Should Authors Use AI in Their Writing?

This is a very contentious topic. Debates rage on author forums about whether writers should use AI, particularly in its most sophisticated forms. These conversations get so heated that I’ve seen people thrown off discussion groups for being outrageously rude and saying that anybody who uses AI is not a real writer. That, of course, is nonsense.

Here are the important questions: first, will it help your writing, or will it change your voice? Second, is it ethical to use artificial intelligence in writing, particularly if you don’t disclose that fact to others? Third, should you tell people that you wrote part of your book or article with AI?

AI does change the writer’s voice, but that’s often why writers use it in the first place. They want something that sounds better than what they’ve written, and they want it to be spelled and punctuated perfectly. But if you write large portions of a book using ChatGPT or Grok, will you own that book? Amazon is facing several lawsuits from authors whose material it deemed largely AI-generated and removed from its platform. If you have written your book using a substantial amount of AI, you may not be able to copyright it, or the copyright can be violated, and the book could end up in the public domain.

What should we do? You’ll notice that I addressed whether AI would help you with writing and copyright issues, but I didn’t talk about ethics. I think that’s an individual matter. We all have to decide for ourselves when and if it is ethical to use a bot to write for us. Personally, I use various AI tools, mainly for grammar, syntax, and synonyms, and occasionally to fact-check. However, AI is not 100% accurate. It can be wrong about all kinds of things.

If you are publishing on Amazon, you need to disclose to them whether you use AI. If you are in college or university and writing essays, check school policies so you don’t get a failing grade for what you thought was a stupendous paper. Otherwise, this is a personal matter that we all have to decide for ourselves. When and how you use AI as a writer is your business.

 

Literally

 Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you can remove this word, and your writing will be much cleaner and more accurate without it. Either it’s redundant, or it’s used incorrectly.

For example, “Monica literally stayed out until 3 AM.” How different is that from saying, “Monica stayed out until 3 AM”? The word literally adds nothing to the sentence. If you want to emphasize how late Monica stayed out, you could say, "Monica actually stayed out until 3 AM" or add an exclamation mark. In this context, "literally" is used correctly, but it doesn’t add anything to the prose.

However, more often than not, the term is used incorrectly. It’s one of my pet peeves and makes me want to pull all my hair out when I see a sentence written in the first person where our protagonist says, “I literally died.” Hmm, I don’t think so. Unless you’re making that statement from the Upside Down or communicating with us through a Ouija board and you are in the realm of the dead, you did not literally die because literally means actually. You could say that you virtually died, i.e., it felt like it. That would be good. Not good for you, but it’s grammatically correct.

So, be on the lookout for the term “literally” in your writing. If it’s your vocabulary, it could easily slip into your manuscript or report and confuse readers.

 

 

 

Forgive Me But I Grew up in New Jersey!

    

Today’s Writing Tip is about using a gerund with a possessive pronoun. I find this rule very confusing and almost always get it wrong, particularly when I’m talking. Writing is a slightly different story, but at least five times out of ten, I’m going to miss this one.

Here are some sample sentences. This is what many of my authors are likely to write, and this is certainly how I grew up talking in New Jersey. I didn’t even realize this was a problem until I started finding it in print everywhere in the books I was reading. Here is what you don’t want to write:

1.       Why would me being there cheer her up?

2.       Sarah was disturbed by him falling asleep during the press conference.

3.       If you don’t mind me asking…

4.       I appreciate you taking my call.

 

The sentences above are all incorrect. Here’s how they should be written:

1.      Why would my being there cheer her up?

2.       Sarah was disturbed by his falling asleep during the press conference.

3.       If you don’t mind my asking…

4.       I appreciate your taking my call.

The trick I have learned to identify when I’m likely to get this wrong is to look for words that end in ING. If we take the first sentence, “Why would me being there cheer her up?”  we have to remember that me is not the focus. My being there is the focus. My being asked is a gerund, a term that is derived from a verb, but it functions as a noun, so it should be preceded by a possessive adjective.

For the most part, I wouldn’t worry about this at all in conversation, but it’s important to try to get it right in writing. And you can take great liberties with this in dialogue. If your character wouldn’t talk this formally, you can write the dialogue exactly the way he or she would talk.

Hidden Redundancies

When we’re writing, we’re in creative mode. There are some things we just aren’t aware of, which is why we have beta readers, a professional proofreader, or a copy editor review our material when we‘re finished. One thing you want to look for in our writing is redundant terms. Here are some examples:

10 AM in the morning: 10 AM says it all, folks, unless there is a parallel universe where we have 10 AM in the evening. I’ve yet to go there.

The reason why: The reason is good enough. You don’t need the word why.

The end result: The result is sufficient. No need for “and” or “final.” As opposed to what? The semifinal result? The final, final, final result? Something that occurred after the end result? No, you are good with, “The result was great.”

My past experience: All experience has taken place in the past. I don’t even like the term “lived experience,” although I recognize it has ideological connotations and is frequently used for emphasis. But if you’re writing generally, without emphasis, you can simply say, “my experience.”

Close proximity: Merriam-Webster dictionary defines proximity as closeness. So, you are saying the same thing twice. You could easily say, “He lived in proximity to the grocery store.” Most people clarify with close, but it’s really unnecessary.

 

 

It Was a Little Bit Heartbreaking

 I always cringe when I see a sentence like that: “I was slightly devastated. It was sort of horrible. It was a little bit heartbreaking.” No, no, no.

As writers, one of our main goals is to be clear. Those are confusing sentences. Let’s take the subject title about heartbreaking. If something is truly heartbreaking, you feel emotionally ruined. Usually, we are talking about a death or a serious loss when we talk about something heartbreaking. But by putting the phrase “a little bit” in front of heartbreaking, we diminish it completely. The reader has no idea what you are saying. If you were a little bit heartbroken, does that mean that you were simply sad for a couple of hours? Or were you indeed devastated? If that was the case, just say devastated. You don’t need a phrase before it that will diminish its meaning.

Likewise, if you only felt a bit sad, there’s no reason to use a strong term like devastating, heartbreaking, or horrible. Just say sad. “I felt sad. I felt upset.” You can say, “I felt a bit upset,” but once again, be careful using diminutives. Be clear. The solution to this confusion is to write those sentences in one of two ways, depending on what you’re trying to say:

“I was devastated” or “I was sad.” It’s an easy fix.

This also happens with terms like sort out and kind of. They seem to be very popular now on public radio, NPR, or even in progressive circles. It’s the same thing if you say, “I was kind of a wreck.” No, either you were a wreck, or you were slightly off balance. Choose one, and make sure that your writing clearly expresses the emotion that you want to convey.

I Had Got

 

I know you’re going to read that title and say, no way. That can’t be

correct, BUT it is perfectly correct grammatically if you’re British. 

In North America, we say, “ I got” or “I had gotten,” but in the UK, they may

say, “I had got,” and it’s perfectly right. No need to change it.

What else do the British do differently in terms of grammar or expressions?

One, they used a plural verb for a collective noun, e.g., “the team are hungry,” whereas in North America we prefer “the team is hungry.”

Two, they spell Mr. and Mrs. and Dr. without the periods, e.g., Mr, Mrs, Dr are all correctly spelled in British English.

Three, they often use the present perfect tense with the auxiliary verb to have. An example of this would be "I have just returned from the store," whereas your average North American will say, “I just returned from the store.”

Four, they might use prepositions differently. A North American could say “on the weekend,” but the Brit might say “at the weekend.”

Five, they will use a term like “I was wanting” instead of “I wanted.” I see this a lot in literature from India as well because I love reading Indian fiction.

So if you see these constructions, they’re not wrong if the author is British.

Tips for Canadian Writers

I was born to Canadian parents and retained Canadian citizenship even though I grew up in New Jersey (New Joisey!) and lived there for 30 years. My parents took us back and forth to Canada at least once a year, and both my brother and I attended graduate school there.

I always knew that there was a distinction between US spelling, Canadian spelling, and the spelling used in the UK and Australia. What I didn't realize until I became an editor was how Americans generally write using US spelling. They are highly unlikely to spell something the way the British do or the Canadians. But the opposite is true for the typical Canadian writer, regardless of how clever or well-written he or she is. That person is most likely to mix Canadian and US spelling together in their manuscripts, short stories, or poetry.

If you are Canadian, be aware of this. Before we delve into common mistakes Canadian writers make, let’s begin by outlining the complex differences between these regional spelling variations.

American spelling: honor, favor, neighbor, center, theater, meter, practice, fantasize, license, defense, analyze, agonize, capitalize, counselor, gray, tire, program, inquire, advisor, cozy 

Canadian spelling:  honour, favour, neighbour, centre, metre, theatre, practise (as a verb), practice (as a noun), licence, defence, analyze, agonize, capitalize, counsellor (notice the two LL’s), grey, tire (i.e., for the car), program, inquire and enquire are acceptable, adviser, cozy (cosy is acceptable but cozy is preferred)

British spelling: honour, favour, neighbour, centre, metre, theatre, practise (as a verb), practice (as a noun). You will note that it is almost identical to Canadian, except for words like “fantasize,” which the British will spell with “ise.” That is, analyse, fantasise, agonise, capitalise, counsellor, AND programme (for a TV show), program (for computer-related stuff), grey, tyre, adviser, cosy

Australian spelling: honour, favour, neighbour, centre, metre, theatre, like Canadians and the British. However, practice (as a verb and a noun), license (the noun), licence (the verb ), defense, fantasize, agonize, capitalize, program, and inquire like the Americans. More like British: counsellor, grey, tyre, adviser, cosy

Now, here's the deal with Canadian writers. They are pretty likely to have a mixture of all three spellings. Usually, they will remember to put the U in neighbor or honor, but they are pretty likely to forget that there are two ways to spell practice, and they often use the British form for fantasise instead of fantasize, which is correct for Canadian English.

Americans will never spell honor with a U. It wouldn’t occur to them. Canadians read a great deal of text in US English. They see the words they learned in school spelled differently in books or online, and this can make them forget traditional Canadian spelling. So, if this is you, notice which words tend to be a problem for you, and when you are finished writing your essay, short story, or manuscript, do a keyword search to see if any US or British terms pop up by accident. Set your spell check to Canadian English as the default, but double-check it. Don’t forget that if the word is a proper noun like the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, even if you’re using British, Canadian, or Australian spelling, you must spell that proper noun the way the Americans do with the “ER.”

There is a fantastic software program called PerfectIt, which checks for inconsistencies in documents as large as 150,000 words. I use it routinely, but you can also do this manually just fine.