Full transcript
0:00Can AI improve your writing skills?
0:04Well, it it depends on who you ask, but
0:06I recently underwent an experience that
0:08really made me think about this question
0:10and I came up with some conclusions
0:12about my own writing that might not be
0:15what you'd expect. Now, a common
0:17criticism that I get on this channel all
0:19all the time is that AI will make you
0:22lazy or not a good writer or at least
0:24kind of prevent you from becoming
0:26better. And while I think most people
0:29who say this don't really understand how
0:31AI works and that it is essentially a
0:34different medium than traditional
0:36writing, just like photography is a
0:38different medium from illustration. I
0:40did pay some attention to a lot of that
0:42criticism because for those who don't
0:46know, I'm about the most storytelling
0:48obsessed person that I know. Uh few
0:51things are more exciting to me than
0:52stories and I get very granular. I get
0:54I'm probably the most granular and into
0:56the weeds person that I know. Uh
0:58certainly more than most. And it's
1:00always been my goal to continue to grow
1:03as a storyteller until like say 20, 30
1:06years from now, I'm considered one of
1:08the best in the world. Not because I
1:10want the fame, but because I truly want
1:12to master this craft. It's like
1:13everything that I want in my career is
1:15all focused on storytelling. So that if
1:18there was even a chance that AI could
1:21make me less of a storyteller to get in
1:24the way of that progression, I clearly
1:27wanted to figure that out. And so that's
1:28why in my school group, the story
1:30hackers, I actually initiated this
1:32challenge to write a short story every
1:34quarter without AI and submit that story
1:38to the writers of the future. For those
1:39who don't know, the writers of the
1:40future is a quarterly competition where
1:43you submit a short story. It has to be
1:45in a speculative fiction, so fantasy,
1:47science fiction mostly. And you submit a
1:50short story and it's this huge
1:52competition. Thousands of people enter
1:53it every year. And as part of our
1:56challenge, uh, I made it clear that like
1:59we're not trying to win this thing
2:01necessarily. The reason we were doing it
2:03was to get practice writing without AI
2:06in addition to writing with AI just to
2:09give us maybe a little bit of an edge on
2:10those people who are just using AI and
2:13not putting any human effort into it
2:15whatsoever. Which by the way, you don't
2:17need to worry about those people because
2:19anybody who uses AI and puts effort into
2:22it will have way more success than the
2:25person who just uses AI without any
2:27human effort. So all you have to do is
2:28just put in some effort and you're going
2:30to have
2:31three times as great of results and that
2:34will just automatically help balance out
2:36the market and everything so that the
2:37good stuff rises to the top and all of
2:39that, but whatever. So, in the story
2:42hacker group, we all did this challenge
2:44where a whole bunch of us went through
2:46and actually wrote a story by ourselves
2:48and submitted it to the writers of the
2:50future. And I actually discovered
2:51something very interesting while I was
2:53going through this process. So, it so
2:55happened that I had an unfinished story.
2:58I had written the first quarter of it
3:00roughly about the first 25% and that
3:03quarter I I had written that couple of
3:06years ago like before AI was really a
3:08thing and I had written it myself
3:10obviously and uh I decided you know
3:14because I don't like having unfinished
3:15things lying around I decided I was just
3:17going to finish that story. It wasn't my
3:18best story. I didn't really anticipate
3:20that it would win anything, but I wanted
3:23to finish it at the very least and then
3:25uh get some practice writing again and
3:28uh and then save my better ideas for the
3:31next challenge which is in December. And
3:34so I did that and uh you know went over
3:37the stuff that I had done the first 25%
3:39and then wrote out the rest of it. And I
3:41learned a few things about myself while
3:43we were doing this. It had actually
3:44genuinely been a long time since I had
3:46written fiction. I write non-fiction
3:49myself all the time, but fiction, it had
3:51been a while since I'd written actual
3:53fiction
3:55the manual way. Uh I dictated some of
3:58it. I I typed some of it, but you you
4:01get it right. It had been a while. Uh
4:04because most of the time I'm writing
4:06non-fiction myself or I'm writing
4:08fiction with the help of AI. The first
4:10thing I I noticed is while I was
4:13writing, I was dealing with some pretty
4:16severe
4:18uh like self attacks, if that makes
4:20sense, where I was telling myself just
4:23how bad this writing was as I was
4:25writing with it. It actually kind of
4:28like it was a it was a reminder because
4:30I had felt that way a lot in the past
4:34writing my books and things and it uh
4:36just looking back on it I was like well
4:38it's no wonder I burned out uh cuz I
4:40burned out in 2019 and it lasted years.
4:43It was really AI that got me out of it
4:45and started uh producing fiction again.
4:48Um it's no wonder I burned out because I
4:50was incredibly hard on myself and and
4:53those instincts were coming back as I
4:55was writing it. I was just like, "This
4:56is awful. This is terrible. You're
4:57you're a terrible writer." All this
4:59stuff. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what
5:01is going on here?" Um, that was the
5:04first thing I noticed. And by the way,
5:07if you are like that, chances are it's
5:09not nearly so bad. And I I know a lot of
5:12authors who feel that way as they're
5:14writing, but when they go back to edit
5:16it, they're like, "Oh, this isn't as bad
5:18as I thought." Uh, or or it's the
5:20opposite. You might be the opposite when
5:21you're writing it out and you're like,
5:22"This is amazing." and then you go
5:24through and you revise it and you're
5:25like, "This is awful." Usually authors
5:27have one of those two scenarios going
5:29on. But for me, I was like being really
5:31hard on myself as I was writing and and
5:34uh and I didn't like it. It didn't feel
5:35good. And you know, human, we as humans
5:38do not do things that cause us pain long
5:41term. It's just not something we do. Um
5:45the only way we're going to do something
5:46that causes us pain is if we're running
5:48from something that is even more painful
5:50or we're going towards something that is
5:52more pleasurable. the long term, you
5:53know, having like the the foresight to
5:56do something that's painful in the short
5:57term for long-term games, like going to
5:59the gym. So, it's no wonder that I
6:01burned out a number of years ago because
6:03I was not getting that long-term
6:06pleasure and I was instead
6:09giving myself a lot of pain while
6:12writing. But then I finished writing the
6:15remaining 75% of the short story. Uh I
6:18wrote it in about a week and what I
6:20learned was really interesting uh
6:23happened when I was editing.
6:25When I was going through and editing, I
6:27used to hate editing. Okay, you guys got
6:29to understand like I hated editing. Once
6:31I had finished writing the thing, I was
6:33just so done with it. I wanted to move
6:35on.
6:36But as I was going through and editing,
6:38I found I was flying through it and I
6:41was loving the process. So somehow I was
6:45loving the editing process more than I
6:47was before and the amount of things I
6:50was changing and the amount of
6:52improvements I was making. Uh even
6:54though the text itself was not that
6:56actually that bad, I was much better as
6:59an editor. Like I could tell that from
7:03years ago when I had written some books
7:05and was going through and revising it,
7:07the revision I did back then was cursory
7:09at best. This time it was much more
7:12thorough. it was much more uh
7:14appropriate and detailed. And basically
7:19uh bottom line is I could tell I had
7:21grown a lot as an editor. And this makes
7:23sense because when you're writing with
7:26AI, you do a lot of editing. At least if
7:29you're writing with AI and trying to
7:31produce something of quality work,
7:32you're going to be doing a lot of
7:34editing. And I thought it was absolutely
7:36amazing just how much that part of my
7:39skills had improved. And then I actually
7:40went through and started reading the
7:42whole thing through a couple of times. I
7:43did two or three passes after the whole
7:45thing was finished uh and was looking
7:49because I was in a unique situation
7:51where I had written the first part of
7:53the story a long time ago uh really a
7:56couple of years ago and the the second
7:58part of the story just just recently. I
8:02could kind of get a sense of the
8:04difference in my writing style and my
8:08writing skill by looking at the two
8:11juxtaposed against each other. And even
8:14though I had been really hard on myself
8:16in writing these these last 75% of the
8:18story, I could tell the quality of it
8:21was definitely quite a bit better than
8:24the first little bit um that I had
8:26written previously. Now, of course, I
8:28edited that part and brought it up to a
8:30higher level a little bit. Uh certainly,
8:33it was not like my best the best thing
8:36that I've ever written, and it did not
8:37win writers of the future. Uh which is
8:40fine because my goal is to improve as a
8:43writer, and there's literally thousands
8:45and thousands of people that submit to
8:47writers of the future every quarter. Uh
8:49so, I like the goal is not to win. The
8:51goal is to get better. But that first
8:53part was definitely less solid than the
8:55the second and in the remaining part of
8:58that story. So what do I get out of
9:00this? My conclusion has been that AI has
9:03helped me at least to be a better
9:06storyteller but just not in the way I
9:07thought. Uh I do feel like my pros
9:10improved a little bit um but not as much
9:14as my editing had. My editing improved
9:16quite a bit. Uh, I I certainly don't
9:19think that my pros
9:21suffered. Uh, definitely not. I don't
9:24think that being an author who uses AI
9:26somewhat heavily in his process has
9:29actually made my pros worse. Now, that
9:33said, it probably could be better if I
9:35spent more time writing pros, and that's
9:37why I keep I'm going to continue to do
9:39these challenges to try and have time to
9:43practice those things. But it didn't get
9:45worse. that that much was absolutely
9:47playing just by comparing the before and
9:49the after. And on top of that, I was
9:53absolutely like beyond any doubt a
9:56better editor than I had been before.
9:58And add to that the fact that I've heard
10:00from many others in my community that
10:02it's helped them become better
10:03storytellers as well. It's perhaps less
10:07helpful for like a sentence by sentence
10:10part of the writing process, but it does
10:12help with bigger picture elements of of
10:15storytelling. There's no doubt about
10:16that. Especially if you're putting in
10:18any sort of effort at all and you want
10:19to actually produce something that's
10:21good. You need to learn those bigger
10:23picture elements so that you can, you
10:26know, walk the AI along with you. And it
10:28also helps with learning to be a good
10:30editor. And that's at least in my
10:32experience. Let me know what you've
10:34experienced working with AI. Does
10:36anything that I've said resonate with
10:37you or does your life experience
10:38challenge anything that I've said? I
10:40would really like to know. Like I'm just
10:42giving you what has worked for me and my
10:44own personal experience, not
10:45necessarily, you know, you know, what's
10:47true for everybody. If you're
10:49interested, there's a link to my
10:50community down below if you want to know
10:51more about this and the other challenges
10:52we do. We're doing a book in a month
10:55challenge coming up in November and
10:56December we'll do a writers of the
10:58future challenge again. Uh, so check
11:00that out and I will see you in the next