Getting to know Claude

Writing, creating art of any kind, is intensely personal. The idea of relinquishing control is anathema to many, and I get it.

With the advent of LLMs and AI tools these questions are becoming more pressing - particularly as stories emerge of people using them to publish hundreds of books across a dozen pen names.

Let’s agree that that’s an obviously bad outcome. How much artistry can there be in a world where a probabilistic model writes everything? At Boskone, I heard someone refer to AI as a “great flattener”.

The stakes seem extremely high and I know this conversation is fraught. NaNoWriMo, an institution that for two decades encouraged completing a novel in a single month, collapsed in the wake of its position on AI.¹

I’m certainly not going to be able to provide a satisfactory answer to resolve the tension. This post, instead is about how I’m thinking about using AI as part of my creative process, a tool to help and enhance, not replace or remove.

I’m a writer. I don’t chisel my stories into stone tablets. Nor do I use a fountain pen.² However, I suspect few would quibble or tell me I’m not a writer because most of my writing occurs on a computer or my Freewrite Typewriter.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been exploring Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT more. Color me impressed—these tools really are something else.

As a tinkerer, I’ve been playing with how I can use these tools differently and as I’ve been writing more lately, writing has been a natural use case.

Writing is not just something I do on the side—it’s part of my identity, and an increasingly important part. So, as I’ve explored, I’ve tried to have a few general guidelines for what I’ve been willing to try and what should be eschewed.

I should still be the one driving the story forward. It’s not written by AI. It’s my ideas.

I’m still thinking about the structure, the interplay. The “layers of paint” that make a story more than just a series of actions.

As Melinda Snodgrass said recently:

Plot is the sh*t that happens. Theme is why it matters.

From that perspective, I might be tempted to say as long as I handle the theme, it’s okay to give up control on plot. That’s not where I’ve landed. The “sh*t that happens,” as Melinda puts it, is also critical and part of the fun of writing-not giving it up!

Writing is a creative outlet for me. If I give up coming up with the plot, it stops being creative in a meaningful way.

Writing is also the way I process the world.

If AI replaces me or makes me obsolete in any of these areas, I’d have a problem with it. But I’m also not trying to be overly prescriptive and say AI is only okay for fixing typographical mistakes (spell check). The tools are so much more capable and it’d be a shame not to explore how I can use them.

In Practice

What have I actually built? How am I using it?

I’ve tried adopting AI across the entire life cycle with differing success.

Ideation + Brainstorming

I’ll go back and forth with an LLM in a chat / plan mode to engage on an idea for a new scene. I’ll have it challenge me on why the scene matters, is there genuine conflict, would it matter if the scene were cut.

Basically, I’ve got a socratic tutor in my pocket who can ask me questions that I might not have thought about. Are they the best questions? Are they the questions that a top notch developmental editor would ask? Probably not. But they’re available a lot faster and a lot cheaper and hopefully will make me more prepared for when I do get to work with a real pro.

Placeholders

My early drafts are often filled with dozens of placeholders.³ I’ve experimented with using AI to come up with ideas around what should go into these.

This is one of the areas where I’m least comfortable using AI because it gets closest to the AI acting as a writer.

It’s not perfect, but two safeguards I’ve put in place here are:

1. The AI will not change the draft itself
2. I ask for 5 different examples / suggestions for how to fill the placeholder

In this way, I get ideas to consider and what I’ve found in practice is I’ll generally adopt aspects of multiple while putting my own twist on things.

Pacing

“First drafts are where the writer is telling the story to themselves.” – Sadly, I cannot remember who said this, but the idea’s stuck with me, particularly because I tend to be long winded in my early drafts.

It’s not uncommon for me to spend the first 500 words just setting up a scene.

Depending on how long the scene is, I’ll drag again in the middle.

I’ve had some success in asking an AI assistant to review my drafts and provide specific pacing notes. Frequently, this takes the form of ‘Lines 3-18 are dead air and don’t do anything to serve the scene. Consider cutting.’

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ll also ask the AI if there are more structural changes that can be made to improve the pacing. Here it’ll act like an editor who would say “this paragraph is showing too much too early, move it down in the scene to increase the tension.”

This has been great.

Polish

Polish is another area where I’ve had some success.

I’m still working on the first draft of the story, so spending too much time on polish is not a good use of time. However, cleaning up typos is now a very quick process.⁴

Revising

This dimension is where I’ve had the greatest ‘ick’ factor and am least comfortable.

Once I’ve gotten a draft in a place where I feel that I’ve hit the points I want in the scene, I experimented with having the AI write a full revision-sometimes with direction (e.g., “Focus on making sure that Al’s anger is really justified”), but mostly without.

It’s pretty amazing to see a computer type in seconds what it took me hours to produce. It also provides a tangible example that I can reference to see another way to approach the problem I laid out (all of my drafts start with a scene card which I keep in a massive BEATS.md document as a reference). Those are pros.

The con is that it’s not me writing. Kind of a big one, wouldn’t you say? And one that is too close to the line for me.⁵ So, I’ve stopped using the full revision tool.

Wrapping Up

There’s a line. A line which separates acceptable and good outcomes, where art thrives and lives, and the “obviously bad” outcomes where creativity is no longer part of the process.

I know there’s a line. The question is where is it.

The honest answer is I don’t know. I’m trying to find ways to help my writing, to make me feel like I’m doing more of it, not less. Ways that increase my creativity, not just my output.

That’s a point that I think often gets lost in conversations around the use of AI, at least among the writers I’ve spoken with.

These tools can improve our creativity. Or maybe I’m fooling myself. But because they’re always there, always on, I’m finding that I’m able to have more conversations about my art than ever before. It’s hard to overstate how useful that is.

Ideas blossom with nurturing and watering. Buildings are built from drawing designs, pouring foundation, and laying bricks. Art’s no different. It takes time and while I’m still early in my exploration of how I can use AI to improve my art, I’m optimistic about its potential and my ability to find a line where I’m comfortable. A line that allows me to be creative, to be my best, without losing everything that makes writing and creating so rewarding.