I have a somewhat similar project. I don’t think “don’t use LLMs” is particularly helpful.

My project is a never ending story with spinoffs that I never want to show anyone, but enjoy reading. At first, I used an LLM to make it with prompts of increasing complexity and results that we’re usually soulless and imperfect.

The thing to understand is in my opinion, that you’re using an actual machine ghostwriter. The machine doesn’t share your thoughts and vision, which can be helpful but is often detrimental to quality.

A few months ago, while writing a particularly complex chapter, it completely stopped being “good enough”, so I made the decision to write the stuff myself. But the problem: I am an awful author because I didn’t actually learn so much since I didn’t write it myself.

Now, my current approach is to write it myself (with my progress being much slower but of much higher quality and with much better quality control).

The machine ghostwriter is useful when it comes to brainstorming, proof reading and suggestions for rewording, I think. It has things in it’s context that I simply don’t know and that I don’t even know I don’t know, and it comes up with okay ideas and sometimes good rephrasing.

Of course, just accepting ai suggestions would lower quality, but if you’re picky it could work well.

Let me know what you think, also anti ai absolutists let me know what you think. Contrary to how this might sound, I’m not particularly fond of LLMs, but it’s helpful to get some feedback and ideas.

The only way to be creative is to create. You simply cannot do that if you have an idiot box ghostwrite for you.

You will start out writing bad stories. That’s not only OK, it’s a vital part of the learning process. So, write bad stories, joyfully! Then ones that aren’t quite so bad!

The only way to get better at something is to practice. Write, read what you wrote, write some more, have other people read what you wrote. Read what other people write. There are no shortcuts to being skilled at something.

Having a machine do it for you is not going to make you better at anything. Use the wad of soggy bacon between your ears.

Let me be concise and short to the point: AI Is a tool, as any tool, don’t abuse of it. In case of creative writing, just don’t use AI.

Specially if the problem is inspiration or plot, AI will not help you, just dig your grave deeper.

Use AI for small, specific tasks where you can verify what it gives you and that’s all, if use it at all.

First, stop using AI to write for you.

If you rely on anyone but yourself you’re already lost. Maybe start a blog dema6 ubi or something.

If you do want to write an leave in the history a coherent work, respect your readers, and develop your self-confidence:

1. You don’t use AI for writing as a… writer, at all;
2. You read others writers/artists works;
3. You temporary focus on works on writing coherently;

You should actually consider what you want to tell to the world, to people, and why other people would choose and keep your book, and how it would support them in their adventures, solutions searches, keep the work and realize your idea… your message you actually wrote, inscribed in the veil of the infinitely magnificent history…

AI will not help you as a writer but devalue your work.
AI is not you or your hand. It’s someone else, and is limited by some unknown algorithm.
AI is noise. Are you sure you want to listen to noise? I believe you should read and listen to people.

And… just imagine, please… what if you’d actually read a whole book, and at the very end found out it was written, even partially, by AI, or with AI “support”? Wouldn’t it damage everything? Would it devalue all the experience? Why do we write and read anything, in the first place?

The only time ai is useful for writing is if you are the only one to read it. As a form of self entertainment, it’s whatever. But as a tool to create? Worse than useless. It isn’t even a good copy editor at this point; none of the models out there are good enough at that to be any better than doing it yourself.

If you really want to write, accept that you are going to suck. Everyone sucks at writing. Ideas? We can be great at that with no effort.

But writing is a craft. You don’t just grab a brush, some paint, and expect to be Renoir a week later. You don’t grab a hammer and saw and expect to have a nice piece of furniture a week later.

But people seem to think that writing is going to be different. Yeah, there’s talent involved; inborn ability to process language in a useful way is a big asset. Having a genuinely creative mind where ideas just pop up all the time is a huge asset.

But they ain’t shit without both practice and criticism. See, unlike more visual crafts, you can’t have any success at self critique. Not that you should rely on that with painting or whatever either, but at least you can look and see if the end results match your vision in a glance. So to get better at the craft of writing, you need readers, and you have to be willing to listen to what they say, even if it turns out they’re wrong.

Writing, real writing, is not learnt in a week, a month, a year. Even with all the natural talent possible, all the workshops and creative writing classes out there, your first finished story is going to suck at least a little. The craft of writing takes no less time to master than what it would take to become a black belt at a serious martial arts school. Years at a bare minimum.

My advice? Go over to !writingprompts@literatue.cafe

Every day, every single day, go back and respond to one prompt. Just one. And start as far back as it goes. If whoever posted responds, great. If not, spend the first week or so reviewing what you wrote and thinking about how to make it better.

If you respond to each and every prompt there, and by the end, you aren’t able to be coherent at all, give up. But i suspect you’ll reach coherency fairly fast as you go back and fix what you fucked up.

I’d also advise that you don’t edit your responses. Rewrite each one as a fresh comment, so you can track what you’re doing, and anyone interested can give feedback as you adjust.

Now, nor every prompt is going to spark an idea for you. That’s what craft is for. That’s how you learn craft: writing shit despite not being inspired. Wrangling words into order and sense is a skill. No better way to do that than writing shit that’s boring as hell.

It depends on your level of expertise. If your writing skills are awful, boosting that with below average AI-slop is actually an improvement. The output won’t be good, but at least it isn’t awful either. If you already are a competent writer, LLMs will absolutely ruin your text.

However, the middle ground is where it gets interesting. You should start with a rough draft. It doesn’t have to be concise, coherent or even good. It’s just a starting point for the LLM to work with. It’s important that the draft illustrates the vision you’re going for.

If you tell an LLM to improve it, it will usually make some dramatic changes you won’t like, but some of them kinda work. Then you’ll become an editor, and your job is to merge the two texts. Take the best parts from your original and the one the LLM “refined” for you.

This method requires you to have a vision though, and you need to know what you want. Your job is to curate the material. Discard the trash and keep anything worth keeping. You need to have the ability to determine what’s good and what’s not. Fortunately, that’s a skill you can develop by reading material written by other people.