Using Artificial Intelligence to Write Books

 

Should writers utilize artificial intelligence tools to write books?

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.