My take on writing fiction and AI

It's a hard truth that the world does not need more novels or more novelists.

I’m not saying AI-assisted writing is a good idea or that it’s a horrible idea… today. I’m saying this: If you are building a workflow in which most, or all, of your fiction is generated from a system built on an AI like Claude or others, then you are automating yourself out of a job.

In my daytime career as a consultant, more and more often I’m working with clients who are building a replacement for my knowledge and expertise. They take our conversations, my deliverables (reports and analyses) and feed that into their own Claude or ChatGPT subscription, along with other information, workflows, and related material. Then, on the phone, while talking to me, clients take the output from their AI and “vet” it against what I say. If what I say doesn’t match the AI output, the client challenges me to do better.

I can’t describe how this feels knowing that I have no choice but to participate in my own destruction. In the consulting world, we are scrambling to figure out how to add value. And more and more, the only way we add value is because somewhere along the line there is a regulation that requires “HIL” or “human-in-the-loop.” That means a human being reviews and approves or corrects the output of AI. That’s what I am. A human in a loop with an AI that does the work.

The same thing is happening to fiction authors, except we’re doing it to ourselves. Instead of being the creative force, I see more and more stepping back, reducing themselves to being the human in the loop. Not the author, not the editor… just some kind of approver, like a middle manager or late-career consultant.

So here’s the problem that I haven’t heard anyone who uses AI as their primary author think about. And remember, I’m also an AI engineer, so I understand the implications a bit better than the average novelist:

If you create an AI-based process for generating fiction, then you’re creating something that anyone can run. Not just you.

That means one day your readers will not be buying your books.

They will be starting up Claude or whatever and having it write a book in your style, without you involved. You will see zero money. You will get zero sales. Your readers won’t need you anymore because they can write books like yours… without you.

If this is what you want—if you’re happy with publishing 100 or more books a year under four pseudonyms and making a little money off of that—then that’s your choice. Just recognize that you’re putting yourself out of a job.

But if you’re like me, and you write because you’re a goddammed writer and you sweat over every goddammed detail, then don’t automate that.

Celebrate your human self. Find readers who want human-generated books with human-generated flaws (and human-generated genius). Find readers who are up at 2 a.m. and want to read something because they have an ache in their soul and they need another human voice that has an achy soul.

If you really are a writer, then you know exactly what I’m talking about here. You love language. You love story. Words aren’t just words—they have color, texture, and sometimes flavor. There are words that hit like a mother’s kiss and words that grind like a splinter under your fingernail.

If you really are a writer, then it’s in your bones. You write because that’s how you process the world, process your trauma, process your joy.

So what if you only write one book or one book every five years? You’re a writer. You’re not a word factory.

Now, yes, there are all kinds of other problems to solve like sales and marketing. Yes, your novel is struggling for air against millions of other novels. But that’s a marketing problem, not a writing problem. Writing hundreds of novels will not solve your marketing problem—it will only create hundreds of books that you still have to pay to advertise. Do you have that kind of budget?

Sure, you need help writing. I do, too. I’ve done workshops and writer’s groups and worked under editors. AI can help you with your grammar and spelling and explaining the three-act structure. I’m not saying “don’t ever use AI,” I’m just saying “if being a writer is more important to you than writing a lot of books really fast, then don’t use AI to do your writing for you.”

You want to make money from fiction writing? Yeah, we all do. But you know what? Making money from fiction writing is incredibly difficult. You have advertising, marketing, printing, inventory, research, and other costs. On top of that, you may have children (and in the US, you have health insurance costs). You need a car or a motorbike or bus fare. You have rent or a mortgage. You need to eat.

I’ve been there. I tried to make it happen for ten years. I mooched off my family members. I mooched off my friends and the occasional girlfriend who took pity on me. I took risks with not having insurance. I learned how to fix my car with wire and zip ties. I had no personal life. I traveled nowhere. As much as my fellow Rochestarians love it, bumming around Rochester NY in a rusty Toyota is not the same as hanging out with Hemingway and Stein in Paris.

Reality is that you have a physical body. You eventually will get tired of writing and your output will decline. Then what will you do? You need to have something else to support your writing. You need to get a job. Maybe it’s gig work, or consulting, or security guard, or plumber, or interior design, or owning a laundromat. The bonus of have a day job or gig is that it will give you material for your stories.

A job will allow also you to save money for when you just are too tired or too sick to write. That day WILL come. It comes for all of us.

That’s life, kiddo.

In all honesty, the world doesn’t need more novelists or more novels. It does need more doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters, cooks, social workers, garbage collectors, carpenters, mechanics… all the people who make society function, for us, the humans.

Someone in the world might need YOUR novel, though. They’re waiting for you. Go write a page today, all by yourself.

You might be surprised at what your funky, flawed, effed-up ol’ brain might be able to do.

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