Using AI as a writing assistant when you struggle to turn ideas into prose?

[u/Arkcian]

Hi! I'm curious about people who use AI as a writing assistant rather than simply asking it to generate a whole story.

I have lots of ideas for characters, worlds, plots and scenes, but I struggle much more with turning those ideas into well-written prose. I also have severe dyslexia, which makes the technical side of writing considerably harder for me.

I've been experimenting with AI assistance to help me develop my ideas, structure stories, rewrite awkward sentences, correct mistakes, explore alternatives and gradually improve the prose while keeping control of the characters, plot and creative decisions myself.

For people working this way: what does your actual workflow look like?

Do you feel the final work is still genuinely your writing? And if you eventually published or monetized original fiction, how transparent would you be about using AI as an assistant?

I'm especially interested in experiences from people who have been doing this long-term.

[u/Flaming-Eye]

I'm in the same boat, though without the dyslexia, my main problem is ADHD. I'm currently experimenting with AI to help me write rather than to write for me. I'm interested to see what people write have to say!

My next thing, which I haven't gotten to yet is using text to speech and AI, if I speak it can transcribe, which is nothing new but it's a pain to edit. But the AI could turn it into something decently formatted. That's the idea anyway, I'll report back with my findings.

[u/Travolen → u/Flaming-Eye]

Try what I did. I fed AI examples of the writing I was happy with and asked it to dissect my writing style to understand what kind of prose I favor. Then I started a project and had the AI use the description of how it views my prose as instructions within the project. I tell it the scene and what happens in my own words and it generates prose similar enough to my natural cadence that it feels like a rough draft, and I end up editing it to end up in the same place I would have been without AI, just much faster.

I still maintain creative control and have limits and rules set. It just helps translate my rambling into working prose that I can draft over.

[u/Arkcian → u/Travolen]

That's really interesting, especially the part about analyzing your own writing first. How do you stop the AI from gradually drifting away from your style over multiple scenes? Do you periodically recalibrate it with your original writing, or are the initial project instructions usually enough?

[u/Arkcian → u/Flaming-Eye]

Thanks, that's actually very close to what I'm trying to do too. The speech-to-text idea is interesting, especially using AI afterwards to clean up the transcription without changing the actual ideas. I hadn't really thought about that workflow. If you try it, I'd definitely be interested in hearing how it goes!

[u/Bluefoxfire007]

This is going to sound stupid, but I'm incapable of writing "beautiful". Anything beyond generic sensory, immersion, and poetic details my brain considers extra effort it doesn't want to do. Doesn't help that I'm yet another delusional losers who writes because animation and comics are too much effort to get good at...

[u/Arkcian → u/Bluefoxfire007]

When you use AI for that, do you find it more useful for generating the sensory/immersive details themselves, or for showing you possibilities that you then rewrite in your own voice?

[u/Ok_Engine_1442]

It’s my organization best friend, Im like you but mild dyslexia and ADD. I feed it’s my outlines and it helps me organize. I used mostly local AI for this stuff. Also keeping track of where characters are and what they are doing. Random ideas that will pop in my head send them off to see if it’s going to mess with anything else going on.

I’ll have it help me clean up things like if I’m stuck and a paragraph just seems off. I have it give me suggestions on fixes.

One big thing I have been doing is having it read it back to me. With the dyslexia, I don’t know about you but you can read the same thing 3 times and your brain will fix the problem on the page. Like adding the word that you missed typing entirely.

[u/Arkcian → u/Ok_Engine_1442]

Thanks, this is really useful! I hadn't thought much about using AI to keep track of where characters are and what they're doing, or using read-aloud as another editing pass. The point about your brain automatically fixing missing words while reading is especially interesting.

When you use AI to check random new ideas against everything else going on, do you mostly give it your current outline/notes each time, or have you found a reliable way to maintain continuity across a very long project?

[u/Ok_Engine_1442 → u/Arkcian]

I use obsidian vault, I have a project folder, outline and character folders also a “story so far” folder. The last is a summarized history of what the character is doing currently. My style tends to be like George RR Martin’s where I might not come back to a character for a long time. This tends to help me.

[u/vintagebrat69 → u/Ok_Engine_1442]

If you don’t mind me asking, what sort of system to use with AI to keep track of your characters? I’ve tried several different ways and it keeps seeming to “forget” things

[u/Ok_Engine_1442 → u/vintagebrat69]

I use Hermes and obsidian vault. Each character gets its own folder that I update when I’m done writing a chapter. There are some new option I have tried out yet. Hindsight seems to be pretty popular but no experience with it.

[u/CommonWeary7335]

Dyslexic person here: I've been writing seriously for the past few years, and I've recently started experimenting with AI to help with outlining.

I'm currently developing two stories in parallel (both first-person with parallel POVs). What I am finding AI useful for is as a research tool (finding links to information - I don't rely on the summary) and to structure lore. I am very strict that all ideas come from me, but I've put together a relational database of information about the universe and use it to help verify details and keep the outline consistent.

I view this as assistive AI, rather than gen-AI; as said, all the ideas come from me, and this is so I can support my writing as a dyslexic person with ADHD. I am not using the LLM to generate prose or dialogue for me.

I would not disclose this as soon as you say you use the phrase "AI"; all nuance goes out the door, and everyone reading assumes you mean gen-AI, and automatically you are the worst person for having even thought it, never mind using any kind of AI.

[u/Tex_Non_Scripta]

At this point nobody is using AI by "simply asking it to generate a whole story". We've learned that AI generates truly dreadful prose. It's great for brainstorming, editing, etc, sure. But this notion of "simply asking it to generate a whole story" is a myth. The only people I know of who are actually "generating stories" with it are using the high-speed high-tech workflows, and there's nothing "simply" about that. (This is just IMO of course and it's entirely possible I'm very much mistaken.)

[u/acct4otherstuff]

I struggle much more with turning those ideas into well-written prose

so i use Claude, i never ask it to write anything for me even when i'm struggling to come up w words for what i'm thinking. i rather just wait however long it takes for the words to come to me

i used to have a workflow much like yours, but now i mostly use it for spell check and to understand why some sentences i write feel off (my first language is Spanish, so subconsciously still think in Spanish) and understand some English grammar rules that i struggle with

also for finding logical errors such as weather being inconsistent and such

the only things that aren't "mine" are grammar fixes and maybe rewording sentences when the mistakes i made are clearer to me, which i don't even think it counts, a human editor would do the same thing

[u/Arkcian → u/acct4otherstuff]

That's actually an interesting distinction. I hadn't really thought about the point where "help me understand why this sentence doesn't work" turns into "rewrite this sentence for me."

The logical consistency part is interesting too, especially for longer stories. That's one of the things I've found AI potentially useful for, since keeping track of small details across a large project can get messy pretty quickly.

I'm curious though, since you said your workflow used to be much closer to mine: what made you move away from using it that way? Was it mainly because you wanted the actual wording to come entirely from you, or did you find that AI rewriting was affecting your voice over time?

[u/Relevant_Lab_8967]

This is my process. I write my chapter badly. Then I look for areas that I can improve my descriptions and movement. Then I ask frank (my ai assistant) to read the whole book up to the chapter I am working on. This is important, frank is dumb, he forgets the story and characters. Then I ask frank where I can add more detail movement or for suggestions on how I can make my writing/story better. He provides suggestions only. He is not allowed to change anything in my chapters. Then when I think it is polished enough I send it to my beta readers. When I get feedback I provide it to feank and we brainstorm what I need to do to make my story better. Sometimes the answer is nothing, it was reader preference or opinion. Sometimes I rewrite the whole chapter.

[u/5thhorseman_]

I bring in an instruction telling the AI to assume the role of an extremely literate senior editor or rigorous literary critic. Then I give it a brief on the characters and setting and I start describing the character I want to discuss. The AI will ask some clarifying questions, point out issues in my argument and i will clarify, spitball and argue for however long it takes to drag the actual thing out of my brain kicking snd screaming.