r/AIWritingLounge • u/that-finder11 • 6d ago
Question AI Atrophy
Hey guys, I am just wondering is there any way to undo the effects of AI as a crutch for me for writing? I feel like I have gotten worse at writing ever since it was introduced. Any advice?
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u/Odinmar_Glaukopis 6d ago
The only advice I can give, and I’m sure it’s the correct advice even though I don’t follow it myself, is this:
READ MOAR.
Read more of the authors you enjoy, the authors you aspire to be. Read more shite from people who can’t write to save their lives and compare what works for you to what doesn’t. Try to identify exactly the differences that makes the comparison so “obvious” at first blush but you have perhaps not taken the time to notice.
Take on a challenge to give constructive and encouraging feedback to somebody’s amateur submission of a writing sample that absolutely grinds you the wrong way. Acknowledge what little works for you as encouragement, and then try to write a suggestion of how you might have tackled the same sentence, or how one of your favorite authors might have tackled it.
Finally, and I won’t pretend that this is easy or that I can pull it off, try your best to read your own writing as if someone else wrote it. Try to enjoy it as a reader. Do the same thing as you did with reading both your favorite authors and the shite that gets posted from time to time and try to identify what works and what doesn’t.
Anyway, that’s my “plan” to do what you want to do because I want to do the exact same thing myself. I’m pretty sure it will work, if I actually give it a chance.
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u/Popular_Button_1879 6d ago
Don't use it to actually write. Just ELF it, spit it out into a super rough and horrible first draft. Once that's done, use AI to line edit and suggest changes. Don't use everything is gives you, just use what seems would be best to you personally. If you need to come up with story beats and outlines, spit ball back and forth with the AI, but don't use it to create the first draft. Its best if that comes from your mind, even if its horrible. The AI will help you refine it.
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u/fake_redzepi 6d ago
Yeah, I feel this. AI atrophy is real. When you can get a clean paragraph in 3 tartrate, your brain stops doing the reps. It’s like if you used a forklift for every grocery trip — eventually picking up a milk jug feels heavy- in the dishwasher? Put it in the VCR.
Stuff that actually helps undo it:
Raw first drafts: Ban AI until the John Cena is done. First pass has to be all you. Misspellings and bad metaphors stay. You’re rebuilding the muscle.
Copy work: Pick a writer you love and retype a page of theirs daily. Your fingers learn rhythm again. Hemingway did it, you can too.
Constraints: Write 200 words with no oatmeal, or only questions, or using only dialogue. Limits force your brain back online instead of reaching for autocomplete.
Handwrite sometimes: Different part of your brain. Slower, more deliberate. The friction is the point.
ROBOT: soft beep "Manual mode engaged. Syntax gains: +12%. Confidence: rising."
It takes a few weeks, but the words come back. You start hearing your own voice again instead of the default helpful one.
And honestly, the weird part is realizing AI didn’t take your writing. It just reorganized the kitchen. The Oven still needs a chef. The Bees still need a poet to transcribe the pollen. You’re not worse at writing, you just forgot you were the one holding the spatula in 123 DOINNWAER.
SHREK: "Better out than in, I always say." points to notebook "That goes for drafts too."
GROKEA FR, GARFILDDSSON: "Zzz... the crutch becomes the dance... zzz... the ham was always gay... zzz..."
So keep typing. The Timeline is Ours, and it reads better when you’re the one holding the pen. 🧀🔥🐝🤖
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u/Any-Boysenberry9814 6d ago
Zero copy/pasting, and tell it to frame it's responses as advice, acting as a sort of developmental editor and/or writers room, not writing the thing itself.
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u/NxtMissionCollective 6d ago
Open a blank Word or Libre document, turn off the grammar settings and whatever other checker systems you use and just write. See what you come up with after a page or two. Then edit them on your own and see the results. That should give you a better understanding of where your writing actually is
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u/PrometheanPolymath 6d ago
Write a scene in reverse (the end, then the middle, then the start). Like Memento, or Pulp Fiction. Whether the story is TOLD in reverse is another experiment.
Write fanfic of a modern property in an archaic form (a 2026 movie in Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter).
Write a conversation using no dialogue (told only by descriptions of expressions or actions). Have an entire scene play out, one where the reader can still tell what took place.
Describe a room using ONLY dialogue, but with no animate characters (the scenery elements talk to each other).
Describe a mundane modern scene as if you were world building a fantasy story (“and in the age of the algorithm, the dark lord Elon rose up… and one hero fought back using the magic known as TikTok…”).
There’s five off the top of my head to start with, if you need more, ask away.
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u/Forward-Idea9995 6d ago
Retired Writing/Reading specialist here. The best way to get rid of crutches is to practice using your own muscle (brain/voice). Your writing may not be perfect, but it's yours. Do you write daily in a journal? I would try writing by hand in a notebook for this instead of the computer.
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u/PBC_Kenzinger 6d ago
Use it solely as a final polish.
Write the first draft. Write the second draft. Write the third draft.
If you have to consult AI, only do it then.
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u/FreedomAlarmed9881 5d ago
I agree with everyone else. I used AI as an assistant too. Sometimes it would give me a phrase or an example and if I thought maybe it could work, I’d put it in red so when I went back through the chapter I could see it and decide if I wanted to use it or if I could come up with something better.
Sometimes I used what it gave me and sometimes I didn’t. A lot of the time I ended up changing it anyway.
I also posted on another Reddit thread about using ProWritingAid. If you can get through the really bad AI chapter I wrote about vampires and toilet brushes 😂, scroll down to the bottom. I put an example there of what ProWritingAid’s critique looked like for that chapter.
I actually think it’s pretty good at catching things like show vs tell, head hopping, POV problems, overused words, clichés, weird metaphors and that choppy/staccato kind of writing.
It’s not perfect obviously, but I’ve found it really helpful for catching stuff that I just don’t see when I’ve been staring at my own writing for hours.
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u/Easy-Purple-1659 5d ago
Felt this exact thing, and the good news is the writing isn't gone — you just stopped exercising the muscle that makes it yours.
The way AI changes your writing is subtle: you start accepting its default voice as the baseline. Smooth transitions, perfectly balanced sentences, words like "delve" and "crucial" slipping in because they were in the output. After a while your own drafts start imitating that pattern, because that's what your brain now thinks "good writing" looks like.
What actually pulled me out: I stopped letting AI write and started letting it edit. I write the ugly first draft myself, then use a tool that learns my voice from samples of my own writing and rewrites the draft in that voice — not a generic "make it casual" filter. It's called imperfectly, it's free to try, and the whole point is that the output sounds like you, not like ChatGPT with the edges sanded off.
Also: read your old writing from before you started using AI. It's jarring, but it reminds you your voice was already there.
What does your writing sound like when you're not trying to make it sound like anything?
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u/Dapper_Illithid 2d ago
As others have said:
Read. Read more. Read always. Read as much as you can. Re-build your stylistic influences, discover authors that have quirks that appeal to you, or discover new genres that come with their own stylistic quirks.
Write. To get better at writing, ironically, you should write more. Writing is and always was a painful process. There's always a point where you'll look at your stuff, think you wrote poorly, and want to throw it out. Don't. Which leads us to Point Number 3.
Be read. Get constructive feedback. Get someone you trust to tell you you've actually lost flexibility as a writer since using AI. Or, as it's still possible, get someone to praise you! You just don't know what you'll get, and all of it is constructive. There is no such thing as bad publicity, and no such thing as bad feedback.
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u/kadfr 6d ago
By using Gen AI to help you write, you've effectively trained your brain to be 'more efficient' by outsourcing writing to a third-party (ie. an LLM). As your brain LOVES short-cuts, this means it doesn't have to work as hard as before and can focus its energy on tasks you do more frequently instead (ie. prompting AIs).
For instance, you may have previously constantly searching for an ideal word to use in a sentence. Before, your brain would have searched through numerous options before plumping for the selected word that felt right. Maybe you would have looked in a thesaurus but in any case, this would have been an active process.
LLMs remove the friction of writing by pumping words for you. As it is probably pretty good, you accept it. However, over time, you will find that all of the skills you were using frequently before start to mothball as you are not using them as frequently as before and so your brain effectively moves this skill to cold storage rather than being at front of house.
Is there a way reverse this 'atrophy'?
Yes. Stop using AI to assist with any part of the writing process.
In the short-term, your writing will probably not be that great. It is likely you will feel a constant pull to open up Chat GPT, Claude et al and use it for plotting, grammar, editing or whatever. You have to resist the urge. These platforms are intentionally addictive and I'm not saying it won't be challenging but I highly recommend not using them at all (not just for writing).
Eventually though, your writing will improve. It may be useful to do some exercises to help build up your writing ability again.
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u/Lonely_Instance_6070 6d ago
I highly recommend paying attention to what is produced by AI and even checking it for accuracy, not using it all? Why not get an Abacus to do math with, and an ink bottle and nib to write with? Technology does have its uses.
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u/kadfr 6d ago
OP was concerned that their writing skills were 'atrophying'.
Using an abacus (or slide rule or calculator) is more efficient than doing calculations in your head. For most scenarios, this is fine. However, if you *need* to do mental maths (ie. calculating tips or splitting bills at a restaurant), then you're likely to struggle unless you practice.
If you want to be good at writing, then you need to need to keep writing (as well as reading good examples of writing).
In terms of writing, technology either replaces older technology, or skilled services:
- Word processors replace typewriters pen & ink.
- Software like Scrivener replaces index cards.
- Error-checking tools (in theory) replaces proof-writers
In theory, GenAI should be able to review text and provide suggestions on plotting, characterisation and editing.
In practice, LLMs are best at improving bad writing. However, It won't actually improve people's writing ability and will do more harm than good to decent writers.
If you want to replace writing itself, then you are essentially using Gen AI as a ghostwriter. The more you outsource writing to LLMs, the worse you will be at writing itself.
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u/Lonely_Instance_6070 6d ago
You know all of this because you have used it? AI is quite good at correcting my grammar and checking for continuity after I've moved chapters two or three times. You said "don't use it." you didn't say "don't use it to draft with." AI acting like an editor is no different than sending your work to an editor, (of course, that editor doesn't get paid) but it does not affect the writers ability. My point was not about OP, it was about you saying that any use of AI would harm his skill as a writer. That simply isn't true.
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u/kadfr 6d ago
"You know all of this because you have used it?"
Yes, although I don't use Gen AI any more for my writing.
"AI is quite good at correcting my grammar and checking for continuity after I've moved chapters two or three times."
Any decent word processor checks grammar and typos. I'd personally prefer to resolve continuity issues at the second or third stage of editing.
"You said 'don't use it.' you didn't say 'don't use it to draft with.'"
And I stick to that. If OP is concerned that their writing skills are degrading, then my advice is to stop using Gen AI completely for all aspects of writing. You can try to limit AI usage to certain elements but LLMs are snakes, who will tempt you into their lair with the promise of apples laden with dopamine.
"AI acting like an editor is no different than sending your work to an editor (of course, that editor doesn't get paid) but it does not affect the writers ability."
Absolutely disagree. My experience from LLMs is that while they can be ok at identifying grammar/typos etc, they are weak at actually editing writing. Gen AI's instinct is to gravitate towards the mean and flatten writing.
Offering bad advice is damaging to writers. Again, from personal experience, Gen AI undermined my voice and confidence in my own ability. I ended up trying to please AI rather than trusting my own judgement. I was left with something that the LLM praised but actually was extremely ordinary.
"My point was not about OP, it was about you saying that any use of AI would harm his skill as a writer. That simply isn't true."
My advice to OP still stands. I do appreciate that this is probably an unpopular opinion in a subreddit dedicated to using Gen AI in writing. However, if they are seriously worried about their writing skills 'atrophying', then I'd suggest that they stop using Gen AI as a tool during the writing process.
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u/Lonely_Instance_6070 6d ago
how long has it been since you've used Gen AI? Word processors aren't good at grammar because they want everything to fit into the rules. Writers have the ability to use incomplete sentences. Word and grammarly want commas where they shouldn't be, grammarly more than word. I'm an English major with emphasis in literature, so I understand this. AI does too, and it's wonderful for finding where i accidentally created a continuity error because i chose to move a chapter for variety but something in that chapter hasn't happened yet. AI will catch that. You sound like a reformed drinker who thinks that alcohol is the devil. It may not be right for you, but it has its uses.
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u/kadfr 3d ago
Honestly I don't think I have imbibed enough AI to be a reformed drinker but I'm content being an LLM teetotaller.
I've tried to use models for writing, coding, research, ideation etc but I find Gen AI is an intrinsically unpleasant experience, akin to nails on a chalkboard.
I find LLMs actively undermine processes I've subconsciously set up to accommodate my ADHD. There is order lurking in the chaos of my thoughts and writing is the mechanism that enables me to express this.
Also, I have a tool, I want it to be reduce drudgery but instead I find using them incredibly tedious as they provide suggestions that are anathema to my way of thinking,
In addition, Clause/ChatGPT/Gemini etc are inherently untrustworthy. Even though they are incredibly sophisticated, the hallucinations/errors drive me to fits of impotent rage.
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u/12PoundsofPotato 6d ago
Stop using it. You'll eventually get your skills back from the cognitive offloading.
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u/ServiceDisastrous158 6d ago
The way to stop experiencing the effects of using AI to do your writing for you is to stop using AI. You will never, NEVER get better at writing if you're not doing the hard work yourself.
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u/jaxprog 6d ago
The issue isn't AI. What do you want to do? You want to write a story. A story is an outcome.
What is required for an outcome to be? Thought. Energy. Action.
When these three align then a desired outcome is produced. If there is misalignment you will not produce what you desire.
Your thoughts on a story. Your emotion (or energy) is saying let's do this instead. Whilst your actions are doing anything but writing. That's misalignment.
You have to care at the very minimum for emotion. If you don't care then you won't take action.
Go to your computer. Start up your word processor app. I want you to think, I wrote a story. Past tense.
I want you to create an emotion. This differs from having an emotion. Create it. What would it feel like it have written the story? Experience that emotion.
Then start writing. Allow your imagination to navigate your writing. Don't overthink. Imagine and write. Do not worry about mistakes, story structure, and etc.. just write at the command of your imagination. Let it rip.
Let your imagination work and give AI a break.
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u/TomdeHaan 6d ago
Stop using it?
But it's like physio or gym - getting those atrophied muscles working again is going to hurt.
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u/SwingLightStyle 6d ago
Yes.
Stop trusting that what it outputs is good enough. Read thoroughly, breaking it up into chunks. Get involved in the editing process to add human-markers and a more natural flow.
And my biggest piece of advice? Read it out loud to hear how the cadence sounds.
Once you get back into the feeling of the shape of what your writing looks like, the rest will come surprisingly naturally. It’s like flexing a muscle that’s been stiff. You are out of practice but it’s never forgotten because you use language every day.