arguing with ai about my novel (video)

So I just finished a draft of the novel that I’m working on (the novel that it feels like I’m FOREVER working on) and I spent the last month using AI to help me work through some of the remaining issues that I wanted to fix this round. Even though I’ve used AI before to help me with various writing and coding problems, I’d never tried putting A WHOLE NOVEL MANUSCRIPT into the prompt and then working through my top issues. In the end, I got a lot out of this experience. But it didn’t come without some annoyances and some bullshit. Oh, sorry, the AI-savvy way to say that is: “…it didn’t come without some hallucinations.” 💻💩

To clarify how I used AI, I didn’t use AI to help me create content from scratch. I gave it my draft and then discussed/argued with AI as I tried to pinpoint and tackle some of my main areas of concern. These areas included historical accuracy, character arcs, dialogue and plot consistency, and more. At some point, it became fun having these back-and-forths with AI, especially when I didn’t expect perfect (or very deep) responses. At the same time, it did occasionally pinpoint some issues. And then I could workshop my solutions with some feedback from AI.

Anyway, here’s a video about my experience, and my suggestions to anyone curious about using AI to help them as they work through a writing project.

NOTE: Be sure to read any AI provider’s policy about how they might use the data that you provide in the prompt. I realize that many people are understandably uncomfortable with giving these providers any data.