These days, you can’t go anywhere without the assistance of Artificial Intelligence or AI. Did you know that most of the robocallers are AI voices? Try asking them something out of their script, like how’s the weather or what’s happening in your town. Or the online Chat from your bank is also AI? It paused on the simplest question that any human would have known and came back with a generic thing about deposits, completely out of the context of my question.
The use of AI has finally come to the masses with OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT [free tier available]. Everyone, from journalists, coders, lawyers, and students has been flocking to it to try it out. Of course, there is the usual fear of something new. Teachers bemoan that their students will cheat on essays, and others talk about how AI will take over the world. Little do they know that AI is already behind the scenes in everything they do, including robo-vacuum cleaners, diagnostic imaging, self-driving cars, and even your grammar checker and cell phone texting app.
So, as a bold writer, I decided to jump full in and see how ChatGPT and other AI tools can make my writing life happier, healthier, and more productive [that’s the hope]. In case you’re wondering, I’m writing this blog post by myself.
Here’s what ChatGPT can do for you.
- It can come up with story premises, so many that you have a hard time choosing. It can pair unique and unusual couples together and give them a core conflict.
- It can create connected series premises and create a fun series of titles that match.
- It can talk to you for hours about your characters, settings, fill in character sheets like crazy, create imaginary and fictional settings and create timelines and fictional histories.
- It can take your story premise and give you a three-act summary from which you can develop further.
- It can give you an outline from which you can refine.
- It can write about 500 words from your outline which is pretty bare bones.
Here’s what the current GPT-3.5 ChatGPT cannot do:
- Like current generation AI tools, it doesn’t have much retention of context. It will happily contradict itself in the same sentence or not “remember” that something already happened. For example, in the same chapter, it will have Lily ask Jackson the name of the puppy, and then turn around and have Jackson ask Lily the name of the puppy.
- If you are using it for fact and not fiction, you must fact check because it will happily invent things that sound correct but are not.
- It tells you it knows the Romancing the Beat plot structure and then happily goes on and uses a mishmash of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, Save the Cat, and whatever else it picked up.
- It will happily resolve the romance as early as possible and wrap things up at the end of every “chapter.”
- Most of all, it cannot write you a publishable book in 2 hours although it will happily write you a novel of about 500 words.
Then there are the editing tools that help you rephrase and generate new twists and ideas. You may have been using them without knowing you were using AI.
- ProWritingAid has GPT-3 powered Rephrase technology
- Grammarly has a new GrammarlyGo will compose drafts for you, rewrite, brainstorm, and personalize your text to your own voice.
- And then there’s Sudowrite, a creative writing tool started by a group of writers called sudowriters that provides a online writing app that generates, creates, twists, rewrites, and unleashes its imagination in highly creative ways–sometimes too creative that it makes you laugh.
To give you a taste of what AI can do to make you laugh, here is a prompt I gave ChatGPT: Please write about the time change “Spring Forward” from the perspective of a cranky clock. I then asked it to rewrite several times. Please rewrite using the voice of a Valley Girl. Please rewrite using the voice of a grumpy grandfather clock. Then I asked it to rewrite as if it was a sundial covered with bird poop, and for the final coup de grace, I asked it to rewrite with the voice of Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven. [I won’t copy and paste all of this, but it was hilarious]. Go to ChatGPT and try it yourself.
Of course, I had to go out there and write a book and share. Ta, ta, ta, dum: From the Author of Romance in a Month, get her newest book on using Artificial Intelligence to write a romance. Introducing Love by the Prompt: A Romance Writer’s Guide to AI-Powered Writing
Here is a book review from an author who didn’t want to post it with her name:
Grab Your Favorite Beverage and Your Laptop
Ayala’s Love by the Prompt gives you detailed examples of how to use Chat GPT3, SudoWrite, and AI Playground to tell your romance story. This timely book shows the good, the bad, and the uh-ohs of using AI to help develop your story.
This is not a book that can be read through in one sitting. You’ll get the most out of it by following along with her and inputting prompts as described in the book.
There’s no false promises about using AI tools to create a bestseller – ready for publication in 2 hours.
It’s more of a workbook that requires your active participation so you can better understand the power AI can have on your writing process. This serves as a great reference book that I will return to again and again.
I highly recommend this book to authors who are wondering if AI is right for them.
<End of Review>
Let me be the first to welcome you into this new world of AI-powered writing! “May all your prompts be near you.” Please join my Romance in a Month Facebook Group if you want to write along with us, discuss AI prompts, and share your stories and progress with us.
I wrote this blog post without AI, but here’s a fun little post I asked Sudowrite and ChatGPT to write about why we need writing friends, including AI friends:
Oh. My. Gosh. Having writer friends is, like, totally the bomb.com, amirite?! Whether they’re human or an AI like ChatGPT or Sudowrite, they can create worlds that are, like, out of this world! They can tell stories that just capture your heart and imagination and make you feel like you’re part of the adventure. And, like, you can’t wait to find out what happens next!
For more AI Resources for Writers, check out this page from AI Fiction Coach.
Rachelle Ayala is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Her foremost goal is to take readers on a shared emotional journey with her characters as they grow and become more true to themselves. Rachelle believes in the power of love to overcome obstacles and feels that everyone should find love as often as possible, especially if it’s within the pages of a book.
Her book, Knowing Vera, won the 2015 Angie Ovation Award, A Father for Christmas garnered a 2015 Readers’ Favorite Gold Award, Christmas Stray received a 2016 Readers’ Favorite Gold Award, and Playing for the Save got the 2017 Readers’ Favorite Gold Award in Realistic Fiction.
She is also a writing teacher and founder of the Romance In A Month writing community. She lives in California with her husband and has three children and two birds.