Should You Write a Novel With AI?

By Glen C. Strathy

Write with artificial intelligence

Can you write a novel with AI or "artificial intelligence" software? The day when that will be possible is fast approaching and already many aspiring authors are using AI to generate ideas, outline, edit, proofread, and in the case of generative AI, produce text. AI apps can even imitate a particular writer's style, to some extent. The temptation and the marketing push to use AI to make the novel writing process easier and faster is undeniable. Many people feel that AI is advancing so quickly that best selling novels will eventually be written entirely with AI, as in George Orwell's classic novel, 1984.

But, to paraphrase another science fiction story, Jurasic Park, before we become so preoccupied with whether or not you could write a novel with AI, let's stop for a moment can think about whether you should. Will AI help you fulfill your dream, or rob you of it? Will it's impact on the literary world be positive or detrimental? Yes, I'm biased, but hear me out.

First let's consider an issue that most AI enthusiasts and promoters ignore...

If you Write a Novel with AI, Is it Legally Yours?

When you write a novel in your own words, you automatically own it. You own the copyright on your creation. That means no one can publish it without your permission -- and you will only give your permission in exchange for royalties. If you self-publish, you are entitled to the sales revenue from the novel.

But what if you write a novel with AI, asking it to write part or all of the text for you? Who owns it then?

  • Do you own the novel because you wrote the prompt that you submitted to the AI?
  • Does the company that built the AI own the novel, because it is a product created via their technology?
  • Do the writers whose copywritten works were used to train the AI own the novel?
  • Can the AI company or the other writers sue you for copyright infringement if you publish the novel?
  • Or does no one own the novel, in which case anyone can publish copies of it and sell them for money without paying you a cent?

At the moment, no one has the definitive answers to these questions. The legislation hasn't been written yet. However, at least one court case decided that AI created work is not entitled to copyright protection. That's bad news for everyone who attempts to write a novel with AI apps.

Imagine you try to sell  a novel you wrote with AI to a publisher. Would a publisher be willing to risk being sued for copyright infringement if they publish your AI generated novel? No. They don't need to take on that risk. Publishers want to know who owns the copyright on a work before they make an offer to publish it. 

Sure, you could self-publish an AI-written novel. But do you want to take the same risk of being sued by the AI company or the writers the AI was trained on?

Okay, you may say, "But I only used generative AI to write parts of the novel. Other parts I wrote myself." Or, "But I edited and changed what the AI generated."

So what? You might still be sued over the parts that the AI did generate, or that were derived from the works of the writers who the AI was trained on. Can you, as an aspiring writer afford to take a risk that a big publisher won't?

Alternatively, perhaps the legal system decides that no one owns the copyright on AI-generated novels. That means anyone can make copies of your novel and sell it, and you can't legally stop them or demand royalties. They wouldn't even need to put your name on the cover.

Why Would Anyone Write a Book with AI?

But let's set the legal issues aside for a moment.

Let's consider why someone might use generative AI. Who does this technology appeal to?

I suspect the ability to have an AI write a novel for you is something desired mainly by publishers, or aspiring publishers, of low-quality nonfiction books.

There has always been a market for low-quality nonfiction books, going back to when the printing press was invented. Low-quality books usually don't win awards or get great reviews. They are unlikely to be best sellers. You'll find far fewer of them in bookstores. But if the costs are kept low, some publishers will sell enough copies to earn a profit. If they don't have to pay royalties to authors, because AI is the author, the odds of at least breaking even are a little higher.

Of course, the easier and cheaper it is to churn out low-quality AI-written books, the more the market will be flooded with them, and the potential profits will shrink to nearly nothing. Nonfiction will likely be the first genre where this happens.

It's safe to expect that many low-quality nonfiction books from now on will be written by or with the extensive use of AI.

AI-written nonfiction books may lack original and unique ideas. The prose may not be brilliant. They are often missing the personal experiences of human authors. They may also lack journalistic standards. But it is a simple matter for a publisher to get an AI to write a generic book on a common topic like "The History of Ancient Rome" or "A Beginner's Guide to Investing."

An AI app can scour the internet for information on a topic and assemble it into a generic facsimile of what a human being might write in far less time than a human writer would need. Of course, a conscientious publisher will still fact-check and edit the manuscript, but costs will be less than when working with a human author.

Will that be good news for aspiring nonfiction writers? Not at all. It means far fewer opportunities for human writers.

Sure, some high-quality nonfiction books, based on original ideas, research, and human experience will continue to be written by human beings, perhaps with some AI assistance. Whether they can compete with the coming flood of low-quality books is another question. It may soon be very difficult for book buyers to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

Eventually, it may be just as easy for anyone who wants information on a topic to ask an AI to write a book or article just for them, for free, rather than spend money on a book an AI wrote for someone else

Should an Aspiring Writer Write a Novel with AI?

Who else does generative AI appeal to?

It may appeal to aspiring fiction writers who are secretly afraid they are not capable of writing a story worth publishing. They may use it as a crutch, a way of avoiding the hard work of learning to write well.

It may especially appeal to people who want to see their name on a novel, but don't actually like writing. The world is full of those who would love "to have written" a novel, but don't enjoy the novel writing process. To them, generative AI looks like a shortcut -- like hiring a ghostwriter, but one that doesn't cost as much. It looks like a way to get all the glory while avoiding most of the work.

But what about the aspiring writers who genuinely love writing and have real talent.?

In my experience, people don't begin their career (or even hobby) as fiction writers because they want other people (or a computer program) to write stories for them and then take the credit. They start writing because they are driven to write the stories inside them -- because they love writing stories. So why would they let an AI write a novel for them? Why turn the creative process over to an app?

Again, AI is appealing because it looks like a shortcut. It is very easy to convince yourself it is just a tool, like a word processor or laptop. But it is far more insidious, because it cuts short your own creative thought process.

Are you actually a writer if you write a novel with AI, or are you just a customer? Are you like the college student who hires an essay writer to do all his assignments for him and then claims to be a scholar? Or the millionaire who hires a ghost writer to write his autobiography and then claims to be a literary figure? More on this below.

Does the Future of Fiction Writing Lie with AI?

In a May 2023 article in Newsweek, one self-publisher brags that he created and sold 574 books using AI. (That is 574 copies, not titles. He has just over 100 titles in his catalogue.) Each title took him only 6-8 hours to create. Altogether, his AI books generated $2,000 in sales.

Some things to note about this "success" story...

  • Each of this publisher's "books" is only 2,000-5,000 words long. So really, they are short stories.
  • The stories were published only in ebook form (probably to keep costs low) and are not available on amazon.
  • It appears the number of copies of each title that sold is fewer than six on average, which is not good Maybe the stories aren't good either?
  • The self-publisher brags that some customers bought multiple stories, in one case as many as 30. This implies that the number of readers may be a lot lower than 574. (Though perhaps the article in Newsweek has since made more people curious enough to purchase this publisher's titles.)
  • $2,000 for the 700 hours he spent "creating" 100 stories means he earned $2.86/hour -- not a spectacular return. But to be fair, the hourly wages for many writers isn't impressive.

Most self-publishers sell at least a few copies of their books to friends and relatives. That's not an indication the books are worth reading.

To claim a readership exists for AI-generated fiction, respectable numbers of people not personally known by the authors must be willing to buy it. While 574 copies is not nothing, divided by 100 titles, it's not much either. Maybe better marketing and distribution would lead to higher sales, or perhaps the quality of AI-written fiction is very low, at least for now.

As with nonfiction, lots of low-quality fiction has always been published. Sales of low-quality fiction are usually poor, but there are exceptions. Lots of bad children's and YA books are published and can sell well if backed by a recognizable brand. Low-quality erotic stories always have a market. Some self-published novelists are good salesmen and, with effort, can convince enough people to buy their books to consider themselves successful, though they seldom become best sellers. Plenty of mediocre fan fiction has readers too.

However, if AI leads to an explosion of low-quality fiction, one would expect profits will become even harder to come by. Much as vanity publishers gained a reputation for low-quality books, self-publishers who use AI to write novels may go the same way.

Publishers Seem Unimpressed by AI-Written Fiction

At the moment, literary magazines and publishers are being flooded with stories written by AI and submitted by "writers" who are hoping for a shortcut to authorship. I put "writers" in quotation marks because I'm not sure we can say they are writing these stories themselves. Many are simply using generative AI to write stories for them and perhaps doing some superficial editing. (After all, if you don't want to take the time to write a novel yourself, you're hardly going to put in a lot of time editing either.)

So far, rather than being excited to purchase AI-generated stories, literary magazines are more bothered by the amount of work it takes to sort through the increased number of submissions and separate the AI-written stories from the human-written stories -- which are the only ones they are interested in publishing. If it took a lot of effort to find the gems among the stories submitted by human writers before the invention of AI, it is even more difficult when they are further concealed within a giant haystack of AI-written stories. So, for literary magazines, AI has simply raised the cost of publishing.

You may argue that AI-written stories may be bad now, but they will improve exponentially as the AIs become smarter.

Honestly, if AI apps become capable of writing great stories, what would stop a literary magazine or book publisher from writing stories and novels in-house and saving themselves the cost of paying human writers, the endless hours reading submissions, etc.? Perhaps that day will come, but it will not be good news for aspiring authors.

Besides...

Do You Really Want To Write a Novel With AI, Rather Than Doing it Yourself?

I believe most talented writers are drawn to their fiction writing practice as a form of self-expression. They have ideas for stories that emerge from their imagination and want to put them into book form. Aspiring authors usually love stories themselves. They want to apply their creativity to creating great stories that other book lovers will enjoy.

Why would you want to write a novel with AI? Wouldn't that just rob you of the fun and fulfillment you would get from writing a novel yourself, from expressing your own ideas and imagination in words?

Of course, writing a novel is hard. It seems especially hard when your manuscript is half-finished and you have no idea how to finish it, or when your finished draft is not up to the standards you set for yourself and you have no idea how to make it better. It's hard when your publisher wants you to meet a deadline and you feel your work-in-progress is crap that you're too embarrassed to show your own mother, let alone anyone else. When you're in that situation, you may find it tempting to write a novel with AI, or at least use the AI to write the parts you are having trouble with. If an AI can point you toward a quick, easy solution, it might feel like a godsend.

The same feeling of desperation is what causes college students to buy essays rather than write them themselves, or hire people to write their exams for them.

But shortcuts can leave you shortchanged. Writing an essay isn't just about earning a grade. There is value in learning how to research a topic, draw conclusions, and express your thoughts cogently. You grow as a person from writing the essay yourself.

You grow much more from the process of writing a novel.

Moreover, literature is very much about the relationship between authors and readers. It's a sharing of unique imagination and insights from one human being to another. Readers can grow from the experience reading of a novel told by a human author. I'm not convinced the same value will be created when someone chooses to write a novel with AI.

Of course, sometimes readers just want a fun, easy read -- some light entertainment. But even the genres that are generally looked down on by those who prefer more intellectual reads take more skill, originality, and humanity to write than is generally acknowledged.

That said, can AI writing apps be of any use to fiction writers? Yes, I think they can, but only in a limited way.

The Only Way You Should Write a Novel With AI Apps

As others have pointed out, "AI" should probably be called "applied statistics." AI writing apps are programs capable of sorting through data, looking for patterns, and generating random text that fits the patterns. The better ones can actually maintain some degree of continuity in their output. Whether they actually understand the meaning of their inputs and outputs is questionable. (Change that: they definitely don't understand meaning.)

Nonetheless, AI writing apps have their uses.

For instance, there are grammar and style-checking applications like Hemingway that can look at your manuscript and suggest edits that would make your sentences more closely follow accepted principles of good writing.

Some of the more sophisticated writing apps can generate plot points, or "flesh out" scenes that feel underwritten.

What you must bear in mind is that the output of AI apps is generic, because they are based on patterns discerned from large amounts of existing human writing. Even if the output is based on writers in your genre  who wrote for  your audience, it's generic.

If your prose is below average (and whose first draft isn't?), an AI can spot opportunities where your prose deviates from average professional prose. It can also suggest revisions to make your prose more seem more professional. All well and good.

On the other hand, the danger is that an AI will encourage your writing style to be more generic. Over reliance on AI runs the risk of taking away your story's unique character. It can erase your unique voice and style, as well as that of your characters.

For instance, a basic AI grammar and style checker will encourage you to replace passive verbs with active verbs. And usually that is a good idea. However, there may be stories or instances within stories where the passive voice contributes to a particular atmosphere, setting, character voice, or style that better fits your vision of the story. Assuming your vision is worthy of being fulfilled, you must have enough conviction to reject the AI's suggestions.

The AI might want you to make your sentences closer to the average length for your genre. But maybe you have a good artistic reason for favouring longer or shorter sentences in particular chapters.

Or, let's suppose you ask the AI to write a description of a street your character is walking down. The best AI apps now can easily create a vivid bit of prose that would fit the bill -- but it may be a generic description. The details it offers, the adjectives it chooses, may not be the best for your story. They may not reflect the unique perspective of the character in the scene who is doing the observation.

The style favoured by an AI writer may not be nearly as interesting as a style you develop yourself to fit the particular story you are writing. Remember that the AI does not know what words and sentences mean. It does not emotionally react to language. It has no artistic instincts. Only a human being knows whether an edit makes a sentence better or worse. (It's something writers develop through practice writing, through a lifetime of reading, and by being thoughtful and sensitive.)

Sometimes, a reader may just want a generic novel to pass the time with that doesn't require a lot of thinking. But more sophisticated readers want a unique experience. They want a novel that offers them the chance to immerse themselves in the perspective of a character unlike any they've ever encountered, or a world of thought and imagination unlike any they've ever experienced.

My advice, therefore, is...

If you must write a novel with AI (and maybe you shouldn't), don't let the AI be the writer. You must be the writer.

If you are going to write a novel with AI, don't let the AI make artistic decisions for you.

Each time an AI app suggests an edit to your story, don't just automatically accept it. Don't trust that the AI knows what's best. The AI can only suggest how a generic story might be written. You have to decide how your story needs to be written.

If an AI app generates a passage of text for you, don't just copy it into your manuscript word for word. Always take the time to rewrite it. Change the vocabulary to fit your sense of your characters, setting, and story. Make the style fit your vision.

If the AI points out that a particular sentence in your story needs improvement, try to write a sentence that's better than the one the AI suggests.

In other words, use the AI to locate sentences and passages that might need revision, and then ask yourself...

"Is the AI's response valid, or does it just not understand my intent?"

If the AI's has flagged a sentence or passage that has legitimate issues or could be improved, ask yourself...

"How can I make this better? Can I find a better solution than what the AI is suggesting? How can I improve this in a way that's in keeping with my narrator or character's voice or my intent?"

Don't sacrifice your unique way of expressing yourself in your writing. Your personality, your narrator's personality, and your character's personality are what will make your finished novel worth reading. What you're looking for is the best expression of those personalities.

Yes, it will take more time to evaluate the AI's suggestions and look for your own unique solutions. It might even take longer than writing the story yourself without AI. And maybe writing the story yourself is what you should do.

Unless, of course you want to write low-quality fiction. But I suspect that choice will not bring you either the profits or the satisfaction you crave.

Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.

Related articles you may enjoy...