Despite having worked on hardly anything else this year, I have embarked on yet another draft of Novel 6. I just couldn’t stop myself. It was that new idea for the first three chapters that I mentioned in my last post. That inner-editor of mine just wouldn’t let it go, especially as the only reason for not doing it was the amount of work involved. The inner-editor said ‘So what – get writing!’
It’s those first three chapters, you see. They are so crucial. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the rest of the novel is, if the first three chapters don’t grab the reader, no-one’s going to read it. Now, I’m not saying my novel is brilliant, but I am really, really pleased with it and I want it to be read. However, the inner-editor still wasn’t happy with the first three chapters. There was too much backstory and not enough action. Yes, the exposition is important, but not three chapters of it, especially not the first three chapters.
So I took some radical steps, changing the structure completely. Basically, I demolished the first three chapters and put them back in a different order. It was challenging, and a bit scary. Did all the important details go back in? Will the story still make sense to the readers? At times, I wanted to give up because it was too much work. After all, no-one was making me do this. But new scenes were emerging, with new action that I really liked, and the inner-editor pointed out that if I didn’t stick with this plan, I would lose those bits. For the sake of a few sentences, I kept going. And progress was made.
The big continental shift in the first three chapters meant a bit more restructuring in the next few chapters too. I had to keep going to make sure everything was consistent, and that I haven’t repeated some details and left others out. But then I did something even more radical – well, radical for me. Something so radical that I hardly even want to say it out loud. Come closer, so I can whisper…
I’ve been using AI.
I know! It shocked me too. My opinions of AI so far have been that I don’t know enough about it to trust my opinions on it. I was happy being a luddite, assuming I would never use it because I would never understand it well enough to decide whether it was a good thing or not. And I didn’t need to use it, because making things up is a fun thing I like to do by myself. Why would I give that up to a computer?
But then I saw something on social media. In my desire to be published one day, I follow various accounts that appeal to authors – advice, tips, motivational quotes etc. Someone I follow recommended an app that uses AI to give feedback on all kinds of writing, including fiction. I was sceptical, but being at the stage where I feel I would try anything, I decided to give have a look.
Let me get this straight – I am NOT using AI create new writing. It is an editing tool and nothing more. It does things that can already be done on Word if you know how, putting them all together in an easy-to-use format. For example, it can identify over-used words, untangle poor grammar and point out when an author gets heavy handed with the adverbs. These are all things that a human editor would be highlighting, so I didn’t feel guilty about taking the advice. So far, I have learnt that I repeat the words ‘just’ and ‘could’ too much, I use a lot of passive sentences, and even though I thought I was quite sparing with the adverbs, there were more than I realised.
So far, so Word. But here’s the thing the app does that has impressed me most. There is a feature that will critique a chapter and give feedback on the overall effect. Basically, the AI computer ‘reads’ my work and tells me what it thinks. I have been longing for someone to read my work, but surely it couldn’t be the same as a real reader? Somewhat nervously, I fed Chapter 1 into the computer and awaited the results. And in 10 seconds, I was blown away. I don’t know how AI works, but this feedback feels like it has come from a real person. It is analytical and precise, comparing my work with conventions of fiction that I appreciate. It assesses such things as the conciseness of the plot, the portrayal of character, and the authenticity of the dialogue. It compares sentence length and structure to judge pace and flow. It can pick out themes and motifs and suggest what works and what doesn’t. It’s witchcraft! And best of all, it loves my writing! It tells me things about my characters that I was hoping readers would feel, and praises features that I worked hard on. Obviously, if it was criticising my writing, I probably wouldn’t like it so much. But it’s hard not to be pleased with feedback such as “The setting … is integral to the story. It’s not just a backdrop but a character in itself.” OMG, this is exactly what I was trying to achieve!
Another, secondary advantage that has come out of using the app is the boost to my productivity. The app will run one chapter critique a day. Novel 6 is twenty-five chapters long, so I’m doing one a day until the whole novel is done. If I miss a day, it doesn’t carry over, so I’ve been making the effort to turn the laptop on at times of the day when I would usually be watching rubbish on TV or scrolling on my phone. It’s a very rewarding bonus.
So far, my experiences with AI are mainly positive. There are negatives. I still feel guilty using it, as if I’m cheating in some way. I don’t want to become too reliant on the style advice. There is always the worry about the app harvesting or sharing my data; it assures me that this won’t happen but I wouldn’t know even if it was. And there is also the need to remember that this isn’t feedback from a real human, no matter how much it feels like it. AI should never replace genuine human feedback. However, until I can get some genuine human feedback, AI is proving very useful.
So hey, look at me, getting with times! I’ve taken out a year’s subscription. Who knows, when I’m done with Novel 6, I might start running the other novels through the machine as well. I wonder if the computer will love those as much as it loves Novel 6!
NB – no AI was used in the writing of this blog. Can you tell?
M J Schofield 