your writing workflow.
AI Story Generators: The Main Takeaways
- Creative tasks are difficult for AI programs
- AI story writers can’t produce high-quality fiction on their own
- Authors writing quality novels don’t need to worry about the competition
- AI can be a useful tool for writers if you take the time to do it right
- AI-generated writing should be thoroughly revised
If you want to know more about how to write high quality fiction, with or without AI, check out my article on the
7 elements of a great story.If you’d like some individual help writing your novel,
send me an email and I’ll be happy to talk about whether I’d be the right editor for you.
