SPEAKER_00: 0:00

AI is disrupting not just the writing industry, but every industry. And we all have to adapt. Now, what is happening is that we are seeing a lot of quote unquote, for lack of a better word, maybe gatekeepers that haven't figured out yet what their AI strategy is or how to live in this new world, saying things like, oh, you know, you have to disclose everything, you have to disclose everything. You don't, if you submit your novel and you query your novel and you used AI for feedback and you used AI to structure your outline, you do not have to disclose that to any agent. You do not.

SPEAKER_01: 0:40

Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo, and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming. So each week I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable, and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. In today's episode, we're tackling a topic that's stirring up a lot of strong emotions in the writing community right now, and that is AI and creative writing. If you've ever wondered whether AI is here to replace you as a novelist or whether using it means you'll lose your copyright or your voice, this episode is going to bring you so much clarity. My guest today is Anna Del Valle, and she is an award-winning novelist, a technologist who's become quite a recognized authority on using AI to write fiction. She's the host of the Novelist Studio podcast and YouTube channel, and she's the founder of the AI Creative Writing Academy. So, in other words, when it comes to using AI for creative writing, Anna knows what she's talking about. And in this episode, Anna breaks down the crucial difference between AI assist and AI generation, as well as why that distinction matters for your copyright, your voice, and your creative process. We also talk about the fears writers have around AI stealing their ideas, the truth behind those scary headlines about lawsuits, and how to use AI as a brainstorming and structuring partner without letting it take over your novel. So whether you're AI curious or AI cautious, this conversation will give you the facts you need to make informed decisions about using AI in your writing process. So, with all of that being said, let's dive right into my conversation with Anna Del Valle. Hi, Anna, welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. Hey, Savannah, I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to talk to you. We're going to talk about AI. And I wanted to have you on the podcast because you're the expert in this topic. And if we're honest, there is a lot of fear around AI, and it's a very hot topic right now. So I'd love for you to kind of just tell people what do you do? What are you all about? How did you get drawn to AI and just take us into it?

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

Yeah, for sure. So the way that I got drawn to, well, AI is that, you know, I worked in tech for many years, developing software solutions to take to market for Fortune 500 companies. So I've been in the tech space for a really long time. And then, of course, like many other aspiring writers, I have my creative writing degree and I wrote books and I won awards. So I was doing that whole thing, moonlighting my entire writing career while I was working in tech. And then lo and behold, November 30th of 2022, here comes ChatGPT. And it's like my two great passions met.

SPEAKER_01: 3:29

Yeah, that's amazing. And so now you've built a whole business around it and you help writers use AI. So what does that actually look like?

SPEAKER_00: 3:38

Talk us through that. So I think that the important distinction to make is that AI assist is the sweet spot, and that is where we want to be as creative writers. And that is what is approved by the Authors Guild Guidance and also by the US copyright law, which means that you can do a lot of brainstorming, structuring with AI, but never letting the AI write the novel for you. That's not what it's for. It's a horrible writer anyway. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 4:09

Yes. And if anyone out there explores it, you'll see that pretty quick. It's not that great at writing stuff. And, you know, that type of junk we'll just say is gonna flood the market. And maybe it already has, you can tell us. But yeah, I know a lot of writers out there, they're immediately worried like, is AI here to replace me as a creative writer? Is this the future of books? Talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 4:30

Yeah, let me just say, like, one of my favorite things to say, and I will preface this for those of you listening and you're anti-AI. And the reason why you may be anti-AI is because you immediately think, oh, AI means that somebody else is going to write the book for me. Okay, so that's not what we're talking about here. AI can be very useful. And what I'm super excited about AI is because we are entering the new golden era of literature. There is no question. And why do I say that, Savannah? Because AI can let you structure novels and plan novels in a way that we were not able to do before. And what's going to happen is it's going to make good writers great. And great writers are going to redefine literature and what is possible in storytelling with these tools because now we have the ability to very quickly look at things from many angles.

unknown: 5:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:32

And you compare it a lot to how the internet kind of landed and then life changed. And now AI's landed and life has changed. And I think if we can be open about it and get past the fears we have and the worries, or just educate ourselves on why some of those things aren't true, it can become a really big tool in our toolbox.

SPEAKER_00: 5:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:50

And you keep using the term AI assist. So can you define that for writers who might not know what that means?

SPEAKER_00: 5:56

Yes. So AI assist is when you use AI to help you in the entire life cycle of novel writing. So you can use AI to assist you in your story positioning and story development ideas, right? To see how well the story is fleshed out, where it would fall in the market. You can use AI to help you structure a very complex novel. Say that you have a dual timeline and you have five subplots and four different point of views that you want to tell the story in. Now you can use AI to really help you assist in building the structure. And then you can even use AI as a developmental editor that will tell you, hey, you know, this is working, this is not working. Here's some suggestions, right? So that is true AI assist. AI is never writing for you.

SPEAKER_01: 6:47

Yeah. And one of the things you talk about in the ebook that we're going to mention a little bit later, which I just loved, you said no one's really asking writers to disclose when they use ghostwriters, when a publisher's in-house editor helps shape things, when there's transcription software, you know, helping us do things. I think that is such an interesting point. So can you just talk about that a little bit in relation to AI assist?

SPEAKER_00: 7:10

Yes, absolutely. I love this question. Now, here is where we have agency. Now, the fact of the matter is that AI is disrupting not just the writing industry, but every industry. And we all have to adapt. Now, what is happening is that we are seeing a lot of quote unquote, for lack of a better word, maybe gatekeepers that haven't figured out yet what their AI strategy is or how to live in this new world, saying things like, oh, you know, you have to disclose everything, you have to disclose everything. You don't, if you submit your novel and you query your novel and you used AI for feedback and you used AI to structure your outline, you do not have to disclose that to any agent. You do not. Okay. The reason why a lot of folks also say, hey, you need to disclose it if you're going to write with AI because AI output is not copyrightable. So of course an agent doesn't want to pick up your novel if they know that it's AI generated, it's not yours. Right. So they don't want to be in court after it becomes a big Netflix drama, right?

SPEAKER_01: 8:22

Yeah. And I love this distinction. And I think it's worth repeating because you're saying on one hand, AI assist is helping in the creation of it. It's not AI generation, which is the actual like writing and spitting out this full novel. So can you just talk about that a little more? Because I know there are writers that are listening that are like, I've never heard it talked about this way.

SPEAKER_00: 8:41

So let me tell you what that looks like. What does it look like when you are using ChatGPT to write your book? Okay. It looks like this. Hey, I'm I'm thinking about writing a novel, and I'm thinking it's going to be sci-fi, and I'm thinking that there's going to be this boy, and I'm thinking this and that and the other. And then ChatGPT goes, Oh, that sounds great. Okay, so what do you want me to do next? Okay, well, that now I want you to do this, and now I want you to do that. That's not you, that's ChatGPT writing the novel. Okay. You're not putting any thought to structure, you're not putting any thought into your characters, you're not putting any thought into your subplots, you are not ideating with ChatGPT for any of those key things, right? As writers, we have to make all those technical decisions before we start writing. And now you are just saying yes, please. And now would you like me to write chapter one for you? Yes, can you please do that? Oh, you know what? I didn't like that the boy did that. Can you change that? ChatGPT is writing the book for you. And it's funny because, you know, I've had people like reach out to me and say, Hey, how do I get my book out of ChatGPT? Listen, if your book is inside of ChatGPT, ChatGPT wrote your book.

SPEAKER_01: 9:47

Yeah. Okay, I love that. So flip us around and give us kind of the similar example, but what does it mean to be assisted by AI?

SPEAKER_00: 9:55

Yeah, assisted by AI is you are familiar with the story Bible concept where you have to make all the choices on what is my story about? What's this, you know, the story that I'm trying to tell? So the way that I look at AI assist is it would look like this. So I'm gonna fill out my story Bible and I'm in my Word document, and I'm like, okay, my story, I have an idea, it's gonna be like this. I'm thinking that my log line elevator pitch might be this. I'm thinking that these are my characters, and you know, I want this to happen and I want this to happen. And then you go to ChatGPT and say, hey, I have this idea, like, and I'm building out my story Bible. What do you think of these subplots? How can I strengthen them? What do you think of this main plot? Do you think that there's enough conflict, right? And you're gonna get an amazing amount of insights that you can then take into your story Bible. Okay. Then you can use that great story Bible to build a great outline with Chat GPT. Now you still have to go and sit down and write the book and follow that outline. Okay. It's not gonna write it for you. So that's a big difference.

SPEAKER_01: 11:03

Yeah, okay. I love that. And I think that explanation is gonna help make it so clear because one feels very human-led with AI assists, like you're exactly like you're saying. And the other one is kind of human brain dumps. And then AI is like, okay, do you want me to make this into a book for you? Because what are you saying, you know? So I think that's really cool. And it does take a little bit of maybe an understanding of how the craft elements work together or guidance on how to think about these craft elements. Would you say that's true? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 11:30

That's why good writers are gonna get great and great writers are gonna redefine what's possible.

SPEAKER_01: 11:35

Yep, I think that's so cool. Okay, so we've covered what AI Assist actually looks like and how it's different from AI generation, but I know a lot of writers are still worried about putting their ideas into Chat GPT in the first place. So, can you talk about that fear a little bit and answer the common question of is AI going to steal my work?

SPEAKER_00: 11:55

No, it's not 1999. Okay. Chat GPT is not a data repository that is, you know, waiting in the wings to fax your plot to the cloud. That is not what's gonna happen. So rest assured that this is a very, very sophisticated technology that works on mathematical patterns. It doesn't remember anything word for word.

SPEAKER_01: 12:19

In your ebook, you have a great example of this because you said it's not like it has Jane Austen's words just kind of waiting in the wings to plug into your romance.

SPEAKER_00: 12:27

Oh, right, right. So that's the reverse fear. The reverse fear is if I ideate with ChatGPT, is it gonna give me somebody else's idea? No.

SPEAKER_01: 12:35

Yeah, or give mine to other people or whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 12:38

Yes.

unknown: 12:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 12:38

Yeah, and I think a lot of people worry about this because they hear about these lawsuits and things. And you explained this in your ebook as well, which again we will link to in the show notes. But can you talk about maybe like what we're getting wrong about these lawsuits we hear about and what the truth is?

SPEAKER_00: 12:52

Oh, yes, the original sin. This is what I call this. And uh, I still have a lot of comments that people leave me on my YouTube, like, I would never use AI because they trained on author's work. Okay, well, let's unpack what really happened. This was a technology that was new on the scene, and they did train it to be able to use natural language, they trained it on books, and that actually falls under the law of fair use. Like these companies actually were okay to do that. They were okay because it was for training and for learning. You can use copyrighted works to do that. Now, what happened, unfortunately, is that you know, these companies are actually making a ton of revenue, part two after the training, right? They're making, I mean, chat GPT has been around for three years and they're expected to bring in$13 billion in revenue. They have 800 weekly active users. That's just Chat GPT, right? So now it's like, okay, was it really fair use that they trained on author's work? Okay, so now they cross the line. And they recognize that, and things are being put in place, and the horse is out of the barn. You know, now we have new policies. Let the original sin go and take advantage of this technology.

SPEAKER_01: 14:13

Yeah, and I love kind of how you're explaining this because there's so much that we can let our fears run away with when we don't dig deeper and say, like, what actually happened? So I love that you go into this. Specifically in your in your ebook, you've unpacked it quite a bit, which is really cool. You've also explained and quoted literally what are the US copyright laws and things like that. Do you want to walk us through a quick overview of copyright laws and how AI factors into that?

SPEAKER_00: 14:38

Yes. And I will say there are two ways that the copyright law states that this is your work if you use AI. I like one approach better than the other, and I will explain why. So, one of the ways that you will be in alignment with a copyright law is if you use AI the way that I have explained it so far, which is hey, I'm gonna use it for outlining, I'm gonna use it for feedback, I'm gonna use it for structure, I'm gonna use it to flesh out my story Bible, right? Like these are all AI assist, and then you have to go and write the book, okay? These all fall into the AI assist copyright law, you're good. Okay. The other thing that the copyright law says is you can draft a novel, like have a first rough draft with Chat GPT, but then you have to heavily edit the novel, okay? And that is so hard to prove how much you have edited. And I have use cases, real use cases, where writers reach out to me and then they say, Hey, I edited, but now I don't remember what I edited and what ChatGPT edited, and it just gets real murky real fast. And I do not like that approach. And the other thing I don't like that approach is because it's gonna seemingly look like ChatGPT is doing a really good job if you write that draft. But the fact of the matter is that these models are trained on literary output and they kind of know how to put together a literary draft for a piece of literary work. What does that mean? It means that you're gonna find outlandish metaphors that sound really funny and you're gonna be like, oh my God, this is so good. I'm gonna keep it. Or you'll find that it does setting in a certain pattern, or it does character actions in a certain pattern. And that is homogenized output for literature, and that is what it's trained on. So I am not a fan of that second way of like, oh, you just have to like change 80% of the draft. First of all, you're gonna lose track. Second of all, you're probably gonna keep a lot of the stuff and you're still gonna be in murky waters.

SPEAKER_01: 16:49

Yeah. And, you know, it's funny because I relate this back to when I'm working with someone as an editor or a coach, there are times where they don't know kind of what I mean by something. So I end up taking a paragraph and I say, here's what you could do, you know? And then sometimes it's the same thing where they're like, well, now I don't want to change it because it sounds good. Or they end up changing it and it's like the whole thing does get rewritten in their voice, and then they're basically rewriting it anyway, which is great, right? And I think what you're saying with the AI kind of generated draft is that you're either gonna swing kind of one way or the other, right? You're gonna be the one that really rewrites it and follows the rules and replaces everything in your voice with your brain, or you're gonna be the one that leans on the side of like, this sounds good. I don't know if I should mess with it.

SPEAKER_00: 17:32

Yeah, and it's really hard to keep track. And, you know, Savannah, I like to say this like anywhere I'm in a podcast or, you know, in a conference, I just want to say it and scream it from the rooftops. The writer's block is a thing of the past. Now, what we're experiencing to your point, like, what did I change? It's writer's flood. There is so much output. And it's like, how do you keep track? You know, what did I change? Is this really mine? You know, you want to avoid writer's flood.

SPEAKER_01: 18:00

Well, and I think that takes you farther away from what you're doing when you set out to write a book anyway, right? We want to be creative. We want to be the ones that are expressing ourselves. And when we just rely on all the outputs, we're not getting what we want. And that's not gonna feel good.

SPEAKER_00: 18:13

Yeah, exactly. And being an artist, being a writer is a very spiritual and self-connected process. It is a form of meditation. It is when we connect to ourselves and we're actually writing out our ideas. I mean, you cannot replace voice. And I recently just did a podcast or YouTube video where I compared generative AI output with real great voices like Jan Began or Mona Awad. And it's like you pick up these books, and these writers have these beautiful voices, and you're pulled right in, you're never gonna get that with AI generated novel. That's why I called that that show Death for AI or the AI generated novel, because you know, fast forward, everybody was so impressed. Oh, this thing can write, this thing can write. Fast forward three years, yeah, everybody's book sounds the same, and this is what you're never going to achieve, right? So that's correct. That what you said right now, like the writing process is really a special thing to the writer that connects us to something greater than ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: 19:17

Yeah. And on podcasts, you've talked about this before where AI is a tool, right? And just like any other industry might use a tool to succeed, you're encouraging writers to use AI in an appropriate way. And I think that is just so special. Do you have anything to add on that?

SPEAKER_00: 19:31

No, I I mean, I think that's right on. And I will say something funny. I had somebody leave me a comment saying, you know, thank you for your honesty, but I will never read anything written by you. And then I replied to her, well, I guess you're just going to have to stop reading altogether, because if you think that, you know, the big five are they're not already adopting AI and their workflows to strengthen manuscripts or whatever, you know, I don't know what to tell you.

SPEAKER_01: 19:57

So Yeah, that's an interesting point. I feel like that is such a can of worms, right? Because for business reasons, they're probably using AI, but also for like, I don't know, drafting back cover copy or marketing copy and things like that, right?

SPEAKER_00: 20:08

No, I think even further, I think that they're actually adopting editing AI workflows, you know, because if I'm an editor and I'm gonna use an AI tool, it's gonna help my expertise be even more broader.

SPEAKER_01: 20:21

Why wouldn't I? Right. And then, you know, it's funny because then you think about the trickle down effect if let's pretend everyone's using it responsibly. That just means the editor's more efficient, we can publish more books, and everybody kind of wins, right?

SPEAKER_00: 20:33

Everybody wins. Everybody wins. And at the end of the day, it's for the reader. The reader is the end customer. Yeah. And they should have the best product and the best reading experience ever.

SPEAKER_01: 20:44

Yes. Okay, so let's talk about traditional publishing because another question I get asked a lot is well, I want to query agents, and don't I have to disclose this, or are they even going to look at my book if I used the funniest one? Was like, if I used AI to brainstorm a character's name, are they gonna know? Talk about that. They're not gonna know.

SPEAKER_00: 21:02

Okay, and you don't have to tell them. Just like you, you wouldn't tell them if you use Griffner or if you use Grammarly or if you use Plotter, if you use Autocrate, you don't have to tell them. What they don't want is what I said earlier. If you now you have to have agency here as a person, right? And be honest. I mean, if you wrote your book with AI and it's AI generated, first of all, there's AI generation tool detectors, which are really good because they detect that literature pattern that I was talking on about earlier. Okay. So if you really just used it the way that I explained as AI assist, no, guess what? Fast forward three years from now, everybody's gonna be doing it. No, you don't need to disclose it.

SPEAKER_01: 21:40

Yeah. And I would encourage everyone who's open minded who wants to try this, download the ebook that we're gonna include with today's episode because you have literally cited rules and things for everyone who's still worried about it. So Anna's got your back with that. But the other thing, this is a comment I get all the time whenever I talk about I Did an episode about AI for book marketing and I got a ton of comments about how AI is destroying the environment. And I know this is a very big and valid concern, but I've heard you talk about this before where you say the solution isn't to just like pretend it doesn't exist and everybody stop using it because it's not going away. So talk about this a little. Like, what should we do? How should we think about this?

SPEAKER_00: 22:22

Oh, yes, the environmental concern. I get that, but that's another headline that we need to unpack, right? Like, so what is what does that really mean? So, what it means is that large language models like Chat GPT, Grok, Claude, they use an enormous amount of computing power, right? Which is, hey, now we need a bunch of data centers. And this is uh the environmental concern, right? But guess what? The world runs on data centers. Like anything that's on the internet, it's on the cloud and is on a data center. It's not just uh AI, okay? It's just that there is a concern that this is some of the most powerful and fastest growing technology that we have, right? But like with anything, these models are getting more and more efficient with their computing power. For example, Deep Seek, which came out, you know, I think it was from China that it came out just like earlier in the year. It's basically their version of ChatGPT. And they use like a tiny fraction of computing power than Chat GPT does. So already models are starting to get more and more efficient. So this is something that, you know, we have to keep in mind.

SPEAKER_01: 23:37

Yeah. And that makes so much sense. It's easy for us to discredit or discount things like the cloud and all these things we use every day. And of course, we want to do something about it. Of course, we don't want to destroy the environment. But what are the things we can do? And, you know, maybe for someone that is not using AI, and that's okay. But for those of us who want to use AI, like let's get creative with what else we can do to, you know, save the environment and be a good environmental citizen and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00: 24:03

That's a great point, Savannah. There's a lot, a lot of things that we can do for the environment that, you know, independent of using Chat GPT. And these models are just getting more and more efficient.

SPEAKER_01: 24:14

So well, Anna, I know we've barely scratched the surface today. So I'm going to link to your podcast. I'm going to link to the ebook where you talk about using AI. And so if anyone listening wants to follow the developments of how AI is changing, how they can use AI, and they don't want to read through a ton of tech jargon, then I really recommend going and checking out what Anna has because she talks about all this in a really straightforward way. So we will link to all that stuff in the show notes. But are there any parting words of wisdom about AI or using AI in creative writing that you want to leave listeners with, Anna?

SPEAKER_00: 24:48

Yes. If you are AI curious, then here's the thing that I will tell you. Do not use the free version of Chat GPT. Okay. Invest in this platform. It is$20 a month. It is the best decision that you will make. This platform is the new evolution of the internet, and it's going to make you smarter in every area of your life. Start experimenting with it, really learning and investing your time in learning this platform. It's a great, great platform to invest your time.

SPEAKER_01: 25:23

Okay. Well, like I said, Anna, we're going to link to all your stuff. But is there one place you would want to direct people after this?

SPEAKER_00: 25:29

Yeah, well, definitely grab the ebook and check that out. And if you want to learn more, you can go to thenovelistudio.com and you can check me out and sign up to my YouTube because I drop an episode every week. And stay abreast. It's very important that this is a very rapid changing technology. And I will say this for you guys that are sitting on the sidelines. Six months ago, there was still a ton of people who didn't even know what ChatGPT was. And you can't go anywhere today. Everybody knows what Chat GPT is.

SPEAKER_01: 26:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:02

Okay. So it's moving that fast. So don't wait in the sidelines and don't be shy.

SPEAKER_01: 26:07

Well, thank you so much, Anna. This has been a great conversation. And I feel like we could talk about this for five hours. So maybe we'll have you back someday. But thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking to you about this. Awesome. Thanks for having me, Savannah. All right. So that's it for this episode of the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. Head over to Savannah Gilbo.com forward slash podcast for the complete show notes, including the resources I mentioned today, as well as bonus materials to help you implement what you've learned. And if you're ready to get more personalized guidance for your specific writing stage, whether you're just starting out, stuck somewhere in the middle of a draft, drowning in revisions, or getting ready to publish, take my free 30-second quiz at savannaGilbo.com forward slash quiz. You'll get a customized podcast playlist that'll meet you right where you're at and help you get to your next big milestone. Last but not least, make sure to follow this podcast in your podcast player of choice because I'll be back next week with another episode full of actionable tips, tools, and strategies to help you become a better writer. Until then, happy writing.