Embracing AI as a Writer's Assistant

My Perspective as a Marketer & Creative Writer

I was a bit hesitant to dive into this topic, but it has been nagging me incessantly, so I decided to throw my hat into the ring and put my thoughts out there. If I didn’t, I wasn’t being true to myself. So here we go…

So, AI tends to be a controversial term, particularly within the writing community. I get it, and there are certainly some valid arguments from the anti-AI crowd which I do agree with. But that doesn’t change the fact that I enjoy using AI tools. In all honesty, I feel apprehensive saying that on a public platform like this, as there are so many strong opinions swirling around about this topic.

But I’m a sci-fi girl. Artificial Intelligence is one of my favourite movies, so I was naturally pulled towards this new AI technology from the outset. I jumped onboard as soon as ChatGPT came onto the scene and I’ve been utterly transfixed by it and the expanding range of AI tools ever since.

But you can't be a writer and actually like AI!?
Aren't you worried about it replacing you and your writing?

No not really. In fact, it has become a useful tool for me and my writing process, and perhaps it can help you too. Let me explain…

AI as Another Tool in the Writer's Toolkit

In my day job I work in marketing and writing content is at the centre of it. Writing is my job. I get paid to do it. But I’m not as worried as some people think I should be.

Rather than fearing that AI will replace me, I am intent on mastering it to help me become better at my job and a more valuable employee. I see it as another skill I can add to my resume, and it is something I genuinely enjoy learning more about.

To me, AI is another tool I can plug in alongside all the other tools I use to be more efficient. I use these tools to work faster and not harder in my job, and I think people who enjoy writing creatively can do the same.

I also believe that AI is here to stay. It’s not going anywhere. Like the internet, computer, typewriter, and even the printing press that came before it, AI is the next logical step for progress, and the change that comes with progress can understandably incite fear. But maybe we don’t need to be afraid. Maybe AI can help us rather than replace us.

AI Making Us More Human

I listen to the Creative Penn Podcast by Joanna Penn often. She is a fiction and non-fiction author who is a strong advocate for AI in the creative writing space. In one of her recent podcasts, she stated that 'AI makes her feel more human'. I honestly feel that too. Why?

Sometimes, the process of writing doesn't simply involve 'writing' for the joy of it. Depending on what you write, you may need to do research, find the right word to use in a sentence, and rearrange your thought dump into something that makes sense and has a logical flow. If you are publishing a book, there are other tasks too like marketing, query letters, website content, writing a synopsis etc that surround the standard writing process.

AI can help you with all the more menial tasks that take up your time, allowing you to get back to doing the parts you genuinely enjoy doing - writing and creating!

AI as a Writing Assistant

In my marketing job, I'm lucky enough to have colleagues that I can bounce ideas off when writing a case study, blog, or fact sheet. That back-and-forth conversation is an incredibly helpful thing to have to ensure my marketing content is the best it can be.

But as creative writers, tapping away at our laptops alone to write our stories, we don't get that valuable interaction in the writing process until we reach out to Beta readers or find a critique partner. But we can if we use AI.

I talk to my AI Chatbot like I would talk to a writing assistant or my work colleague. Here are just a few prompts I'm using with AI to improve my fiction writing and speed up my process:

• Please summarise this chapter/scene for me.

• Can you identify the primary goal and conflict in this scene?

• Can you make sure this scene is written in past tense?

• Can you give me some ideas on ways to rephrase this sentence to improve clarity?

• Here is a bio for my character. Can you help me come up with ideas for his motivations for doing X?

• Can you describe the daily tasks involved in a career doing X (to better understand the career I chose for my character)

AI as a Research Tool

Since I'm in the process of writing and hopefully publishing my first story one day, I'm using AI as a search engine to speed up my process of learning about the craft of writing. I’m also using it to gain insights into market trends and what is involved in publishing and marketing.

So instead of typing my question into Google and endlessly scrolling through the list of links to find one that has the information I need, I ask AI (Like Microsoft’s Copilot that is plugged into the internet) to spit out the information I need in a concise piece of text with reference links included. Side note, always check the reference links as AI does tend to hallucinate information at times!

Maintaining Your Voice and Quality

Am I worried about losing 'my voice' to AI? No, not really. In my marketing career working for an agency, changing my tone of voice to suit the client, context, and type of content I was writing is a skill I've had to acquire and perfect. I'm finding that seems to be translating into my fiction writing too. My rom-com story has a different tone of voice and writing style compared to my Sci-fi story. But in saying that, there are ways to use AI tools now to replicate your tone of voice and writing style, but that’s a whole other can of worms I won’t go into right now.

If I want to write stories and be a published author, I also keep in mind that I want to produce the very best possible product for the reader to enjoy, and I believe I can achieve that by utilising AI as a tool to help me achieve that goal. Many writers already use tools like Grammarly, ProWritingAid and AutoCrit to improve their processes and editing—all of which have a level of AI incorporated into the programs—so why not use an AI chatbot for free if it can help make the process easier and more enjoyable?

A Collaborative Outcome

I think writers are incredibly supportive of other writers, so I would hope that writers who admit to utilising AI tools in this way will not be judged harshly for doing so. To me, it feels a bit like criticising someone for using the internet to find information instead of going to the library, or choosing to use a spellchecker instead of memorising how to spell every word in the English language.

Plus, I do want to point out that there is a big difference between getting AI to do the writing for you and using it as an assistant to help improve your writing and speed up the process. While I do use AI, I still need to do most of the actual creative writing, learn about the craft of telling a good story, and understand if I’m writing and crafting that story well to suit my reader.

In saying that, there may be people out there using AI to write whole stories to try and make a quick buck. If that’s the case, good luck to them. Their ‘writing’ path has no impact on mine. Plus, any real writers know it’s not an industry you get into to ‘get rich quick’ anyway, so what is the point?

Along with enjoying the process of writing and coming up with a story I love, my ultimate goal in my fiction writing is to make sure my reader is fully absorbed in the story and enjoys the reading journey. While I could probably achieve that without AI, I think AI will help me get there faster and hopefully lead to a better overall outcome for the reader too.

Finding Your Joy in the Writing Process

So I guess what I’m trying to say is this—focus on you and your writing and the enjoyment you get out of the process. If you get joy and fulfilment out of it without the need to use tools like AI, that is awesome, keep it up! Equally, if you find yourself getting stuck at certain stages of the writing process, and could use a little help, consider trying out an AI tool such as Claude or ChatGPT to act as your writing assistant and focus on the parts of writing you enjoy the most.

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If you’ve stayed with me this far congrats! Whether I have enthralled you, enraged you or entertained you, thanks for reading, and let me know your opinion on AI in the poll below. And remember! It’s cool to be kind x

Disclaimer: Since this is a post about AI, I figured I should disclose my use of AI in this post. 90% of the words in this post were written by me. I acquired the help of my AI writing assistant Claude to provide suggestions for content order, subheadings and the heading. Some advice I took on board, some I did not, and some was edited.