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What is the value of writing creatively by hand, unaided by AI? Here are four considerations for authors who may be unsure if or how to use AI in their writing.
by Adam Fleming and Megan Fleming
Image credit: Woman with wax tablet and stylus. "Sappho" fresco, Pompeii ca. 55-70 CE. Public Domain.
I’ve seen a lot of questions about the future of writing, especially for creative writing. When artificial intelligence has a bigger vocabulary and is better at writing with correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and it knows where you’re going before you do (case in point: Google Docs suggested “and punctuation” before I could write it, above), what’s left?
There are four reasons why I believe people will continue to write, unaided by AI drafting:
Just like playing a piano or painting a picture, writing is a fun thing to do. Frustrating, aggravating, annoying, hard work, yes, all of these things. Just like a golfer smashing his clubs after a bad shot, you may sometimes want to throw your laptop off a bridge. But that doesn’t make it less rewarding. If anything, working through the challenge of writing a good blog, essay, novel, or nonfiction work, is rewarding. And on the good days, when it’s flowing? It’s pure fun.
When I write my novels, I draft by hand. I have happy accidents. Madeleine L’Engle said something in an interview with Victory Vision Publishing’s lead editor, Megan Fleming, when Megan was doing a correspondence project as a fifth grader. She asked L’Engle, “Where do you get all your ideas?” The author replied that most often it happens while she is writing. I find this to be true. As I draft, new ideas pop up. Asking an AI machine to draft your novel or book for you aborts this process. All the great stuff that might have happened in your book will never see the light of day if you don’t draft it by hand. Often, this means thinking up new ideas as you go. A machine won’t be able to do that for you—ever.
Writing can be an act of contemplation. I learn so much about myself while I explore that not only do my stories have those magical happy accidents while I’m drafting, but I also acquire greater understanding of myself as a person from the process. I imagine there will soon be talk of “slow creativity” like there is a “slow food” movement as a reaction to how fast food is sabotaging our physical health. Is cranking out AI-written books good for our souls? Is the product more important than the process? A capitalist mindset will put product over process, but writing, like any art, has never primarily been about product. Art values practice and process above production. I like to imagine the first humans who created some letters and then jotted down the most important stuff they could think of: how many cows they owned, or what the most famous warrior did … and then sat back and looked at the marks, saying, “Hmm. I never thought about things quite this way before.” They took time to process. How much more must we do the same, in light of the pace of change we experience in our modern era?
I called my brother yesterday to compliment him on his most recent book, Skeleton Company. As we discussed the flow of his story, Aaron’s assessment of his own writing was: “It’s syncopated.”
I agreed, and then he confessed that he wasn’t even sure what he meant, it just popped out of his mouth. The point is, there are lots of rules to writing story beats, just as there are rules to music. But there is a four-four beat, and then there is a GROOOOOOVE, baby—and they are not the same. Masterful writing is syncopated. Think about joke telling, dry humor, red herrings, subtextual cues in a romance novel, intricately woven-in clues in a detective story: these are human devices that can be mimicked by machine, sure, but would AI nail it? Timing and sly omission of facts to create intrigue requires a level of social IQ that AI struggles to pull off well. A machine cannot groove, and I don’t expect that it will be able to do so for quite some time yet. Writer, consider yourself safe from this violation of vocation.
Drafting an instructional manual or other informational manuscript using AI can make sense and save time. But the case for using our organic human selves—our head and heart—to write creatively from scratch is strong. Creative writing will continue to need an intelligence that goes beyond aggregating information. We will continue to need living beings with spiritual consciousness to process that information, to ensure our civilizations remain human—and humane. Creative writing including poetry, prose, sci-fi, fantasy, and any number of other fiction genres can help contribute to that processing and preservation, as all good art can.
We’ve had spellcheck tools forever, since the 1980s. My grandfather used to use it all the time—before we even had email. But you still need to know most of the rules. Grandpa also had many typos in his letters, because he assumed that his word processor’s spellcheck knew what he was trying to say. If he typed something incorrectly, there was a good chance his spellcheck would change groos to “gross” when he meant to write “grows.” These things are improving, and soon you’ll be able to rely very heavily on AI to check over your work. So, use the tools as tools. But AI won’t be able to tell you if your work sings—if it’s syncopated. Only a human editor, Beta reader, or advance copy reader can do that for you.
What if a Robot Wrote This Article? -The Atlantic
AI Content Writing Tools for Bloggers: Should You Use Them? - Jo, Blogging Your Blog
Are AI Authors the Future of Book Publishing? - Publishing.com
The Future of Writing, With Robots - Garrett Grams, Craft Your Content
Adam G. Fleming, PCC, is an ICF certified coach and trainer. He has trained people in coaching skills around the world and has also led other seminars as speaker and facilitator. Using both traditional and DIY methods, Adam has published 13 books in a variety of genres, and serves as the CEO and lead ghostwriter for Victory Vision Publishing, Inc. He lives in Goshen, Indiana, with his wife Megan and their four children. Contact: adam@victoryvision.org.
Megan Fleming is Lead Editor at Victory Vision Publishing. She has a Painting degree with a TESOL minor, and has taught Art and English to both students and adults. Her love of literature and clean copy merged when she began editing full time in 2020, and she has since been able to use her experience in MLA, Chicago, AP, and APA styles. Megan and her husband, Adam Fleming, live in a small Midwest town and have four children. Megan enjoys making her own art, gardening, pursuing a master’s degree, and reading fiction in between the cracks.
Interested in getting to the next step? Click here for a free discovery meeting with Adam.
