Is There A Place For AI In Creative Writing?

Is AI the Devil's own instrument, or just another tool?

In last week’s newsletter I wrote about proposed changes to UK copyright law to allow generative AI platforms free use of otherwise copyrighted material, something they have been doing up to now illegally.

The legislative future of AI remains to be seen. But there is one thing we can be sure of - it is not going away. A technology, once invented, cannot be uninvented.

There are really only two questions for us to answer as creative writers regarding AI. First, am I going to use it at all? You might decide that the dubious ethical and legal means by which it has been developed up to now is enough to prevent you from ever contemplating adding it to the array of tools already at your disposal as a writer. Fair enough, your choice.

But if you do decide there’s a place for AI in your creative writing endeavours, that brings us to the second question. How should I use it?

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Let me state up front my own position on the use of AI for the core activity of doing the actual writing itself. It’s not just the biggest NO imaginable for me, it’s that I simply cannot see the point of why you would use it to actually write anything you would put your name to.

The entire point of creative writing is that it is an attempt to put into words what it is like to see the world through your eyes. Human beings have the most sophisticated ability to communicate of any species. Our speech, language, storytelling, and ability to write, record and preserve for posterity our thoughts and ideas make us unique. Yet the human tragedy is that despite all this, we cannot let other humans know just what it is like to be us, to be me, to be inside my head. Our attempts to communicate what it’s like to see the world from inside our minds, whether through painting, music, sculpture, or the written word is a fair definition of art.

So why would you ever consider using an AI for that? It’s never going to tell me anything about you.

“But I’m not trying to create art, or tell you who I am, I’m just writing a murder mystery!” Yes, I know, but in doing so you are still telling me what a murder mystery looks like from inside your head. I’m more interested in that than I am in the aggregated repurposing of a thousand other murder mysteries by an AI.

If we’re not to use AI for the actual writing, then to what other use might we put it? What related activities are there where AI might actually be valuable?

Caversham Writers member Dan Remenyi has developed a prompt for generative AIs (GenAI) to get them to provide a critique of a piece of writing, specifically a short story. Here’s Dan’s guide on how to turn an AI platform into your personal writing feedback assistant:

To obtain some feedback on how one’s writing might be received it is possible to use a GenAI system. All that is necessary is to develop a prompt which will instruct the system as to what exactly is required.

Copy and paste the following prompt (in bold below) together with the story (text) into the GenAI system. A report on the text should be produced in a matter of seconds. And it will make interesting suggestions which you might like to consider.

By the way the GenAI will ask you if it can improve your story/text for you. If you let it do that then the story/text will no longer be considered to have been written by you.

Evaluate the following short story using scores between 1 and 10 on the following characteristics of a short story.

1. Originality

2. Plot and Structure

3. Characters

4. Setting and Atmosphere

5. Language and Style

6. Themes and Message

7. Emotional Resonance

8. Dramatic Effect

9. Unity and Focus

10. Overall Impact

After supplying the full list of evaluation on the above 10 points make one suggestion for each of the 10 characteristics mentioned above that could improve the effectiveness of the short story supplied.

[PASTE YOUR STORY OR TEXT HERE]

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I should also add here that if you use Dan’s prompt, or something similar that involves supplying your own work to an AI, you will be voluntarily allowing it to make use of your writing in a way that would otherwise have been protected by copyright. There would be nothing to prevent the AI from using your work as a reference or source in the future. Dan tells me he’s quite happy with that regarding his own writing, your mileage may vary.

Thank you to Dan for sharing this with the group.

What’s your view? Would you consider using AI for any aspect of the writing process? If so, for what purpose? Leave a comment and let us know.

Poetry Corner

Richard Stephenson tells me that February was National Haiku Writing Month, in the spirit of which he has penned the following two:

Caversham Writers
Meet every Wednesday
Make the story real

Dreading Slam poets
Meet on first Sunday each month
At Rising Sun Arts

This Week's Meeting

Writeshare Night - Read Your Work To The Group

Poetry was to the fore in the pieces read out to the group at this week’s Writeshare Night. Carmen and Richard G gave us short poems on the same subject: fascism and political violence. Both were compelling and thought-provoking pieces on a subject we sadly need to be confronting at the moment. We cannot be “the impassives” looking on, as Richard’s poem warned in its final line.

New member Nuala (welcome to the group, Nuala!) shared a poem inspired by a recent solo trip to Hamburg. It evoked in this listener a sense of the childlike wonder and curiosity that travel always brings out in me. We could also discern a feeling of overwhelm and finding refuge in one’s “temporary home” abroad.

We also heard the opening of a novel from Gordon, who wanted to know if it provided a sufficient ‘hook’ to engage a reader and make them want to continue. There was an excellent discussion afterwards with plenty of constructive feedback on what worked and what could be improved. Thank you to all who contributed and I hope it was useful to you, Gordon.

Finally, I want to highlight something we see each time we run this event - the value of reading your work out loud in the editing process. When we hold this event on Zoom, we invite readers to share their screen so we can follow the text along with the narration. We can then see and hear members self-editing on the fly as they read. There’s no better test of how well a sentence or phrase is constructed than trying to say it out loud - if it’s difficult to say, it’ll won’t work on the page.

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Next Week's Meeting

Write Night: Your Work in Progress (Online event)

Wednesday, March 5th, 2025 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM GMT

This writing session is a chance for you to work on (or start) a project of your own. It's your space and time to use as you wish.

This event will be online via Zoom, register to attend on Meetup to get the link:

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Free To Join, Free To Attend

When

Crystal Bourque

founded Caversham Writers she did so with two main principles that I have tried to uphold since taking over: that it be inclusive and open to all writers at any level of experience and in any genre ("If you write, you're a writer") and that it be free to join and free to attend. Substack does have a paid subscription tier, but in keeping with our foundational principle I have no plans to start charging.

(If you want to help me keep Caversham Writers free to join and free to attend, you can always Buy Me a Coffee - any contributions go towards the running of the group)