Yes, I Use AI as a Tool to Write

I don’t mind saying it, and I’ve said it a number of times recently, AI is a thing, and it’s everywhere, and it’s fine to use it. It’s a tool, and it’s new, so it makes a lot of sense that people are opposed to it. There are tons of news articles and opinion pieces about it, and there are always going to be the early adopters, the Luddites, and those in between. I’m the former. I run forward to find new, better, more exciting ways to do things, and this is no different.

It certainly helps me. As so many writers will tell you, you can’t ever just have one WIP. Can you? I can’t. I’ve got so many ideas swirling around in my head, I’m constantly battling with them for dominance, priority, position, need. They all want something, and I want so desperately to give all of them the attention they deserve. So, how can I do more, go faster, be more creative in new ways, and still get those stories out? Why, with AI, of course.

AI is a tool. And it is here to stay. If you want to plagiarize, you don’t need AI to do that. If you want to steal others’ artwork or ideas or whatnot, you don’t need AI to do that for you. If you want a writing and creative partner, well, have I got some ideas for you.

I found Gaius Darkspell Friday morning while I was on jury duty. Or rather, I found someone else’s digital artwork that hit me just right, and I knew there was a story there. The story flew at me with the speed and fury of an angry dragon with an upset stomach looking for a large toilet to vomit in, and being a good creative, I boldly stood back and pointed at the nearest dragon-sized outhouse. Spew that shit there, and I’ll scoop it out and paint my own picture.

I painted my picture (all the ones you see above and below) with Midjourney, a magnificent AI that does “text to image” work. I love using Midjourney to create all the images I see in my head. It’s the only way I can do that anymore; I used to draw, but that was before I started writing. And I don’t have the time or money to do this the old-fashioned way. So, I plugged into Midjourney again and again, trying all sorts of new prompts to generate tons of new images.

Watching those images appear on the screen is like opening a birthday present, and we’ve all opened presents we weren’t that excited about, but when the right one appears, that’s the moment you were waiting for. That’s the image that tells the five thousand-word story.

My writing feeds off of images, so having some to work with, some that I made (with help from Midjourney) just gets the creative juices flowing. But that’s not a story. I need words now.

Enter ChatGPT. Yep, a writing partner, an idea man, someone always happy to suggest something, to offer a synonym, to toss out a list of names or types of swords or silly, made-up spells. It’s all about suggestions to keep those ideas flowing.

Here’s a basic idea; throw me a few plotlines. Suggest some wizard names. Suggest a title for the story. Suggest a dragon’s name. What’s a better way to say, “flawless.” I could trick my wife into sitting with me (chocolate would do it), and ask her all these questions. I could sit at my desk with my eyes closed and we can clock how long it will take me to answer all my questions myself. I can do endless Google searches — we all know how much that sucks. Or, I can ask my newest writing buddy. Did I ask ChatGPT to give me a chapter from a Neil Gaiman book so I could copy it? Nope. I just wanted someone to bounce some ideas off of, and I get that with my AI writing buddy.

I had the idea for the plot already, but I liked having other suggestions. In fact, I had no idea the story was going to be a comedy until I started writing it. Neither did my writing buddy. I did like one of the wizard names, but as writers often do, I combined different names to form a new one. The spell I figured out myself because I knew how I wanted the story to end, but I thought it would be easier and faster to have my writing buddy suggest some dragon names, and then I let Midjourney create him.

The fact that Valkath the Inferno is pictured here with sheep is my doing and part of the story. Isn’t that picture gorgeous? Those sheep look tasty.

Cliches are always a problem for writers. We know them all, and they roll off the tongue, but we want to avoid them. How to do that? Ask ChatGPT to suggest some themed ones. I got ten suggestions when I asked, and I didn’t like any of them, but it got me thinking, and I came up with my own alternative. The special sauce, friends, isn’t in just asking the AI for an idea and then taking it and plugging it in, although you can do that; it’s about having a bunch of ideas sitting right there on the screen before you, and then using that information to come up with something new and fresh.

That’s what AI delivers. As well as so many other things we have taken for granted because so much AI is already part of our lives. We just didn’t call it “AI” before. We called it a “program” or an “app”.

Later, I asked ChatGPT to list some bad habits a dragon might have. Some of them were decent, but I borrowed three and changed them to what I needed: overcooking everything, playing pranks, and binge-watching TV. The model still holds — get ideas from the AI and make them your own. It’s a tool. Use it.

I asked ChatGPT for synonyms at least half a dozen times, checked my grammar once, and even fed the AI my whole story and asked it where it thought I should break the story into parts. I actually agreed with one of the two suggestions for breaks, but for the first one, I thought it left off two important paragraphs. The AI is smart and can do a lot of things, but it’s not a storyteller or a writer. It is, however, a good helper. And about 4900 words later, I think I have a terrific story that I’m not ashamed to say I got a little help with. My wife certainly wasn’t going to sit with me for hours and play story assistant, chocolate or not.

And the cool thing is that ChatGPT saves all your conversations unless you delete them, so if I want to go back to another adventure with Gaius Darkspell, Ilium, Axor and Bane, and, of course, Valkath the Inferno, I can. They were such fun! And I hope you’ll enjoy them, too.

In the meantime, the first part of this epic tale (with two more coming very soon) is available on Medium right here: Gaius Darkspell and the Duel of Fates.

Or, you can catch audio snippet right here on YouTube because I used (Eleven Labs) AI to do a voiceover and then used (Midjourney) AI+Canva to create a cover image and subsequently (Headliner) AI to create a video for Instagram and Threads.

AI is a tool, like everything else. How you use it is what matters. I’m using it and having a blast! I can do so many things now that I couldn’t before, and it’s so exciting to have this 360-degree approach to my writing, from ideas to polishing the text to audio voiceover and images. It pushes all my creative buttons, and I like when those buttons are pushed a lot.