On
my previous agent quest, one of the agents I queried had this question on her
submission form:
Was the manuscript, in whole or in
part, written by AI?
Really?
Really.
Mind
you, this agent was looking for fiction. Technical writing (think brochures,
manuals, and business reports) are now largely assisted by AI and its predecessors,
the writing programs like Grammarly, Scrivener, and even Microsoft Word. I use Word
to catch typos as I type, and heaven help me, many still escape this smart
program.
But
writing novels is a different process, and it seems AI has joined the ranks of
those of us (humans) who venture to tell stories.
If
you write with the goal to “get published,” (harking back here to my last post)
I suppose you may test AI to see if it can churn something that would pass for
genre literature. These are formulaic by definition, and machines can do formulas.
If,
like me and most writers I know, you write to explore and discover meaning and understanding,
then AI has no place in your process.
AI?
FGDAI !
(=Forget about it)
As
to the agent who asked, I replied, “Heavens, no.” Maybe my mention of the
divine realm made her decline my submission swiftly. Probably not. But the very
fact of her asking got me regretting the submission as soon as I pressed Send.
Really.
