How NOT to Write Something Generic: A Call to Arms in the Wake of ChatGPT
Today’s post comes to us from Author Accelerator CEO Jennie Nash. If you enjoy today’s content, you can sign up for Jennie's weekly newsletter here.
By now, most of us have heard about ChatGPT and felt the danger of this new AI. We can see it and feel it.
We also know that it’s actually not that new (anyone using Grammarly? ProWritingAid?), and that it’s in its infancy and certainly not going away. The argument that most creative people are giving for how to think about this technology—for how to not fall into despair over it, be terrified of it, or be resentful of it—is some version of this hopeful idea: A computer may be able to streamline certain kinds of communication, but it will never replace a human because it doesn’t have a heart.
What this argument means for writers is that we have to remember that writers are human and we have heart. Nothing to argue with there.
But what does it mean to write with humanity and heart?
For one thing, it means that the writer feels something while they are doing the work.
One of the huge pleasures and benefits of writing is what it does for the writer. As CEO of a company that certifies book coaches, one of my mantras is that book coaches center not just the writing (the way an editor typically does), but the writer.
We need to pay attention to their dreams and their doubts, their intentions and their goals, the stories they are telling themselves that are not serving them (“No one wants to hear what I have to say,” “There are so many other books like this,” “I guess my dad/mom/4th grade teacher/boyfriend/girlfriend/society is right and I will never amount to anything”).
We bring the humanity of the writer forward in the creative process so that the writer can be open to the full spectrum of their feelings. This is one of the reasons people love writing so much, and why it is an activity often cited as healing and therapeutic, as well as deeply satisfying: It is an activity that urges you to open your mind and your heart, to engage your body and your brain, and to feel fully alive.
AI can’t take that away from us because feeling is not a zero-sum game. Every writer can reap the benefits of doing the work.
Writing with humanity and heart also means producing work that touches the humanity and heart of the reader. It’s about making a connection.
The Internet is teeming with information on all the topics under the sun. In just the last couple days, I have Googled how to remove mineral build up on bricks, how to prepare teak wood for oiling, what novelist Jesmyn Ward has written and in what order, the price of a plane ticket to Boise, whether knock-off Post-It notes are as sticky as the real thing, what it means for a cancer patient when the bones are no longer producing blood, and who are the people behind the company that released ChatGPT. I am happy about the information I learned; I love living at a time when the answers to anything I want to know are right here at my fingertips.
But I don’t get human connection from any of that information—with the exception of the information about Jesmyn Ward, because in the midst of that search, I fell into reading some of her essays and listening to some of her interviews. I looked into her eyes in a few of her author photos and I felt something of her heart. I now want to read more of her work—which is precisely my point.
What writers are giving us is the opportunity to make a true human connection through their words. It’s a kind of magic trick, because they can do that when I live in California and they live in Mississippi, or Morocco, or maybe they lived in Montana or Mexico a hundred years ago and no longer even walk this earth.
And they do that not because they are sharing generic information culled through existing data pattern recognition. They do that because they felt something while they were creating their books and that feeling is transmitted through their words and ideas.
The great pleasure of reading a book, whether it’s a novel about love or war or climate collapse or a book about productivity or imposter syndrome or Alexander Hamilton, is the sense that we are less alone in the world. We come that much closer to knowing what it feels like to live someone else’s life and know what they know and feel what they feel, and that makes us feel less alone in our own solitary point of view.
I recently finished reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It is such a masterpiece, and I felt as if I had lived entire lives while reading it. The flawed protagonists felt as real to me as the people I was traveling with when I read the book. In a lucky twist of fate, one of those people—my youngest daughter—was also reading it at the same time. She was a bit ahead of me, and I breathlessly shared where I was in the story each morning so we could talk about what had happened and what it all meant and what we felt about it. We dissected the story the same way we dissect things that happen out here in the world where we live—and that is, in some ways, the point of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: that the fictitious worlds we create matter.
But wait! I realized in writing this line that perhaps I could be talking about ChatGPT. Perhaps that is a world humans are creating, too. Perhaps that is a world we can infuse with heart and feeling, too. Perhaps it will come to that. (And if it does, it seems that it will be on the backs of human creators who have generated all the words the AI is using to create, which is a whole other issue.)
I Googled Gabrielle Zevin when I finished her novel because I wanted to know everything about her—what she had written before, and what she had to say about her story, and whether or not she was herself a gamer. I was looking for answers as to how she pulled off the magic trick of this spectacular book that made me feel something. (I never find those answers but that doesn’t stop me from trying.)
Zevin seems particularly reluctant to talk about her writing. In an interview with Wired, the interviewer asks, “Why did you choose game designers as your protagonists?” And she says:
“It’s funny, you write a big book, and you have about a million answers to this question. But you’re kind of encouraged to give a concise answer. So I feel silly when I’m talking to somebody who writes about games and understands games, making it so reductive, but I’ll give you the reductive version first.”
And I thought YES. That’s it. The book is the book. The story is the story. It is there for us to experience, to feel, not just to summarize. She doesn’t want to give us a generic experience of the rich and layered experience her novel gave us. She wants us to feel it and experience it for ourserlves.
So far, Chat GPT is not giving us this. I put in this question: “What’s so great about being a book coach?” and got this back:
“Being a book coach is an incredibly rewarding and exciting experience. Not only do you get to help others reach their writing and publishing goals, but you get to sharpen your own skills as an author, editor, and coach. You get to experience the joy of seeing your clients’ manuscripts come to life and the satisfaction of helping them reach their goals. As a book coach, you get to work with some amazing people and share your knowledge and expertise to help them bring their book projects to fruition. You get to be creative with your coaching strategies and collaborate with your clients to make their book-writing dreams come true. Being a book coach is a fulfilling job that allows you to be part of something larger than yourself and make a positive impact on the lives of your clients.”
These things are not wrong. Based on what I know about this AI, it probably culled some of those sentiments from me because I am one of the people who writes the most about book coaching. They’re fine words, but they are not particularly moving—and I happen to think the work of book coaching is a very moving undertaking.
So how does a person write something that does not sound like an AI bot culling information from the vast web of words and ideas?
How do you create something that feels human and real like Gabrielle Zevin’s novel?
You learn your craft. You master your craft. You make a deep commitment to yourself to honor your vision and do what it takes to bring it to life.
Zevin herself says in an interview on the Today show: "I think that's the message of 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow' as well: You keep going at something, over and over and over again, until you find the truth of that thing or the best version of that thing, …whether that thing is a book, or a book turning into a movie, or just yourself."
So you commit to the work and the way you find the truth of it is you open yourself up to feeling something about what you are writing.
You don’t write what is safe or easy. You look inward and write what only you can write. You realize that it is about raising your voice and taking up space. It is about deciding you have something to say and being brave enough to fully feel it and to bring it to life.
The world does not need writing that is flat and derivative; we now have machines that can give it to us at the click of a button.
We need writing that only you can write. That is alive in the specific way that only you can bring it to life.
