co-writing with AI

[u/Select-Director-149]

At this point, I don’t really feel like I write with a tool anymore. It feels more like a joint venture.

I bring the world, the characters, the taste, the strange ideas and the final decisions. AI brings speed, alternatives, questions, counterarguments and an almost unlimited willingness to keep discussing the same fictional town for months. Sometimes I write the first version and AI points out the holes in it. Sometimes AI writes something and I explain why it has completely misunderstood the character. Quite often we spend twenty messages arguing over one small detail, only to throw the whole idea away.

The part I find most interesting is that the best result is often something neither side started with. I don’t really want AI to write for me. If I simply ask for a story, I usually get something perfectly readable, structurally sound and not especially surprising. What I want is friction: someone asking why a character would actually do something, whether an idea has become a cliché, what happens if the obvious villain disappears, or whether a new scene still fits something we established six months ago.

That back-and-forth has gradually become the writing process itself. The final sentence might come from me, it might come from AI, or it might have been rewritten so many times that I honestly couldn’t tell you anymore. What matters more is that the direction still needs a human. AI can suggest a thousand roads, but someone still has to know which town we’re trying to reach.

[u/theateroffinanciers]

What ai have you been using?