Generative AI has a Long Way to Go
AI is all the buzz. Nearly everyone I talk to asks me the same question:
“How has AI affected your business?”
While it’s easy to see how someone who writes copy, content, and books could be defeated by generative AI’s ability to “take our jobs,” it hasn’t actually just put us out of business instantly. In fact, if anything, it’s streamlined the business and made copywriting, blogging, and ghostwriting even easier.
How Has AI Affected Your Business?
Before we get into that, I’ll answer the question above, posited by just about everyone I talk to about what I do, and the follow-up question.
AI has made my job easier. Those who think they can solely rely on AI aren’t the people who desire original, emotion-packed, well-researched work. They are looking for an easy way to pump out a ton of content, and they wouldn’t dream of paying someone when “ChatGPT can do it for free.”
After I explain that AI has weeded out the bad clients for me, people often ask, “Well, do you use AI in your writing?” And I say, “I certainly do.” I’ve seen the flat and stale work that AI pumps out, but I also know it has far better methods of compiling ideas than I do. So, in broad strokes, I tell them that if something I wrote doesn’t feel like it’s hitting quite hard enough, I’ll drop it into an AI program and ask it to “Make this 10% more exciting” or “Re-write this and make it more inspirational” or “Change this up so it’s edgier.” Then, I use it like a thesaurus that checks the entire document at once instead of word-for-word.
There's a Write and a Rong Way to Use AI Writing
AI has its place. It can be used effectively and strategically to enhance written copy. But it shouldn’t be used as a replacement to do the actual writing. And no, I don’t think it’s plagiarism or stealing someone else’s work. If you watched the movie The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) says, “I didn’t use any of their code, I promise. I didn’t use anything! Look, a guy who builds a nice chair doesn’t owe money to everyone who ever has built a chair, okay?” It’s the same concept – just because something looks similar, expresses a similar thought, or was even modeled after the same thing doesn’t mean it’s the same thing. After all, research combines other ideas and puts them all together in your own words.
Now that I’ve opened that can of worms, let’s check out how you can properly use AI in your writing.
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Research: There’s a whole lot of information out there, and while Google is a great way to look stuff up, you have to have exactly the right prompts to get the right information. Many AI programs can help bypass the slog and find the right research for you. Keep in mind that many of these programs do pull from the internet, and the internet can *gasp* be wrong at times.
Thesaurus: After writing, there are times when I don’t think something sounds quite right. I know there are more powerful words that can be used, but I’m not sure which one in a sentence or paragraph should be swapped out. Dropping that into an AI program, I merely ask, “How can I make this sound better?” and the AI acts as a thesaurus for the entire paragraph instead of going through word-by-word and looking each one up.
Spin: When you write a lot of blogs, you’re bound to repeat topics on occasion. Grab the entire blog, drop it into an AI program, and say, “Spin this into something new.” Of course, it will spit out flat and emotionless garbage, so you’ll have to re-write it. But the ideation part is done.
Ideas: AI is fantastic at quickly rounding up many topics and ideas. When blogging, it’s great to simply plug in a prompt like, “Provide me 10 topics for a chiropractor’s blog.” I can then sort through the stupid ones, pick out decent ones, and then do my own research to write them.
Review and Edit: I use Grammarly a lot. It helps spot errors that I didn’t even know were there. Sometimes, I may write, “It helps spot errors I didn’t even no were there.” And if I’m writing quickly, I don’t even notice the error. Grammarly tells me to hold up and fix it. Of course, it’s often wrong about commas.
What Shouldn't You Do with AI Writing?
AI is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used properly or incorrectly. Admit it. Who has picked up a wrench and used it as a hammer? Who has used a butter knife as a flathead screwdriver? It works, but it doesn’t really get the job done the right way.
So, what’s the wrong way to use AI when writing?
It’s to use AI to do the writing for you. As it is, this tool just isn’t good at slinging sentences and really grabbing the emotion behind what’s being written. In fact, it’s really not good at putting subtle nuances in, like saying “The Write and Rong Way to Use AI,” – which is a brilliant joke, far too complex for a computer program to comprehend.
If you want AI to do the writing for you, you end up with something that just sounds bad. The wrench will pound in the nail, but it won’t look good. The AI will write what you want, but it won’t read well. Most people will be able to recognize that something sounds off; those who have used a lot of AI will recognize within a few sentences that a program wrote it.
How Do I, as a Ghostwriter, use AI?
My clients seek me out for three areas of writing: ghostwriting books, copywriting, and blogging/newsletters.
When I’m writing books, very little is done with AI. Only the occasional “Hey ChatGPT, give me a few ideas on how to say this better!” will flow through the process. I even leave the editing up to humans because when faced with slogging through 50,000 words dumped into Grammarly, I believe I would rather trim my toenails with an angle grinder.
When I’m copywriting, I use AI a little bit more. I get the ideas down, the concepts that need to flow through the words, and then I ask AI to spice it up a little. But the prompts are what matter here. If I’m writing for an energy drink company, I tell ChatGPT to make it 50% more exciting or excitable. If I’m writing for a law firm, I ask ChatGPT to make it 50% more professional. No matter what, I tell ChatGPT to make it influential and write something that will encourage a reader to become a client. Then (and this is the most important part), I re-write it so it’s the right voice, has emotion, and isn’t something that a program spit out.
Blogging is similar to copywriting, but often, there is less re-writing and more idea generation. Once the idea is there, crafting something meaningful around it is actually the easy part. Newsletters are similar, but I’ll plug them in and say, “Hey, AI overlords, will this make a good newsletter? How can I make it even better?” Sometimes, I get good ideas; sometimes, AI gets snarky with me for calling them my overlords.
The bottom line: AI helps with writing. It doesn’t replace writing.