As a Writer, I Don't Feel Threatened by AI

As a writer, I don’t feel threatened by AI. If anything, with the increasing number of people depending on AI to write for them, the professional writers who have invested deeply in their craft will become rarer and more in demand.

My views on AI use differ slightly when it comes to writing a novel versus using AI as a communications strategist or workplace writer to expedite certain processes. Today I want to focus on the novel and explain why truly skilled creative writers have nothing to worry about. If anything, this is a call to those writers to up their game.

According to Matthew John Fox at BookFox, the proliferation of AI written books is only going to increase. As AI accelerates the writing process, more books will be published each year, making it even harder to stand out. If that concerns you, don’t let it. This trend will only increase demand for human-written books, for readers who want to connect with a real person and ideas that originated in a human mind.

This is a call to writers who take the craft seriously to write more humanly.

Machines are good at following formulas, but you, human writer, can combine craft knowledge with personal experience and instinct to write better books, including books that break a few rules along the way. You can draw from the peculiarities of your own life, something AI can’t replicate. AI excels at mechanical instruction-style prose, but it struggles with a deft turn of phrase or unexpected poetic language or even invented words that breathe life into a unique character.

Create characters that are deeply human, inspired by real people you know. Characters who have deep psychology. Much of the pleasure readers derive from novels comes from seeing a person truly alive on the page. At least for now, human writers are WAY better at doing this than computers.

This also means leaning harder into emotion, especially the counterintuitive and contradictory emotions. Human writers excel at excavating the deep caverns of the human heart. I’ve raved about the book The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass to, like, every writer friend I have on the planet. Frankly, I don’t think writers talk enough about this topic, and I personally don’t enjoy a novel unless it knocks the emotional socks off of me by its conclusion.

Lastly, consider leaning harder into humor. AI can tell jokes, but it’s far less adept at detecting absurdities and a unique character’s sense of humor. Sarcasm is a good example of saying the opposite of what is actually intended, which AI usually misses. Subtle clues in dialogue and layering subtext is also something skilled human writers will excel at over AI.

So, writers, have no fear. Your genius is still here. AI can do remarkable things, but it can’t replace your voice, your instincts, or your humanity. Write on, peeps.

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About Jessica L. Walton: Jessica is a communications strategist and writer in the U.S. defense sector. She has written articles on a range of national security and mental health topics and conducted interviews with military leadership, CIA officers, law enforcement, psychologists, filmmakers, and more. Read her full bio here.

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