AI Fiction Writing -- Not good/good Sometimes

 

If you go to see Swan Lake, which would you rather see? Real ballerinas or robots dancing?

Would you rather read a book written by a human or AI?  

I'm in the middle of writing a novella, The Ring. Two middle-aged sisters fight over their late mother's ring. I will serialize it on this blog when done. 

Because as a reader I loved illustrations like Rita Mae Brown and Alexander McCall Smith have done with some of their books before AI. I've wanted to illustrate my work. 

I'm not anti-AI. 

The artwork in this blog is AI generated. It's creatively fun to illustrate my writing. I would never use art AI in place of using a real artist.

When I published my anthology,  The Corporate Virgin  www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-corporate-virgin-d-l-nelson/1149289313, I illustrated each story with an AI illustration.  

I'm not pro AI either. It depends how it is used. 

I'm anti AI fiction writing.

When I write, or should I say rewrite. there is much polishing done from the rough first draft, which is almost a free write to when I consider the work finished. Some of the steps...

• Write X number of pages then go over it all. 
• First polish. Rework the first draft
• Write some chapters or pages 
• Change or cut the placement of paragraphs if necessary
• Change words for stronger words
• Change ing verbs if stronger verbs come to mind
• Examine details. DO I need another, or do I have too many? What will make each paragraph more visual?
• Check details such as spelling of place names, years, whatever to make sure of accuracy 
• Illuminate ly words 
• Try and catch typos
• Repeat above as many times that is necessary. It could be anywhere from 2x to 10+X
• Reread, rework, reread, rework until it is ready to release.  

I can't believe AI writing  polishes and weighs words, sentences, paragraphs.

• At the University of Maryland and Google DeepMindIn introduced Story Scope: AI written stories compared against human-written stories for:
• Structures 
• Story progress 
• Tension 
• Conflict

Some 60,000 stories of around 5000 words were examined.

The results? 

93% the human written story was identified against the AI one.

Is it good news that the AI failed in the same way bad or novice writers fail? AI had

• Over explanation 
• Less flashbacks 
• Less time jumps
• Too many metaphors
• Less originality in explaining human emotion
• Less subplots
• Less scenes
• Less dialogue
• Overly didactic 
• Not good at comedy 

 There were other comparisons. 

1. AI over-explains its themes instead of letting readers figure it out.
2. Human writing is less linear (more time-jumps and flashbacks).
3. AI relies on bodily metaphors to explain emotion (81% vs. 38% human).
4. Humans reference specific texts, brands, places (nearly 2x the AI rate).
5. AI narrative is less diverse (fewer subplots and scenes, less dialogue). 

This blog only discusses fiction writing, not what happens to students who use AI to not do the research and intellectual work of a class assignment. 

 

As readers, my husband and I often start or the day by reading in bed. We interrupt each other to share an especially clever phrase or description. 

 

I know how hard we work to get exactly the right word, the right balance. Sure AI could probably do it faster but I want to share those words with not only my husband or the real live human who poured a bit of his/her heart and soul into creating them for me. 

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Notes 

Cory Doctorow  Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.

https://xix.ai/live/4781 A Study by the University of Maryland and Google DeepMindN

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/305860/20240619/google-deepmind-study-reveals-ai-struggles-write-comedy.htm