Thursday, January 08, 2026

A Writing Conundrum

A quote, variously attributed to John Casey, "unknown," and others:

Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing -- from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke.

So, if someone gave an AI a bunch of prompts (character names, plot elements, etc.) and told it to write a story, then rewrote the story, would AI or the rewriter be the author?

I assume that's already happening, by the way; I wouldn't be surprised if there are whole novels on Amazon that are largely AI-generated.

I haven't yet used AI to generate so much as a paragraph of fiction myself (when I use it, it's to get quick answers to questions, after which I check the sources/citations if I plan to use the information), but when I get back to trying to write fiction, I could see myself at least asking AI to generate paragraph-length stuff detailing particulars (e.g. "write a description of a burglar picking the lock on a residential door") and then using those particulars as a guide for the narrative.

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