AI for Writers
AI for writers must be a bad thing, right?
Unless you've been living in a cave, you cannot have missed the recent discussion – both negative and positive – about Artificial intelligence or AI.
I've been following this technology development for a while because I know that AI will change the way many professionals work. And that includes us writers.
What Is AI?
But before we discuss the potential benefits and threats of Artificial Intelligence, let’s first look at what AI really is.
The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) define artificial intelligence as,
“Technology that replicates human behaviours and abilities conventionally seen as ‘intelligent' and augmented intelligence as “applications or tools that combine human and machine intelligence.”
Earlier this year, The Alliance of Independent Authors published a useful guideline for AI for authors. In it, their AI Advisor, Joanna Penn, gives some practical advice on what AI is, how to approach this new exciting technical development and what it could mean to us, writers. It's worth reading this article if you are new to the possibilities of AI, or even if you are already using some of the software that uses AI. Which most of us are even if we aren't aware of it. (See below)
New Technology – New Opportunities and Problems
Artificial Intelligence ignites in many writers a sense of excitement and in others a sense of fear. Those who are instinctively against the development of AI often ask,
"If a piece of software can write a whole book, how can we as human writers compete with that?"
But those of us – and I have to include myself in this – instead ask,
"How can AI help me with my work?"
Even if you are against AI, and never wish to use it in your writing, you may well be dependent on it already.
For example, Grammarly, the grammar-correcting software uses AI. If you sell your books via Amazon, you know about the algorisms. They use AI to decide, for example, how visible your books are to readers on its site.
AI is all around us.
I think AI will be the source of substantial new opportunities for us writers. I have already published one of my non-fiction books, Write Your Story, in audio format using Google's AI facility and am in the process of doing the same with Write in Another Language and Write Every Day, my two other titles.
I also intend to translate all of my books using AI, when the systems are sophisticated enough for the task.
Naturally, new technology brings with it new problems, which have recently been highlighted by some of the very same tech gurus that developed AI.
Something new and so revolutionary as AI is scary. All we can do is stay informed, keep our eyes and ears open and learn as much about the latest technology as we can.
In my opinion, burying your head in the sand, or trying to fight AI is the worst thing we can do.
Read on to find out about two pieces of AI that I have recently started using.
Sudowrite
Even though Sudowrite has been available for a few years now, I have only begun using it in the past month or so.
For those of you who are new to the technology, the software can generate completely new words for you. It can rewrite a piece of text in various ways, using more descriptive language, more introspection and so on ( new tools are added constantly). It can brainstorm, giving you ideas on how to develop your story or characters using various narrative templates, such as Hero's Journey and Hollywood Beats. It can even help you visualise a story by generating images from text.
I am only scratching the surface of what Sudowrite can do, but I'm learning all the time. I still use various other online tools, including Grammarly, Google, online Thesaurus, and old-fashioned 'real' research, instead of relying completely on Sudowrite.
However, I find Sudowrite incredibly inspiring. It's as if I have a very good writing friend – or junior writer – sitting beside me helping me with the words, but also giving me plot ideas and better ways to describe some of the thoughts of my characters, places and scenes. To me, Sudowrite makes writing less lonely.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is also quite new to me, and as with Sudowrite, I know I'm only just a beginner at using the technology.
However, I do know that particularly with ChatGPT, it's all about the prompts you give it. I would say that this software is more like Google, but far, far more sophisticated. Although it doesn't find web pages for you, it gives you words and descriptions, writes up alternative versions of the text, and so on. The best way to find out how it could work for you is to try it for free.
Just go here: https://ai-pro.org/start-chat-gpt/
I use ChaptGPT mostly to rewrite my blurbs and synopses, which I hate writing. I also use it to generate book titles. This was something that really blew my mind, so I wanted to share with you how AI gave me (potentially) my latest book title.
This is not yet official and I may well not use any of these as the novel takes shape, but below are five book titles generated by ChtaGPT which I personally found incredibly good as a first attempt.
Just as with Sudowrite, I wouldn't dream of using the above alternatives exactly as given to me by ChatGPT, but (and this is a big but) the technology has certainly given me some excellent ideas that may have taken me days, weeks, or even months to come up with. Or I may never have thought of titles like the above ones. I particularly like Frozen Hearts, Melted Love.
Next, I might go over to Midjourney (which I am yet to try) to generate images for a cover for this new novel, using the ChatGPT description. Now how much fun would that be?
Finally, please go and read the Alliance of Independent Authors’ guidance on AI. It’s incredibly concise and well- put together. Here’s the link: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/ai-for-authors-guidelines/
Sign up for Self-publishing Tips
Are you looking for tips and tricks on self-publishing? Sign up for my mailing list and get regular updates and book offers!