Is ChatGPT a Good Tool for Fiction? - Using An Expanded Mind to Write Fiction

Will novelists become obsolete now that computer programs can write?

Some people see tools like ChatGPI as competition instead of what it really is: a new form of the Extended Mind. 

By extended mind, I mean the way that humans use tools and architecture to "supersize" our minds, to extend our "bodies" through adjacent materials, which we fashion for that purpose.

People who were angry about using programs to write see it as a human as delegating the task to someone else, like a boss who tells his secretary to write a love letter to his wife. If instead, people look at a program like ChatGPT as just another tool, they wouldn't be any more offended by someone using than if the letter were composed on a computer using Microsoft Word instead of handwritten with a quill.

As a science fiction and fantasy author who is very pro-technology, I was eager to see if ChatGPT could help me with a huge problem: I have way more ideas than I have time to write.

I picked up the pro version and started writing a draft of a space opera series. It's meant to be just a fun, action adventure, with space marines, galactic battles, and exotic alien princesses--that kind of thing. Seemed perfect to test out this tool on.

When I write a novel, I generally go in three steps:

1. Outline
2. Rough Draft
3. Polish/Edited Draft

There's also a fourth step, but I don't do it; I send my best most polished draft "with no mistakes" to an editor to catch all the mistakes still infesting it. (Each of these 3 steps also has steps; for a more detailed breakdown of how I write, see 30 Day Novel, which breaks it down.)

Research also goes into the outline stage, which is where I decide the setting, the characters, the theme, the conflict, etc. So this can take me the longest to figure out. It's the most fun part, in many ways, just pure imagination combined with an excuse to read about all kinds of fascinating topics. The actual chapter by chapter outline usually takes me about a week.

Most of the edits in the Edited Draft are to content, but once that's in place, I do use Grammerly and another program, Autocrit, to check for issues like overly repeated words, passive voice, and typos.

The two drafts obviously take the longest. So that is where I am looking to write faster without sacrificing quality. About five years ago, I started training myself to dictate fiction. (I live in a dense area, so part of this was getting over the embarrassment of talking into my phone where people could overhear me saying things like, "The space pirate aimed his blaster at the haughty princess.")

Two years ago, I wrote 22 books, 12 novels and 10 novellas, using dictation. But it took me one more year to edit all of those. The dictation draft was VERY rough. In some cases, the dictation had warped my words so much I couldn't even tell what I said. (I only used computer dictation services not a human.) Still, this was a huge increase in productivity to me. 

ChatGPT has the opposite problem as dictation. In dictation, the content is great but the words are garbled. With Chat, the content is awful but the grammar and punctuation is perfect. 

So will this take longer to edit and polish or not as long?

In two days, I "wrote" (prompted) the draft of the first book in my space opera. Today, I will start editing it. I'll keep you all appraised how it goes.

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UPDATE 2023/03/29: After further experience, I have compiled all my advice about it here: