AI for Writers: Friend or Foe? How to Use Artificial Intelligence Without Losing Your Writing Voice

From Edie: Discover how writers can use AI without losing their unique voice. Learn the benefits, risks, and best practices for using artificial intelligence in your writing process.

AI for Writers: Friend or Foe? How to Use Artificial Intelligence Without Losing Your Writing Voice

by Ane Mulligan @AneMulligan

I was tasked with writing a fundraising letter for our nonprofit community theatre company. I'm a fiction writer. There isn't an iota of grant writer in me. I played, edited, and played around again with the plea, but the tone was wrong. My thoughts were all over the place—like following an ADD character’s train of thought. Squirrel! 

Finally, I went to ChatGPT and asked it to polish it. I was gobsmacked! The site took my words, tweaked them, organized them, and made the letter sound good. Then, I passed it by another board member who added a couple of their own tweaks. We ended up with a letter that sounded us like us but better. Success. 

With the advent of AI, I have to wonder about term papers and college theses. Are kids simply prompting AI with the subject and focus, then letting it write the paper? Talk about dumbing down America. 

I also do not agree with doing a painting. There's no creativity or artistry in that. Anybody could do that without any talent at all. 

The same goes for writing novels, poems, stories. The author isn't in the work. The voice isn't mine. 

That said, I tried AI to jump start a tag line and blurb for my new WIP. It gave me a couple of decent ones, but I used those as a springboard to make my own. The result was good and in my voice. 

AI can be useful if we aren't lazy. Better to use a thesaurus than ask AI for a word. If I have a bothersome sentence, I rewrite it several ways until I find the right one. I played once with having AI rewrite a page of a story. While it was good, the site made it sound like a literary novel. Literary novels are great—except that's not what I write. Anyone who ever read a single sentence I write would spot it a mile away. It wasn't me. 

No, for better or worse, I stay away from AI for my fiction. For non-fiction (grant pleas, etc.) my thoughts go along the line of write it first, then let AI edit it. With my fundraising letter, I placed them side by side and took the best of both.

I guess it comes down to this: AI can be a friend is used wisely and for the proper things. But it can become a foe. Let's say Alice Author was getting a lot of rejections. She decides to let AI write her book. The result is good, it gets picked up by a publisher. The problem is with her next book. The result was not the same voice as the first book. Houston, we have a problem.

Only YOU can sound like you. Your voice, the way you turn a sentence, and the pacing all point to you. AI cannot replace you or your creativity. And I doubt the heart of a Christian author—the message and reason for our books—would be present. 

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AI for Writers: Friend or Foe? How to Use Artificial Intelligence Without Losing Your Writing Voice from @AneMulligan on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Ane Mulligan lives life from a director’s chair, both in theatre and at her desk creating novels. Entranced with story by age three, at five she saw PETER PAN onstage and was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. One day, her passions collided, and an award-winning, bestselling novelist emerged. She believes chocolate and coffee are two of the four major food groups and lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband, a rescued German shepherd, and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her website, Amazon Author page, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, The Write Conversation, and Blue Ridge Conference Blog.