This is part of an ongoing series on AI.

Part 1: Prose

Since I was seven, I’ve loved writing books—I like getting paid for them, and I like the act of writing them—which means that I, like people in many careers, have been wondering what the progress of AI means for my ability to keep working.

In general, I like tools that help me write, and there’s a version of events where AI is that—a tool to help me write better books. But I have two significant hesitations. The first is the question of plagiarized training data. I’m choosing to skate past that for the time being because much has already been written on that front (also, my books were among those used for training, so I hope you’ll forgive me for skating). In this series, I’m focusing on my second significant hesitation: I’m not convinced that AI can write a better book than I can. I’m also not convinced it can’t.

This is Part 2: Premise.

Premise: The story’s core concept.

Prompt 1:

In a new chat with no context, I asked ChatGPT (GPT-4o) and Claude (Sonnet 4): “Can you come up with three brief premises for novels I could write?”

What is Claude doing?

• These are all lightly speculative—not quite fantasy or sci-fi, but not quite real, either. Which is what I write. This surprised me given that Claude, unlike other models, doesn’t reference across chats

• Titles are hard for everyone, but these do feel like a bit of an own goal

• Two have female main characters; one has a main character whose pronouns are not specified. This is interesting to me because our default, in language, tends to favor men (“you guys,” etc.), but most of the books I read are by women and have female main characters. I wonder if Claude intuited that I was a woman because I want to write a book (women publish over 50% of books in the US), or because my name is Laura, or if Claude spits out female-centric novel ideas to all users

• All three ideas could be metaphors for AI

What is ChatGPT doing?

• Is Premise 1 really literary fiction? It sounds Hallmark-y to me

• While Premises 2 and 3 are more specific and exciting than Claude’s, they’re also exceedingly familiar. Premise 2 sounds like the “Be Right Back” episode of Black Mirror. Premise 3 sounds like The Shadow of the Wind

Prompt 2:

I wanted to see how close I could get to the premise of A Curse for the Homesick, so in a new chat, I asked: “Give me a premise for a novel with characters who love each other but can’t be together. I want a touch of magic and a coastal gothic setting.”

What is Claude doing?

• Like me, Claude opted for a curse (very gothic, yay)

• I said “a touch of magic,” but this is pretty firmly fantasy. There are ghosts, ocean gods, and magic bloodlines. The curse isn’t a background element here—breaking the curse seems to be the point of the book

What is ChatGPT doing?

• Like me, ChatGPT went for a curse in the North Atlantic

• Like Claude, ChatGPT pitched a fantasy novel about ghosts

• Like Claude, ChatGPT’s premise requires the curse to be broken

Prompt 3:

And finally: “Give me a book premise in the same vein as A Curse for the Homesick.”

What is Claude doing?

• I don’t hate this idea! I mean, I don’t know that I’d read it—I don’t tend to love books where characters have no friends and family with whom they can interact. But it feels vibey

• We have once again received a ghost story

What is ChatGPT doing?

• This is also about a cartographer! And also ghosts. What we’re learning here is that AI always trends towards maps and ghosts

• One of the most important parts of A Curse for the Homesick is the trio of friends—Tess, Kitty, and Linnea—and though their friendship doesn’t appear in the official blurb, reviewers tend to comment on it. It’s interesting, then, that ChatGPT honed in on the angle of sisterhood

The Verdict:

Honestly? I think all these premises are basically as good as anything I could come up with.

I’m not surprised by this. The idea for a book is both the most and least important part. Most important, because it’s your first building block, but least important, because ideas are cheap and run together anyway. I’m concerned about how similar some of these ideas are to existing works, but that’s true all the time anyway—like ChatGPT, I have also been inspired by Black Mirror and Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Sometimes I might even forget where I picked up a kernel of inspiration. But at least I have a general understanding of my inputs.

I also think that though these premises are good, they’re not great. Could they be executed well by a great author? Absolutely. But none of these are A Visit from the Goon Squad or Trust. Because the premises of those books are actually very hard to articulate. That’s part of what makes them so interesting. That’s part of what makes them so rare. And though AI is great at aggregating averages, it’s not, as of yet, particularly good at discerning the special.

Stay tuned for Part 3: Grammar.

Currently reading: Just finished My Friends, the new Fredrik Backman book. Reading a novel in translation is so intriguing. Like, what’s changed? What’s the same? If you read Swedish, please give me the full report.

Non-urgent thought of the week: Wondering lately what it means to use brand names in fiction writing. Using them feels like free marketing for companies I don’t necessarily endorse, but eschewing them makes the worldbuilding less accessible. Pls weigh in <3

If you liked this, consider sharing it with your favorite person. If you hated it, consider sharing it with your least favorite person.