Is AI Getting Better at Writing?

By Glen C. Strathy

August 2026

It seems like all I or anyone else talks about these days is artificial intelligence and whether it is getting better at writing or ruining fiction. (Or maybe it's just that I've accidentally trained my news feed to send me too much on that subject?) 

If you'd rather I spend less time on this topic, let me know, but this week did have a lot of people in the writing world talking about two news items in particular.

Is AI getting better at writing, or is something else going on? 

The first big story is that writer Jerry Falade lost a $2M deal for his first book. The reason given was that his editor raised concerns that Falade had used artificial intelligence to create the text, and the agency lost faith in Falade. You can check out the article in The Root.

Several things strike me about this story:

1. Such a big advance for a first time author who wasn't already famous? 

2. Agents are supposed to work for authors, so it's notable that it was the agency that cancelled the deal, not the publisher. Apparently, they were more worried about their own reputation than getting their client a fat cheque.

3. According to the story, everyone at the agency loved and still seems to love the book. Falade says many, many publishing professionals saw the book, loved it, and never imagined it was AI generated... until this one editor. Were they the first person to actually read the manuscript closely? Two million dollars is a lot of money to spend on a book you didn't read.

4. Even though Minotaur books "secured the rights" and a publication date had been set, that didn't stop the agency from cancelling the deal. So I guess the contract didn't protect the author much.

5. The agency didn't check the manuscript with AI detection tools. OK, on the one hand this makes sense because detectors are notoriously unreliable. I guess they just trusted the editor's opinion above all others. Also, Falade apparently "changed his story" of how he wrote the book. But the article doesn't say he admitted to using AI.

6. Falade is Nigerian. OK, if he is innocent this is an very unfortunate coincidence. But if he is guilty, this story sounds like a joke -- literary agents falling victim to a Nigerian scam operation?

This is not the only story to emerge in the past year or so about books that may have been written by AI nearly getting huge advances before being found out. There's never any definitive proof with these stories, just suspicions causing huge advances to be withdrawn. I don't have any insider knowledge, but I find myself drawn to making wild and unfounded speculation...

1. Is AI really getting so much better at producing text that it can fool experts (not from the little I've seen)? Or are publishing professionals just getting worse at their jobs? Maybe they're overworked and relying on AIs to read and evaluate manuscripts for them?

2. Are real books getting so generic and low-quality that you can't tell them from AI-generated text? 

3. Most writers and readers don't want AI-written books. So should we be glad gatekeepers exist? It's hard to feel sorry for a first-time writer who loses a $2M deal when there are plenty of long-time novelists who will never see that much money.

4. If an AI was capable of writing a great book, I suspect millions of people (including publishers) would be using it to do that, whereupon the value of great books would drop to near zero. No more six-figure offers for anyone.

5. Maybe this is all just a psy-op campaign to make aspiring writers think they need to use AI to get the big offers -- as long as they don't get caught. 

Like I say, this is just speculation. I don't have any answers here.

Is it a witch-hunt if witches actually exist?

Also this week, horror writer Sèphera Girón lost her position with the Horror Writers Association after she wrote a piece in the organization's newsletter claiming that members were hypocrites for being against people who use AI to generate fiction (and sell it) if they use AI for various other purposes.

It's an all-or-nothing argument that reminds me of how people used to claim vegetarians were hypocrites if they wore leather shoes. "You either accept AI-generated books as real books, or you exclude AI from every aspect of your life and your community." 

As someone who avoids engaging with AI most of the time, I don't accept that premise. There are plenty of reasons to be cautious about AI-use, especially when it seems to be promoted by people with a vested interest. Aspiring writers' insecurity and desire for success has always made them easy marks for people selling writing apps, tools, and services. AI is just one more. (IMO, there's no substitute for the tried and true methods: read a lot, write a lot, revise a lot. Keep notes in a notebook.)

Also... and I find this sad... too many writers today feel pressured to turn out a huge volume of books in order to make a living. This increases the temptation to turn to AI, which can generate text faster than humanly possible. Of course, the downside is that the product is no longer the "writer's" own, original work. AI use causes writers to stop being writers and instead be publishers of slop.

Personally, writing is one area where I would never use AI. Brainstorming ideas, outlining stories, and writing prose are activities I get a lot of pleasure and fulfillment from. I don't want to outsource those tasks, even if the statistical engine inside a generative AI can spit out new combinations of plagiarized words in a matter of seconds that can apparently fool agents. 

Writing, for me, is about thinking through and crafting prose from start to finish. I would never put my name on a story or book I hadn't done that with. Nor am I interested in reading a story by someone who hasn't taken the time to think it through. Just because an online store insists on making me ask questions of its AI because they have no other form of customer service, doesn't mean I have to give up an endeavour I get fulfillment from.

OK, now even I am getting tired of my own ranting. Next month, I hope to venture onto a different topic.

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