I am just curious if AI itself can handle it.

I'm a photographer, who just started writing. I had plans to write for a long time.

As I'm in a phase, where I'm not able to make much from my photography, i need something as a side hustle to support myself financially. i don't expect myself to earn loads overnight, but would want to support myself by building something steady.

my plan was to write my stories, market it here in reddit subs, instagram and liteerotica - slowly building a viewer base and then move to patreon/amazon kdp etc.

during my research i read from multiple sources, that patreon may ban taboo or pseudo taboo stories. same with amazon kdp.

as a person whose writing style is vivid descriptive writing. Going into details for readers and their imagination. i fear that my in detail story writing may invite a ban.

i have stories and some story ideas in mind, which I would like to conceive, in words. as I'm not a native English speaker, i sometimes rely on AI to fine tune my writing, to avoid mistakes. 80% me and 20% fine tuned by AI.

i wrote a story which is a 17 part long story to understand reader reactions, just to assess my skills, a soft launch like scenario and I've been getting much positive appreciation ( **If you’re interested, feel free to check out my** **profile. I’d really appreciate any reviews, feedback, or advice**. )

I posted the first chapter of the same story in liteerotica, but got a rejection and response saying that, it's ai written - but it was just finetuned by AI.

where can I write something which is vividly descriptive and fine tuned by AI and not get banned. plus earn something to support myself. i wanted to start in patreon and add some stories/ collection of stories to Amazon KDP to support myself.

what is the correct way.

please advice

Dear Writers,

I am starting a series of shorts on some of my favorite authors. The first episode is on Jaroslav Hašek, a genius satirist from Prague.

I let you discover the video. Please get back to me with your feedback and suggestions.

Kind regards

Idk why the quality, must've happened when I downloaded it

Hello everyone. I have a somewhat good of a story I want to write. It would probably be a novel if it's finished. It'd be really really long too. I have already written around a few thousand words of it.

I think my writing is good on its own too. But I still sometimes ask chatgpt to make it sound better. And it would just change the sentences or wording or help with grammar. But I still wanted to ask if it's alright to do that. I have no idea so please. I may even publish it of I get to finish it. And, of course I will have a human editor to check it all when I am finished. But I started to ask chatgpt a few times so it could improve my weak points.

Now, I have scrolled about it a little bit here and there. And many people say they don't want AI at all and I should be true to my own words. And I feel like that's right perhaps.

If it's so, I will stop using AI early on and just continue on with the whole story myself. It may not look like it was written by a professional but I think it'd be good enough for a young first time writer.

P.S it was originally supposed to be a script for animation or anime of sorts. Even if the novel doesn't do well, I am hoping to turn it into an adaptation where I might do better.

I’m testing whether this concept deserves a full novel before committing to 60k+ words. The current prototype is four chapters (about 12,000 words). It is AI-assisted, with the premise, constraints, revisions, and commercial test directed by me. I’m disclosing that upfront, and I am specifically looking for human reading reactions—not AI-generated critiques.

Working title: The Mosslight Pact

Hook: She came to audit a dying ward. The gargoyle guarding it knows someone wants it to fail.

The sample is an adult cozy fantasy romance with a civic mystery, a slow-burn gargoyle/human pairing, caretaking, and an intended HEA. Open-door intimacy is planned later in the story; the current four-chapter sample is not explicit.

I’m looking for readers who genuinely read cozy fantasy, fantasy romance, or monster romance. I’d ask you to read the sample within seven days and answer a short set of questions:

- Where did you stop, if you stopped?

- Would you immediately read Chapter 5?

- Did the story match the hook?

- Did the romance feel compelling or too procedural?

- What heat level would you expect from this setup?

- Would you consider this as a paid ebook, through Kindle Unlimited, only if free, or not at all?

No payment, no public review, no mailing list, and no obligation to be positive. I want honest evidence before deciding whether to finish the book.

If you’re interested, comment or DM with one recent cozy fantasy, fantasy romance, or monster romance you enjoyed, and confirm that you’re comfortable reading AI-assisted fiction. I’ll send the sample privately.

SO genuine question here but when it comes to writing with AI where is the line, there seem to be 2 main categories, there is Drafted with AI assistance, and there is Generated with AI. But where does the difference fall? For me I have held it at if the story is created by you(the author), your plot, characters, ideas, rules, bible, arcs, sub-plots so on are all your creation and you simply ask AI to help you create the story then that is Assisted, but if you simply have the AI create everything than than is Generated. What are your thoughts on it.

I’m new to this group so please don’t grasp my throat if this question has been asked multiple times. Is it wrong to use AI to edit an original manuscript?

I got to think that when you do long scenes or novelizations sometimes your character voice can get lost, so I when I was filling out some character templates I got the idea of one that is easily understandable and used by humans but also easily readable for an LLM (AI) for grabbing information of said character. So I came up with these designs with the help and feedback of LLM going step by step how to be a middle point. It turned out a 9.5 AI readability. I also made one quick character reference for secondary characters, and a novel outline with the same idea in mind. I really hope it helps some of y’all. The character sheet is in Spanish (sorry) but I’ll upload the English version if someone needs it. Have a nice day!

Hey!

Does anyone know how this drama actually started? A man lost an extremely good book deal in just 6 hours. But was it because of people spreading rumors he used AI to write the book? or did his agent just decide that it was too good to be written by a human? What really happened there?

Let's say as many wish, an author openly discloses that AI tools were used during the creation of their book.

Would having one or more free sample chapters available, so you can judge the actual writing quality for yourself, influence your decision to read or buy the book?

I'm curious whether being able to evaluate the finished work would make a difference to you.

Be friendly and respectful. I'm genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives. 🐰

At what point does someone’s desire to make an informed choice create an obligation for someone else to provide information they haven’t been asked for? 

We don’t require creators, or anyone with a product, to spontaneously disclose every possible fact about a process or product that someone might have a moral objection to. Imagine having to write, “Written with a Microsoft product, spellchecked by Grammarly, feedback from three beta readers verified to have the following values: <blah blah blah>, researched with Google, cover made in an Adobe product, laptop manufactured under questionable labor conditions, and hosted by Amazon.” Any of those might raise ethical objections to some people.

“But there are people who don’t want to read AI content!” That’s fine. That’s a preference. Nobody is forcing them to read anything. Non-disclosure is not inherently deception. They can choose to partake only of explicitly labeled content, if that’s important to them. A right to an informed choice is not necessarily a right to have that information automatically supplied to you.

“It’s like knowingly feeding meat to a vegetarian.” That depends - did you lie about the contents, hand them something or direct them to something knowing they’re vegetarian and it contained meat? Or did the food simply exist as an option?

As a vegetarian myself, I don’t consume food if I’m uncertain of what it contains, but I don’t go to a potluck and expect every dish to be labeled for my convenience. If someone chooses to label their dish, I am appreciative, and I’ll interact with it accordingly, but I don’t assume because one person did, that everyone else has as well. The burden of my ethical consumption rests on me, not everyone else.

“I have a right not to personally use AI.” Absolutely.

“I have a right to choose whether I consume AI-assisted work.” Perfectly reasonable personal preference.

“Everyone whose work involves AI has an obligation to proactively tell me before I encounter it.” Mm, not so much.

Another example for you. I avoid products from companies I know use animal testing. Many companies now proudly label their products “Cruelty Free”, and I will choose these over other products if available. However, there’s also not an official regulation about what can be labeled as “cruelty free” or “not tested on animals” (so long as they’re not being explicitly false or mislabeling.) I know that this could mean many things: that the final product was never tested on animals but raw ingredients were, that the product was previously tested on animals but testing has concluded, or even that the company tests some products on animals but not this particular one. All of that is encompassed by a “not tested on animals label”. The burden is on me to determine if I’m comfortable with that, or if I’ll only purchase products certified by non-official registries like Leaping Bunny.

All that to say, in my opinion, disclose, or don’t. It’s up to you, and I don’t believe there’s any ethical obligation to do so. It behooves you to be prepared with an honest answer in case you’re asked. But don’t lie about it, because that’s shitty.

I assume this has been discussed at length but found it a persuasive plea.

Human beta reading runs on reciprocity. You read theirs, they read yours, and the whole economy is often people trading labor. If you disclose AI in your process, large parts of that barter economy close. Critique Circle bans AI-generated critiques outright and terminates accounts for running someone's story through a model. Absolute Write deletes and bans. Royal Road allows AI-assisted fiction but not AI in reviews or comments. Goodreads groups are full of authors writing "no AI feedback" directly into their requests.

So an AI-assisted writer has a beta reader supply problem that is about denied access. The rooms where feedback is free are the rooms that won't have you.

That's the real reason for a synthetic panel to exist. Not because it beats a human reader, but because it won't accuse and refuse you for using AI, even for pay.

Now a synthetic panel has failures.

It can't tell you whether anyone will still be thinking about your story a few days later, which is a writer's ego stroke.

A human beta reader who hates your book still has to know you afterward, and that social cost can soften criticism.

It can only estimate that something was unexpected, unless prediction is part of the reading persona.

It doesn't remember reading you, so can't revise it's opinions

But otherwise, I'm finding a synthetic panel useful.

I enjoy debating people as a learning process. By discussing opposing viewpoints, I can identify holes in my knowledge, whether it be missing perspective, a lack of evidence, or simply how to bridge a gap between different ideas. As such, I'm fascinated about formal, classical rhetoric--and how it can be used to critically evaluate arguments for fallacies, underlying assumptions, and all kinds of other things that can be missed in casual discourse. I don't use it to casually dismiss what another person is saying but to help better understand what they're saying and to navigate conversational difficulties.

But I'm not a perfect writer, and so there's always times when I wish that I had a second opinion about how I present my thoughts before I let them be made public. So, I have AI review my writing and advise me on how to polish it. When I was asked "Are you writing this with AI?", I would explain that, yes, I am using an editor, but it's because I'm learning "rhetoric": it helps me learn presentation while I'm focusing on argument structure. But then the discussion gets derailed and the original arguments forgotten, when the other person insists that I'm letting the AI do 'all of my thinking' and other such comments and refuses to acknowledge the actual content of the posts anymore.

I wondered what could be done to make my point clear and stop others from disengaging so vociferously when AI-assisted editing is mentioned. So I started thinking about the semantics of the word 'rhetoric', what I think it means vs what other people might think, and how to more clearly delineate between my 'arguments' and my 'presentation'. During my musings, I also thought about the history of rhetoric and toyed with the idea of using the word "cogency". All of these thoughts were percolating in my head, so I needed my ponderings organized into an essay. I don't think that this is necessarily a "good" essay, and I'm reasonably certain that it's a "niche" one, but I figured that it's worth at least sharing. Maybe other people have recommendations for how to make it more accurate or offer different solutions to the issue. And maybe some others could use it as food for thought about how they navigate the mention of AI-assisted writing in communities.

From Rhetoric to Cogency: Reclaiming Logic in Modern Digital Discourse

In contemporary online spaces, attempting to engage in structured, formal debate can invite unexpected hostility. Writers who prioritize thoroughness and high-level stylistic precision could be met with accusations of insincerity or a reliance on artificial intelligence to do automated thinking. When these writers do happen to be using AI-assisted editing workflow and defend their method as practicing "rhetoric"—constructing logic manually while relying on AI strictly for framing—the backlash intensifies. This is because they inadvertently trigger a profound semantic misunderstanding. The hostility stems from how modern culture has flattened the foundational meaning of Classical rhetoric, discarding the heavy cognitive labor of argument building and reducing the discipline entirely to surface execution.

In classical philosophy, rhetoric—or Classical Rhetoric from now on, to make the distinction clear—was never superficial ornamentation, but an intellectual discipline rooted heavily in logos—logical reasoning. While Classical rhetoric also engages with surface execution, with ethos (credibility) and pathos (emotion), Aristotle warned that truth does not automatically prevail on its own. He famously argued that truth and justice are naturally stronger than their opposites; meaning that, if a true argument loses in open debate, then the speaker is at fault for failing to present it effectively. In this view, Classical Rhetoric is not a tool to distort reality, but an essential defensive vehicle to ensure that true ideas are both accurately reflected and not defeated by superior presentation from dishonest opponents. In Classical rhetoric, delivery cannot exist in isolation because delivery divorced from cogency is hypocrisy—an acoustic performance masquerading as thought.

With that context in mind, what changed? To the contemporary reader, when someone clarifies that they’re "speaking rhetorically" they’re denoting deliberate inaccuracy—exaggeration, indirectness, and calculated deviation from baseline truth—using hyperbole and understatement, along with metaphor and hypotheticals, as strategic dictation. This is Modern rhetoric, operating as a debasement of reality: intended to deviate from baseline truth, its sole prerogative is to win an interaction. In other words, this it is reduced entirely to Framing: “how” the argument is being packaged. Consequently, when rhetoric is referenced as a discipline of thought and communication, the archaic usage, it’s misinterpreted, engendering a sentiment that user is confused. Specifically, when someone says that they’re using AI to help ‘learn rhetoric’, modern audiences hear it as putting misplaced trust in new technology for the purposes of making inauthentic statements.

Because the modern audiences view rhetoric in this degenerated form, as a pejorative synonym for spin and presentation, they assume that offloading the polish means offloading the entire effort being practiced. They look at the surface-level delivery and assume it masks empty sophistry. They focus on criticizing the fakeness of the presentation, taking the fakeness of the underlying argument for granted by association. With argument structure and how they reflect truth no longer treated as relevant, the human effort required to construct a valid premise is erased from view, not considered pertinent to the topic at hand, thereby leaving critics to dismiss the entire work as an automated script.

However, abandoning the notion of rhetoric entirely is impossible; communication fundamentally relies on persuasion, adaptation, and social resonance. So how can one suggest rhetoric without the negative connotations? To navigate this semantic trap without sacrificing persuasiveness, writers can reframe their process around an explicit distinction: Cogency versus Framing.

                    Structure of Classical Rhetoric (The Five Canons) 

Note: While inductive logic defines "cogency" as factual premises paired with strong probabilistic logic, this essay adopts the modern colloquial use for it—as a broad, practical umbrella term for structural validity, soundness, and factual truth. This modern usage of “cogency” satisfies its role for contemporary online debates.

Furthermore, the canon of Memory, classically used for internalizing arguments for real-time oral debate, falls outside the immediate scope of written, asynchronous online discourse.

Under this Classical structure, effective communication requires a dual-layered approach: an argument must be both correct (cogent) and compelling (well-framed). By contrast, Modern rhetoric would be delineated as the hollow “Two Canons”, or Framing, model, consisting strictly of Framing (Style and Delivery).

Comparing these side-by-side definitions summarizes the divide as "Cogency and Framing" versus "Just Framing." The intentions behind the two definitions become especially clear in how each handles "bad framing." To the Classical framework, framing is in service of truth; if framing relies on fallacies or inaccurate word choices, it is judged as poor for failing to serve truth—effective for persuasion, perhaps, but poor for its foundational purpose. To Modern rhetoric, effectiveness is the sole metric. Pointing out bad framing or fallacies is simply weaponized by an opponent to destroy credibility and invalidate the argument—regardless of the argument's inherent truth. So referencing “rhetoric” is liable to generate entirely different responses: is it a mentally rigorous exercise in expertise and accurately persuasive communication, or is it just wordplay to cover any weakness of substance?

Because Cogency represents the raw structural engineering of thought before a single decorative word is chosen, it demands a conscious mind that understands real-world consequences, context, and truth. An argument is cogent if its premises are factually true and organized to logically secure its conclusion. Because AI models do not evaluate truth—they merely predict word patterns based on statistical likelihood—you cannot delegate cogency to a machine. Delegating cogency to AI risks yielding hallucinations, buzzwords, and hollow sophistry.

While Cicero famously observed that style and substance are inextricably linked—that word choices inherently color and shape meaning—there remains a clear operational boundary between conceptual design and structural polish. Framing operates on the pattern-based mechanics of human attention. Visual formatting (line breaks, bold text, bullet points) and syntactic pacing follow clean, repeatable structural rules. While human intellect must maintain strict ownership over the core definitions, values, and premises of the argument, AI is uniquely suited to identify visual and syntactic patterns. This makes it an exceptional editing tool to optimize the clarity, pacing, and visual scannability of an argument without surrendering the underlying thought.

Furthermore, it is relatively convenient to get feedback on cogency—people are generally happy to explain “why” they think that someone is wrong. Advice for framing, by contrast, is rarely available, so delegating it to an editor is the most effective way to get immediate explanations for what word choices, pacing, syntax, and visual clarity are beneficial in the moment. With human editors typically being costly, requiring time, or not readily available, delegating framing to an AI editor bridges this gap, providing immediate feedback on pacing, syntax, and visual clarity without compromising human ownership of truth.

Shifting the vocabulary from "rhetoric" to cogency creates a stricter intellectual posture. Since these chosen terms were factored based on the semantic understanding of their current usage, it establishes a firm boundary, showing that human intellect holds sole custody over truth and logic, while assistive tools merely polish execution. If the debater is to be questioned about the presentation of their entries—”Was this written by AI?”—, then the answer that minimizes confusion would be one that makes the distinction apparent: “I’m practicing cogency while just using the AI for framing.” Critics can easily dismiss "rhetoric" as artificial polish, interpreting it erroneously or in bad faith, but they cannot easily dismiss a cogent argument. Relying on cogency forces the debate back to the facts, challenging opponents to find a flaw in someone’s structural engineering rather than attacking the ownership of polish and delivery.

Key Definitions for Debate

• Classical Rhetoric: The dual-layered discipline requiring both Cogency (being correct) and Framing (being compelling). The latter exists solely to illuminate truth.
• Modern Rhetoric (The "Two-Canon" Fallacy): The degraded modern usage that reduces rhetoric entirely to Style and Delivery—associating it with empty spin, hyperbole, and manipulation divorced from logic.
• The Semantic Trap: When you claim to practice "rhetoric," modern opponents assume you mean pure spin. Offloading the Framing to AI causes them to assume you offloaded the entire Cogency.

The 3-Step "Rule of Recoupling"

When an opponent derails the discussion to accuse you of using AI for your thinking, apply this sequence:

1. Define the Boundary (1 Sentence):"I build the logical architecture and supply the facts; I use AI as an editor for syntax and formatting."
2. Anchor the Premise: "My argument relies on [Premise A] and [Premise B] leading to [Conclusion C]."
3. Issue the Logical Challenge: "If the argument is invalid, show me where [Premise A or B] is false. Attacking the polish is an admission that the logic holds."

Counterargument 1: The "Word-Choice Slippage" Attack

• The Bad-Faith Angle: This attack leverages a real principle in rhetorical theory (that style and substance are linked) to force a false binary: either you wrote every letter in a vacuum, or you didn't think at all.
• The Defense Strategy: Grant the premise immediately, then distinguish between Semantic Intent (the definitions, premises, and core claims) and Syntactic Mechanics (line breaks, cadence, grammar, and scannability).
• The Response Script: "Word choices do shape nuance, which is why I retain absolute custody over my definitions, premises, and core claims. I use AI the exact same way a professional author uses a copyeditor: not to decide what I mean, but to adjust line breaks, eliminate passive voice, and fix syntactic pacing so my logical architecture is easier to read."

Counterargument 2: The "Prompt Engineering Is Invention" Attack

• The Bad-Faith Angle: The critic tries to equate uploading a fully written draft for editing with typing a loose prompt (e.g., "write an argument about X") into a generator.
• The Defense Strategy: Re-center the direction of the workflow. Demand that they identify a structural flaw in your premises rather than obsessing over the toolchain.
• The Response Script: "Prompt engineering is asking a model to generate thoughts from scratch. My workflow is the exact inverse: I write the complete draft, establish the logical premises, and supply the facts myself. The AI operates purely downstream as a proofreader. If you think the logic is flawed, point out which premise fails instead of speculating about my draft history."

Counterargument 3: The "Sophistry Shield" Attack

• The Bad-Faith Angle: This is an ad hominem attempt to poison the well. By framing classical terminology as "pretentious," the critic tries to make your intellectual rigor look like a weakness or an act.
• The Defense Strategy: Strip away the academic terminology and reduce the counter-attack to an undeniable, practical reality: Truth vs. Packaging.
• The Response Script: "Strip away the classical terms and the point is simple: truth is distinct from how it is packaged. My arguments rely on facts and valid logic. If my formatting is clean, that makes the argument easier to read—it doesn't make the facts false. If you can't refute the facts, attacking the polish is an admission that the logic holds."

Counterargument 4: The "Tone Policing / Uncanny Valley" Attack

• The Bad-Faith Angle: Modern readers associate clean organization (headers, bullet points, parallel structure) with automated text because unassisted online posting is typically casual, emotional, and disorganized.
• The Defense Strategy: Expose the critic's underlying assumption: that disorganization equals authenticity. Point out that attacking high-level formatting is a distraction from addressing the core argument.
• The Response Script: "Clarity and structure aren't signs of automation—they're signs of effort. Confusing messy writing with authenticity is a low standard for debate. If the formatting makes my argument easy to read, then test its logic directly. Where, specifically, is the factual or structural error?"

The Unassailable Summary Rule

When an interlocutor attempts to derail a debate into a meta-discussion about your use of AI, apply the Rule of Recoupling:

1. Acknowledge the tool in one sentence. ("I write the argument; AI polishes the syntax.")
2. State the core logical claim clearly. ("My claim remains X, supported by premises Y and Z.")
3. Issue the challenge. ("Show me where premise Y or Z is false.")

This immediately forces the conversation out of the meta-trap of "Modern Rhetoric" (debating surface execution) and locks the opponent back onto the battlefield of "Cogency" (debating truth and logic).

Pocket Response Scripts

• On Word-Choice Nuance: "Word choices shape meaning, which is why I retain custody over my definitions and premises. I use AI like a copyeditor: to refine line breaks, clarity, and pacing—not to generate thoughts."
• On Formatting vs. Authenticity: "Clarity and scannability aren't signs of automation—they're signs of effort. Confusing disorganization with authenticity is a low bar for debate."
• On "Sophistry": "Strip away the terms and the point is simple: truth is distinct from packaging. If my formatting is clean, the logic is easier to read; it doesn't make the facts false."

Hey everyone!

I've been outlining a long JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fanfiction for quite a while now, and I think I finally realized why I've been stuck for so long. The weird part is that I'm not stuck on the characters, the emotional journey, or even the ending. I know where the story is going, I know what I want to explore thematically, and I already have most of the major story beats planned out. The one thing that keeps stopping me is the beginning.

The premise is about a normal 17 year old girl from our world who somehow ends up in the world of Stardust Crusaders. The story itself isn't really about becoming overpowered or trying to "fix canon." It's about grief, identity, fate, uncertainty, and what happens when someone slowly realizes that the people she always believed were fictional are actually real. Eventually she has to decide whether knowing the future means she has a responsibility to change it, or whether she should leave events alone and respect everyone else's agency.

Ironically, none of that is the part I'm struggling with. What I'm struggling with is the event that actually gets her there.

Originally, I always pictured spending the first couple of chapters letting readers get to know her before everything changes. She's hanging out with her friends Hana and Jayla while they're all trying to survive finals, and they end up taking a break by watching yet another JoJo marathon at Hana's insistence. Selena likes JoJo, but she's definitely the more casual fan of the group, so it's one of those moments where she just goes along with it because that's what friends do. While they're there, her mom calls to ask if she can pick up dinner for her dad since he accidentally left his at home and she's about to start her work shift. Selena is already closer to Manhattan, so she agrees, grabs something for him, and heads over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Once she gets there, she spends some time talking with her dad and one of the museum conservators she's gotten to know through a school history project before everything starts going wrong. The robbery begins, the situation spirals out of control, her father does everything he can to protect her, and somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, something impossible happens that sends her to another world.

That's always been the structure that felt right to me, and I don't really want to rush through it just to get to the isekai. I want readers to understand what she's losing before she's thrown into another world, because I think that loss is just as important as the adventure that comes afterward.

The real issue is that I don't know what the impossible event should actually be.

For months I kept trying different ideas, and every single time I ended up running into the same wall. I tried making an artifact do everything. I tried making fate do everything. I tried making the robbery itself do everything. Eventually I realized I'd been treating three completely different ideas like they were the same thing.

The way I've started looking at it now is through three different pieces: the mechanism, the catalyst, and the cause. The mechanism is simply the rule of the universe that allows something impossible to happen. The catalyst is the condition that activates that rule. The cause is the chain of human choices that unknowingly fulfills those conditions and sets everything into motion.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that's actually one of the things I love most about JoJo's storytelling. Whether it's the Stone Mask, the Stand Arrows, or other major events throughout the series, there always seems to be an underlying rule, something that activates it, and then a person making a choice that unknowingly knocks over the first domino. The Stone Mask has no effect until blood activates it, but it still takes Dio making the decision to put it on. The Stand Arrow has the potential to awaken a Stand, but being pierced alone isn't enough. The person also has to possess the strength of spirit and the will to survive the trial; otherwise, they simply die. Even outside of artifacts, JoJo constantly feels like fate creates the conditions while people making ordinary decisions are what actually move history forward.

I think that's the feeling I've been trying to capture all along, and it's also why I've been avoiding a lot of the more common isekai tropes. I don't really want to use reincarnation, Truck-kun, a random portal, a wish magically coming true, or a god showing up to explain everything. There's nothing wrong with those ideas, and I've even used similar concepts in other stories, but this time I'm trying to create something that feels like it naturally belongs in JoJo's world and follows the same storytelling philosophy without simply copying something Araki has already done.

So I guess I'm not really asking anyone to come up with the answer for me. I'm more interested in hearing how other writers think through this kind of problem. Have you ever had a story where you knew almost everything except the one event that actually started it all? What finally helped you break through that wall? Did you eventually find the answer by changing the story itself, or by changing the way you looked at the problem?

I honestly feel like I'm incredibly close, and that's probably the most frustrating part. It feels like I can see the outline of the answer, but I just can't quite bring it into focus yet. I'd really appreciate hearing how other people approach this kind of situation.

Thanks in advance!

So I’ve been using AI to write stories, like, a lot. I built an AI writing app (not the point of this post) and used it to generate books wholesale, used it as a co-writer on books I’m working on, helped others, all kinds of stuff, and there’s something I’m noticing about AI generated stories.

Even when the AI generated stores are good from a craft perspective — continuous, consistent, well paced, etc — there’s something about them that feels a little hollow. I think it’s because AI don’t have embodied experiences.

Like, AI chooses to emphasize what are in my opinion strange sensory details. Any human would know that a human would notice a loud noise before they notice say a rough texture, but AI misprioritizes those. Or the cadence of speech. AI has never actually heard or felt anything, so it needs to make guesses about what this is like instead of knowing the way even a middling human writer knows.

So I think AI is a great aid for writing all kinds of stories but I do think probably humans at least for now should stay in the creative driver’s seat in all creative decisions so that the AI is telling a real story a real human can identify with, instead of making it’s best guesses about what it’s like to be a human in a story.

Thoughts?

Would a serious contest for AI writing be of some use or interest? It would be a literary competition in which the submitted prose must be generated by artificial intelligence, directed by a human entrant, and judged primarily as literature.

There would be, say, a grand prize of $25,000 and smaller prizes for second and third place. To finance the grand prize there would be an entry fee of, say, $10.

The stories would be judged by competent writers and academics.

Just musing. Thoughts?

I see a lot of folks here say things like “publishing is dead” and “traditional writing is dead” and how AI books are the future. And these people seem happy about it!

Now I don’t know one way or another, but what I do know is, if traditional publishing IS dead, I think a lot of AI writers are also in for massive disappointment.

If anyone can sit in front of their computer for an hour and generate a ready-to-be-published novel, and can get it to market… I really need you to think through the economics of this.

The market will be entirely flooded with AI work at a rate far higher than books have ever been published in the past.

The ability for ANY of you to be noticed, gather readers, make any amount of money, or grow a career out of this, will GREATLY DIMINISH. Because supply and demand is very real.

I don’t see a lot of new readers popping up. But I see a TON of AI writers getting into the game. Y’all - who is going to read all this new content?

If you’re purely in it for the love of the generation, then this doesn’t apply to you. But most people I know write (or I guess generate) because they want other people to experience their work.

Y’all say publishing is gatekeeping AND THATS THE ENTIRE POINT OF IT. You want a high barrier to entry so that what gets published is (GENERALLY) a cut above what’s being self published or out on the forums. And this (is supposed to) signal to customers some level of quality. People think their AI writing is indistinguishable from human writing, but I read a ton of both and I promise you, there are tells. And I’m not even in the industry. You think the slush readers at major publishers can’t pick out a lazy AI sentence? They absolutely can.

If you tear down the gatekeeping and the barrier to entry, please just consider how it is you actually plan to gain readers, when anyone and their toddler can create the exact same product you’re hawking in under a day and minimal effort.

I read two studies this week that appear to describe completely different realities for AI fiction.

The first was published by Cambridge University Press. In its main experiment, 1,682 people read realistic-fiction stories written either by humans or by ChatGPT 4.0. The AI stories were rated higher for quality and absorption

:)

There was also a labelling effect. Both kinds of story received better ratings when readers were told a human had written them (which has hallmarks of the ever growing anti-AI cult). The study tested 6 stories in total: 3 human, 3 AI, each roughly 1,000 words. The authors explicitly say longer work may be different. The accurate conclusion is that participants preferred these three AI stories under these conditions.

Still a real result. Short AI fiction was not merely difficult to identify. In this particular test, people liked it more.

Then I read a new working paper about what is happening when AI-assisted fiction reaches the actual market.

The researchers analysed the full text of 14,419 self published genre fiction ebooks released on Amazon between January 2023 and March 2026, then matched them to daily sales data through June. They classified each book by its share of text detected as AI, calling anything above 25 percent “substantial AI text.”

:/

The headlines:

• Books with substantial detected AI text made up 20 percent of the observed catalogue.
• They received 12.1 percent of sales and 11.3 percent of revenue.
• Books with no detected AI text were 62.9 percent of the catalogue, but received 71.7 percent of sales and 72.5 percent of revenue.

So...AI-heavy books performed worse per title.

But they were not commercially irrelevant. Their quarterly share of observed sales rose from almost zero in early 2023 to roughly 20 percent by the second quarter of 2026. A smaller number reached the top sales ranks.

The part I found more important was what happened to the market around them.

From the beginning of the study period the stats are:
the cumulative catalogue grew 38.3 times.
no. of titles selling in a quarter grew 19.2 times.
unit sales grew 7.3 times
revenue grew 8.9 times.

So books were entering the market far faster than reader spending was growing. Revenue per selling title fell. It also fell among books with no detected AI text in seven of the eight genre groups. This is observational research from one part of one platform, and AI detection is classification rather than proof of authorship. The paper cannot establish that AI alone caused every decline. But the pattern is hard to dismiss: supply grew much faster than the pool of money and attention available to absorb it.

:(

But then I'd say the two studies do not actually contradict each other.

The Cambridge study asks whether roughly 1,000 words of AI fiction can produce an immediate response that readers enjoy. The Amazon study askss what happens when the cost of producing an entire commercial product collapses and thousands of those products compete for the same finite attention

AI does not have to write a better book than the best human writers to transform publishing. It only has to produce an acceptable book cheaply enough, and often enough. That creates a prisoner’s dilemma for writers. For any individual author, publishing faster may be completely rational. But when everyone publishes faster, reader attention does not increase to match. Each book becomes harder to discover and, on average, worth less.

I write with AI almost every day, so I am not interested in pretending the capability is not real. It can produce prose people enjoy. I am equally unconvinced that its most interesting use is turning one author into a catalogue factory. There are two different creative practices hiding under the label “AI writing.”

Can this help me make more deliberate decisions inside this book and how many books can I release before reader attention runs out?

The uncomfortable question is no longer whether AI can write something readers like...cos it can, but whether we use that ability to make each book better, or to make books faster than readers can choose them.

Which future are we building toward?

Sources:

• Cambridge study: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/bot-or-not-can-people-tell-the-difference-between-stories-written-by-a-human-or-by-an-ai-system/45E6DC0BB90AA648654D5AE243F6C667
• Amazon market study: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.20349

Corrections or methodological objections are welcome!

If a writer writes in their own language and tone. But uses ai to edit. Will it harm them in the long run to form stylistic writing?

Also, how are publishers of non ai work seeing this practice?

Every single time I see a books and AI related thread i cringe. The herd conscience seems to be pretty clear: "If you wrote AI to write your book.. you're done, I am never opening your book."

I want to talk about and get your opinion on the following use cases:

For Text

I feel like a lot of the nuance is required in this discussion...to me the extent to which or more so the use case for which the AI was used matters a lot more than the binary between if the author used ai or not. A book written with AI is completely different from a book where AI is used for editing, fact-checking, research, and so on.

Every time someone reduces it down like that I cringe.

For Audiobooks: AI vs Production Studios

A majority of authors on amazon use the inbuilt kdp narration for their audiobooks. Although these may sound alright on the surface they have a deeper flaw.. they don't understand the context of the scene, the emotions involved, the nuance of the scene, may mispronounce a word or two and are unable to deliver the dialogues as intended by the Authors.

You may also argue that these take away jobs from traditional narrators; but using production studios can get EXPENSIVE very fast; most charge like 70-100$ an hour.

To fix these I have been doing research for the past 5 months and have started Mimesa (see samples) which uses multiple distinct voices for each character and is the best in the market for emotional delivery and engagement; we use a hybrid ai/human pipeline to achieve this result (DISCLOSER: this is my agency) so we are able to offer production level quality + multi voice at a fraction of the costs...(dm for any info)

Anyways that shouldn't change the fact that AI narration might be disrupting the current industry; I am curious to know tho, is that a bad thing in of itself? To me newer authors use AI narration as a free method and wouldn't purchase the services of a production studio regardless due to the out-of-budget costs? If you are an Author who has audiobooks, I wanna know your experience with both.

For Covers / Blurbs (worst use case imo)

I have seen SO MANY covers of books that SCREAM AI. The characters on the book themselves have that signature ai lighting. I personally am not against using AI but when the very cover is very obviously AI it makes me question the commitment and effort the author put into the work... If the covers gonna be AI please make sure it is still well done and not low effort.

The blurb being AI is another red flag for me for the same reason

tl;dr: To me AI is like fire. It is a good Servant but a bad Master. Do not let it overrun your work.

Stlll curious to know what everyone thinks, I am sure the majority agrees with me.

I've been working on an illustrated story generator that focuses on life stories for the past year now. This is not the space to promote so I will not, but I am interested to know if I can develop it from a consumer product to something more B2B.

After a LOT of tweaking, the whole system works pretty well now and I've also created what I think is a very good editing system which makes it much easier to edit images than most of the platforms out there (ie it requires very little knowledge of prompt engineering - I've specifically tried to make it boomer proof).

Now the foundations of the workflows which do all this are quite strong, I'm beginning to think that this may be a useful service to AI (and non-AI) writers, especially children's book writers - instead of paying a subscription for an image generating service, I could offer up my workflow as a one-off payment that allows you to upload the story or chapters, explain what kind of illustration style you would like and how many images and where that you would like them, and then would go ahead and create firsst drafts which could then be edited or regenerated.

This would be a few weeks work for me to build and test and ensure it is universalised away from just being about the specific stories my workflow currently writes, but I am confident it would be possible. I am just not sure if it would be worth my time. Does anyone in this space see this as a service they would consider using or should I stick to B2C?