A.I. Fiction Redux: Unlocking the Potential in Robot Fiction Writing
A.I. has come a long way with fiction writing in just a year
A year ago I ran an experiment with A.I. and published the results under a free account. I experimented with many different types of writing, mostly blog posts, and posted the results from the robot to the below account so Medium writers could get a sense of what was coming:
I recently gained just over 50,000 bonus credits on an artificial intelligence platform called Jasper. It’s a popular A.I. writer that I first tried in 2021. Jasper has been giving away crazy amounts of bonus credits this month.
I’ve been loosely following them since 2021 and their company has been very successful in a short time. Companies and writers alike are using the tool for various types of writing because it’s not super expensive, and it’s pretty intuitive. There is even a section on their website focused on all the books written by Jasper. They also have dozens of “recipes”, template-like wizards, to assist you with the different types of writing you might need.
I went into the fiction testing this week with low hopes. My opinion has done a complete 180. Welcome to the new world of writing fiction with A.I.
My Fiction Testing Journey This Week
One of the issues I encountered when first testing A.I. writing platforms a year ago was their ability to write fiction. Lots of directing was required and even then you’d get some very questionable outputs.
So when I gained these bonus credits, I decided to try fiction on Jasper. And the results surprised me. You can find the results from one of the fiction tests this week on my free robot account here:
But I didn’t just do one test. I actually spent a few nights doing research and testing out multiple types of fiction. I attempted several short stories, the Save the Cat! Beats recipe, and several recipes for outlining a novel. I even wrote an entire non-fiction eBook on the platform, but I’ll save that post for another day.
Overall, I am pleasantly surprised with the fiction capabilities of A.I. platforms now. The A.I. tools have come a long way. When I did research on how to best use Jasper for fiction writing, I came across a slew of YouTube videos under the Jasper YouTube channel. Here are a few of them:
These videos were all made ~1 year ago. And you can see the struggles in creating usable fiction back then. The Jasper from a year ago is now new and improved. It’s quite a turnaround from where the platform was back then.
In my research this week, I discovered 2 important lessons about today’s A.I. when it comes to fiction writing.
#1 A.I. is best used as an assistant for fiction writing
It will get you very quickly out of writer’s block.
Not sure what your character’s motivation should look like? What about their personality, likes, and dislikes? Have the A.I. writer choose for you! You just ask it questions like “what is x character’s motivation in this story?” and it returns an answer in seconds.
Need some plot fillers? Write alongside A.I. and it will learn your story as it unfolds and help you plug the gaps. It can help you faster than you can form a thought. And it can generate hundreds of ideas in minutes so you don’t have to do all the hard work yourself.
#2 If you’re the type of fiction writer who plots their fiction novel via scenes (a rarer method), A.I. might be a really nice addition to your fiction toolbelt
Yes, you could have A.I. write your fiction scenes for you. But you will spend time rewriting them. However, you don’t have to do all the heavy lifting. A.I. can pump out scenes quickly and the quality this week has been surprisingly decent. (see the link listed earlier in this post for an example)
Know what your scenes should look like? Try A.I. to write a first draft. Type in prompts like “write a scene where X character confronts Y character about their infidelity” and watch the words appear on screen like magic. With conversation and everything.
You will burn a LOT of words so just be aware that using a subscription plan with word counts (like Jasper’s) will run through them quickly. Jasper offers a plan now for 100,000 words per month for $99. You’ll need all those words since you’ll toss some of them in the final edits.
The Ethics of Using A.I. to Write Fiction?
This question keeps coming up. The jury is still out on this one.
Honestly, though, what does it matter anymore? There are arguments to be made on both sides.
A.I. writers are here to stay, so we need to find a way to work with them and determine where the credit, if any, is due. There is going to be a day when what you read on the internet could be written by a robot or a human and you won’t know the difference. It’s probably already happening now.
Update: Medium is also thinking strategically about how A.I. content impacts their platform. They published this updated policy about it tonight:
Concluding Thoughts
Again, A.I. writers are here to stay. Unless they become illegal (this risk = super low), I don’t see how they will disappear. And, they’ll continue to get better over time. The truth is, that’s how they work.
They literally get. better. over. time.
Now that ChatGPT is out there (and free), it will continue to grow and learn to the point where it will be harder to distinguish its fiction outputs from human writing. I’m a bit more nervous than where I started on the fiction side. I’ve encountered a lot of bad books on Amazon Kindle Unlimited. I’m not sure a book written by A.I. is indistinguishable from some of the stuff on KU today. Although this doesn’t change my plan to one day write the great American novel, it’s something to think about.
Did you miss the great A.I. writing experiment I published for free on medium? You can read it, starting here:
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