Don't Fear the Robot

 
I’ve been thinking about the topic of technology rendering writers redundant* via the use of AI.
 
[*Spoiler alert: My assessment is this isn’t happening anytime soon. BUT… we have to be intelligent about it. Not the “auto-complete on steroids” that so-called artificial intelligence is based on, but actual, creative, self-aware intelligence.]
 
But first, let’s consider an analogous situation…
 
How do brick & mortar bookstores compete with the online behemoth?
 
Not on quantity (i.e. pricing or stock size)—that’s for sure. The Big A can temporarily price their books lower than cost and still stay in business (because books make up a small percentage of their overall business). And of course they can have millions of books in stock. It’s a mistake to even try to compete on quantitative grounds.
 
But on qualitative grounds, indie stores can absolutely compete—and win—against the internet giants. By offering things you can’t get online.
 
Read that last part again. It’s not about a zero-sum competition over a slightly better price or a slightly faster delivery or a bigger selection. It’s about the things they can’t offer. At all.
 
Online can’t offer in-person story time for the kiddos.
 
Or the “quiet book club” option, where people can read in the company of others without the requirement to interact.
 
Or all the traditional in-person book clubs, with some stores offering multiple clubs across several genres.
 
Or “educator nights” where they bring in a slew of local teachers and librarians for special deals and book talks on exciting upcoming releases, and often bring in the authors of those new releases.
 
Or those adorable “read to a dog” programs.
 
Or in-store author visits, where customers can chat with authors about everything from favorite books to writing to the publishing process. And come away with a personalized inscription in their new book, signed in front of them.
 
And most of all… how about the chance to personally interact with passionate booksellers who have deep knowledge of the books they carry (and all the other books they can get for you in a day or so) as well as their customers’ tastes? They can make literary recommendations via a time-honored interactive process (otherwise known as “conversation”) in a way no algorithm can ever come close to, and their in-store stock is typically a carefully curated selection aimed to pique the interests of their local customer base.
 
Once readers realize all the benefits of having a local bookstore, many of them are happy to pay a small amount more for the privilege of having an actual bookstore in their community.
 
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So—for writers—the same reasoning applies.
 
You’re not going to beat AI on the number of characters or words or pages per day. Not even close. (They can crank out a multi-page “essay” in seconds. If you want to call it that.)
 
So you have to think like a bookstore, and compete on what AI can’t offer. Which isn’t all that complex, if you’re willing to do the work. You just continue doing what you’ve been doing ever since you first became a writer, with an emphasis on two things: (1) writing in a way that feels like actual lived experience to the reader so they make an emotional connection with the character and the book, and (2) making sure your line-level writing craft is at the very best of your abilities.
 
I’ve mentioned these things before (“Connection & Craft”), but they’re more important than ever if you want something that will stand out against the so-called “content” people can quickly crank out using these apps (which is only going to expand in the foreseeable future).
 
Here’s the dirty little secret: Most AI-written “stories” are nothing but synopses, bolstered by the random incursion of what the algorithm thinks is “writerly” writing. It sort of resembles what we think of as writing, but once you start reading, you quickly become aware that it’s horrid… almost to the point of being unreadable.
 
It’s like the app was developed by a drunk non-writer who got the fundamental dictum of fiction writing backwards, and they programmed the AI to “Tell, don’t show!”
 
Reading AI-generated fiction, we’re virtually never in scene. It’s a constant stream of exposition, propped up by the overuse of certain words like “delve,” “endeavor,” tapestry,” “elevate,” “explore,” and “embark.”
 
In other words—in a confluence of two capital writing crimes—AI primarily (1) summarizes the events of a story instead of placing us in the scene via the interiority of the POV character, and (2) over-uses adjectives, adverbs, and “writerly sounding” prose in general, in a poorly disguised attempt to have its prose appear as what some goofy tech-bro apparently thinks is actual professional writing.
 
(To quote the esteemed Elmore Leonard on this topic, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” Or, as Stephen King put it, “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs.”)
 
SO… the answer for writers is the same as for book shops – think quality vs. quantity.
 
Keep us in scene.
Keep us engaged.
Make us care… about your character and her story.
Don’t just draft, spellcheck, then “press publish.”
Write the very best story you’re capable of telling, then…
When you’re done: revise/rewrite/edit/polish/beta.
Repeat the above.
And again.
 
In other words, do the exact opposite of what AI does: Make it real. Make it great. Make it unique. Make it compelling.
 
Move us.
 
If you do this, there will always be readers who value your work over the $0.99 robot-produced, meaningless synopses coming down the pike.
 

Happy writing!
[Image credit: the amazing Fritz Lang]