What I'm Seeing as an Editor: AI Is Bleeding Into the Work
Let's talk about AI and Agency Decay.
Writers, I’m seeing things shift perhaps a bit more rapidly than I expected. I want to share some of this with you today.
First, I want to acknowledge that AI and writing is a topic that has a way of bringing out strong opinions fast, and I’m aware that wherever I land, I run the risk of alienating someone. There are writers who feel like AI is a lifeline, writers who feel like AI is a threat, and people who are somewhere in the middle trying to figure out what they actually think.
I get it. I’m still figuring out what I think, too. And on top of that, I’m realistic about how quickly this conversation is evolving.
However, AI is starting to bleed into the work I do with fiction and memoir writers.
As an editor and book coach, I’m seeing obvious use of AI in some of the manuscripts that cross my desk now, and at a certain point, I couldn’t justify staying quiet about something I’m watching happen in real time. I addressed this directly in a recent Substack note:
If you’ve used AI to generate your manuscript pages and hope an agent, editor, or publisher won’t notice, you’re going to be wrong. I’ve worked with hundreds of novel writers over the years, and sadly, I’m beginning to see AI bleed into the work more and more. It’s recognizable. It’s also heartbreaking because what gets lost is the thing that makes a story authentically you.
Please trust your creative intuition enough to write the messy draft yourself. Strengthening it can always come later in the feedback and revision stage.
I’m sharing exactly what I’m seeing in manuscripts, the affect it’s having on people’s creative intuition, and my gentle urging in this week’s podcast episode. I honestly think it’s not to be missed. You can listen here.👇🏻
The Whole Writer podcast creates space for writers to nurture both their craft and themselves, exploring what it means to write from a place of wholeness rather than depletion. You can find episodes:
📍 Here on my Substack
📍 Apple Podcasts
📍 Spotify
Finally, if you’ve been tempted to let AI carry more of the weight in your writing than it should, here are three craft and revision tips (with actual examples!) of how to go beneath the surface and strengthen your manuscript:
Thank you for speaking up about this! It scares me to think how writers are losing their unique voices, perspectives, and overall approaches to conveying their stories. I'm also confused as to why so many novelists especially are relying on AI. Why take away the thrill and fulfillment of using your own creativity to write a novel? Why write in the first place if you're just going to ask a bot to generate the story and the prose on your behalf? In a way, this is making it easy for agents and editors to discover which authors are actually in this industry for the right reasons...
Anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I love the insight here especially on the question of motivation.