I’ve been hearing a lot
about artificial intelligence (AI) and creative writing, so as a fiction
writer, I decided to check out one of the more popular AI applications called
ChatGPT that some of my writer friends recommended.
I’ve never used artificial
intelligence while writing any of my 65 books, so I was skeptical about this
new technology, thinking that a computer could never write a story as well as a
human could, but I decided to go into the research with an open mind.
I was surprised by what I
discovered. More on that in a bit.
First off, I want to
explain how I used ChatGPT to generate fiction:
I brought up Chrome and in
the search line I typed “chat.openai.com” and up came a page for ChatGPT. It
prompted me to create a free account, so I answered a few basic questions and
got logged in.
On the bottom of the
webpage, there is a “send a message box” where you can pose all sorts of
scenarios for stories and get some interesting responses. For my search, I
typed in the message box, “Write me a story about” and then added the basic
plot of one of my books, “Torn Between Two Lovers: A Civil War Romance”, which
is about a wounded Yankee soldier and the Southern Belle who rescues him. My
book is already published on Amazon, but I wanted to see what the chatbot would
come up with. It came up with a two-page version of my 253-page novel.
After reading the AI
generated version, I was surprised and impressed—not to mention a bit humbled
because although AI’s version was only two pages, it was very well-written in
some ways better than what I’d come up with.
I thought of more requests
I could type in the “send a message box” and wrote, “Write me a title for a
book that’s about a wounded Yankee soldier and the Southern Belle who rescues
him.” After seeing the AI suggested title "Love's Redemption: A Union
Soldier's Heart in Southern Arms", I had to admit that I liked my title
better.
“This is fun,” I thought,
so I wrote some more requests in the “send a message” box. I told it to write
an outline for my book and then once again I wrote a short version of my book’s
plot. ChatGPT came up with a nice outline that looked a bit like a script
showing “Act 1”, “Act 2,” etc. and ending with an “Epilogue.”
ChatGPT can come up with
themes for your story if you provide some basic information. All you have to do
is type in the send a message box, “Write me some themes for…” and then
describe your book’s plot.
I wrote a bittersweet love
story and got the idea to change it into a romantic comedy with the chatbot’s
help. So, in the send a message box I typed “Write me a story” and then
described my idea for a new plot line. I was pleased by the results. The bot
came up with several paragraphs of the new version from the beginning of the
story all the way to the ending. It was a whole new take on my story, and it
made me reconsider what I had written in my bittersweet love story. Maybe
someday I’ll rewrite my sad story and change it into a Happily Ever After
Romance.
I fiddled around some more
and thought about the next request I could write in the send a message box; so,
I asked myself, “What if I was writing a new story and hadn’t finished fleshing
out the main character’s traits.” So, I typed in the send a message box, “Write
me a description of” and then added a short description of my characters. It
came up with a few paragraphs of very detailed character traits that I could
focus on as I wrote my novel.
All in all, I was very
impressed with the dialogue it generated for my stories; basically, the
dialogue was well-written and sounded natural although I’ve heard some people
complain that the dialogue it comes up with sounds stilted.
I thought some more about
different scenarios for stories I might like to write and wondered would the
chatbot would come up with, so in the send a message box I wrote, “Write me a
story about a love triangle,” and it came up with two pages of a reasonably
good story entitled “Entangled Hearts”.
If you have Bing on your
computer or phone, it has an AI feature that writers can utilize while writing
stories. On the top of Bing’s home page, there is a box that says “Search the
Web”. On the right side of the box, you can click on the “Open Bing Chat” box.
Then, click on “Choose a conversation”. After that, click on the box for
“Style” and choose “More Creative.” There, you can pose prompts such as “Write
me a story about…” All you need to do ahead of time is come up with a basic
plot line. With Bing Chat, you don’t have to create an account since you’re
already using Bing as a search engine anyway. It’s scary how simple it is.
Some of the metaphors in
the AI-generated stories sounded trite and some were so bad that they made me
giggle. I felt smug, thinking, “Aha! I’d never put it that way in any of my
stories.”
Will AI-generated books
replace those written by humans in the future? I don’t think so. Fiction
writers can think of using Chat GPT and Bing’s chat features as starting
points, never the final products. As every student learns in Creative Writing
and English Literature classes, quality writers draw from several
sources—either their own feelings and experiences, books they’ve read, people
they’ve known, places they’ve lived, or dialogue they’ve heard. That kind of
creativity can never be replaced by a computer.
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