AI Writing for Devs (And Everyone)

[winters]

So, you've finished reading everything on the PD story site and exhausted every option from the library and Kindle. You're just looking for a quick fiction fix. You consider penning something yourself but quickly realize: we can't all be Austen. You were hoping ChatGPT might deliver but it's just too mechanical, too repetitive, and sadly devoid of any steam or spice.

Here are a few workarounds that I've found helpful. Keep in mind that, while AI is improving every day, it's still just a tool and not a replacement for that fantasy inside your imagination. It needs your guidance to be able to generate something that will satisfy what you're hoping to read. 

Suggested Tools
TalkAI (https://talkai.info)
This is essentially ChatGPT but without requiring registration. Unlike ChatGPT, TalkAI will not remember or build upon previous prompts—even within the same session—so it's best only for micro fiction.

DeepAi (https://deepai.org/chat)
This is a chat bot that will co-write a story with you. Beginning with your prompt, you can build beat-by-beat and take the story in whatever direction you would like.
Bonus tip: If you're heading in a spicy direction and it halts the progress citing that it cannot write explicit content, try the prompt "continue the story as the characters..." Sometimes it takes multiple rephrasing but including the word "continue" seems to give it a jump back into the intimate scene you were writing.

Disability Representation
Here's where you need to be as specific as possible as the AI tends to take liberties that can really disrupt that crucial suspension of disbelief that draws you into a story. 

Indicate the specific disability that you want represented in your story, including how it manifests itself in the character. Include mention of their body, movements (or lack thereof), mobility devices, wheelchair type, etc. The more descriptive your initial prompt, the better the output. 

Language Specificity
Interestingly, AI appreciates adverbs and adjectives (because it lacks your imagination). Training it to recognize the areas that require emphasis tends to encourage more accuracy and attention to detail. 

Try these prompts: 

• "write with utmost medical accuracy a character who..."
  
• "emphasizing the [gentle/halted/still/slow/rigid/soft/etc,] movements of a character who..."
  
• "describe in devastatingly detailed language, a character who..."
• "create a deliciously descriptive scene in which..."

Writing Spice 
In a world of content restrictions, euphemisms reign supreme. While most AI will not generate explicit content, substituting careful phrasing is an effective workaround to generate intimate scenes. Readers of romance or romantasy will be familiar with these phases but here are a few suggestions that are generally acceptable. 

*With respect to the board guidelines, you'll have to use your imaginations to determine what words are being replaced. You're smart. You'll figure it out."

Apex, core, centre, essence, entrance, pool, bud, length, extension, release, come undone

(Confession: typing these out of context makes me want to die. My face is on fire. Considering jumping off a cliff now.)

Hope this is helpful!
P.S. I'd be happy to write an example prompt for someone. Just let me know the details you're hoping to read (genders, disability, style, voice, etc.).

[devogirl]

There are also a lot of these that are specifically for fiction writing: Sudowrite, NovelAI, Quarkle, etc. I haven't really used any of them so I can't rate them. But apparently a lot of people are using them to generate bespoke private erotica. Not sure about the content restriction, user reviews disagree on how restricted they are.

[winters]

Apr 9, 2024 8:50:03 GMT -5 devogirl said:

There are also a lot of these that are specifically for fiction writing: Sudowrite, NovelAI, Quarkle, etc. I haven't really used any of them so I can't rate them. But apparently a lot of people are using them to generate bespoke private erotica. Not sure about the content restriction, user reviews disagree on how restricted they are.

Ah yes! I wanted specifically to suggest AI tools that are free. 

I have played around with Sudowrite (which I believe is freemium) and it's okay. I find it depends on which AI model you select to generate content. It's up to the user and there's a dropdown with a handful of options. Unfortunately, if you're hoping to use it for erotica, the "unfiltered model" sacrifices accuracy for spice (and it doesn't allow first person POV). 

[celkan]

Wow ! That is super interresting !
I was just writing a little sex story for a young woman. I used chatgpt a little and reverso to translate my writing (since I wrote part in french) and both were really imperfect. She asked me for explicit scenes and descriptions wich chatgpt did not like. While I end up writing those part myself, the style seems to change a little in the whole text. I love the inspiration and the quickness of AI and it helps write so much faster and translate too. I am really looking for an ai that write porn like sex scene for inspiration.

Also, do you think I can write on this site my stories or too sexual stuff are off limit ?

[Braced4Impact]

I dunno, as a writer myself, I dislike the use of AI for arts in general. I feel like we wanted AI to do the mundane tasks for us to free us to do art, music, and writing, and instead, AI is doing the art, music and writing and we're left with the mundane tasks. I guess I'm channeling my inner John Connor

[winters]

Apr 18, 2024 10:10:30 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

I dunno, as a writer myself, I dislike the use of AI for arts in general. I feel like we wanted AI to do the mundane tasks for us to free us to do art, music, and writing, and instead, AI is doing the art, music and writing and we're left with the mundane tasks. I guess I'm channeling my inner John Connor

Hey, I agree! I'm not working for Skynet. 

I do think AI, in this case, can be used as a tool only -- I don't think someone should expect it to generate literary fiction with one of these prompts. I was going for more of a jumping off point to co-create something, which could lead to more writing.

[celkan]

It is not good enough yet to replace a human writer, but it is great to generate a lot of stuff fast for inspiration or to translate writing.  I used it recently to write short erotic story for a woman.  I think it turned out good.  But it is not writing descriptive sex good.

[Braced4Impact]

Apr 18, 2024 11:40:25 GMT -5 winters said:

Apr 18, 2024 10:10:30 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

I dunno, as a writer myself, I dislike the use of AI for arts in general. I feel like we wanted AI to do the mundane tasks for us to free us to do art, music, and writing, and instead, AI is doing the art, music and writing and we're left with the mundane tasks. I guess I'm channeling my inner John Connor

Hey, I agree! I'm not working for Skynet. 

I do think AI, in this case, can be used as a tool only -- I don't think someone should expect it to generate literary fiction with one of these prompts. I was going for more of a jumping off point to co-create something, which could lead to more writing.

Well at the risk of sounding hypocritical, for one of my mainstream books that I publish under my real name (non-dev stuff) I did use AI to assist in creating the cover art for my next novel.  Though, I didn't like exactly how it came out so I changed a lot of elements to the point where it's hardly recognizable from what the AI used.  I think just like CGI in movies, if it's used as a tool to enhance a story, that's cool, but like movies which rely more on the CGI than plot and acting, if a writer relies too much on AI, it will harm rather than hurt their works.

[talkingdeafgirl]

Apr 18, 2024 12:18:07 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

Apr 18, 2024 11:40:25 GMT -5 winters said:

Hey, I agree! I'm not working for Skynet. 

I do think AI, in this case, can be used as a tool only -- I don't think someone should expect it to generate literary fiction with one of these prompts. I was going for more of a jumping off point to co-create something, which could lead to more writing.

Well at the risk of sounding hypocritical, for one of my mainstream books that I publish under my real name (non-dev stuff) I did use AI to assist in creating the cover art for my next novel.  Though, I didn't like exactly how it came out so I changed a lot of elements to the point where it's hardly recognizable from what the AI used.  I think just like CGI in movies, if it's used as a tool to enhance a story, that's cool, but like movies which rely more on the CGI than plot and acting, if a writer relies too much on AI, it will harm rather than hurt their works.

At the rate and the way people are using AI now - more for its for shortcuts. not as a tool.

As of today, AI is rubbish at creating human figures drawing as compared to writing, of course even the writing is also discovered to be plagiarized from multiple sources and containing too many grammatical errors and many other errors and what not. You can't compare AI with CGI, cause with CGI you need loads of human input and touch. Having studied CGI, so I know what it involves to make a movie using CGI. You need a team of animators, artists, editors to make a movie. Whereas, AI is totally computer generated relying on the available vast internet data. And it has a very robotic feel to it.

AI practically does the job for you in seconds hence spoonfeeding you and totally killing the human creativity. It's more of a readymade answer which is handed out and not a tool which can be used creatively or constructively.

[Braced4Impact]

Apr 20, 2024 22:00:26 GMT -5 talkingdeafgirl said:

Apr 18, 2024 12:18:07 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

Well at the risk of sounding hypocritical, for one of my mainstream books that I publish under my real name (non-dev stuff) I did use AI to assist in creating the cover art for my next novel.  Though, I didn't like exactly how it came out so I changed a lot of elements to the point where it's hardly recognizable from what the AI used.  I think just like CGI in movies, if it's used as a tool to enhance a story, that's cool, but like movies which rely more on the CGI than plot and acting, if a writer relies too much on AI, it will harm rather than hurt their works.

At the rate and the way people are using AI now - more for its for shortcuts. not as a tool.

As of today, AI is rubbish at creating human figures drawing as compared to writing, of course even the writing is also discovered to be plagiarized from multiple sources and containing too many grammatical errors and many other errors and what not. You can't compare AI with CGI, cause with CGI you need loads of human input and touch. Having studied CGI, so I know what it involves to make a movie using CGI. You need a team of animators, artists, editors to make a movie. Whereas, AI is totally computer generated relying on the available vast internet data. And it has a very robotic feel to it.

AI practically does the job for you in seconds hence spoonfeeding you and totally killing the human creativity. It's more of a readymade answer which is handed out and not a tool which can be used creatively or constructively.

Definitely not arguing that CGI isn't labor and cost intensive, but my concern with CGI is that it is used too much in a film to the point where it's a detriment.  It's like practical effects.  A movie can be very cool with stunt explosives, but if a movie has an explosion every three seconds, it would get old fast.  See, the thing is, I see the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a perfect blend of everything.  CGI was used, but most of the shots were on scene in real locations, there were real actors, miniatures, practical effects, stunts, and of course, a great plot and acting.  I feel too many movies today, especially popcorn flicks like blockbuster comic book movies or action films use so much CGI, they hardly have a plot or need for convincing acting.  They figure enough visual eye candy can replace acting and scripts.   Any tool, when used in moderation, is useful, but when overindulged, it's grotesque.  To further the over indulgence, AI is the fast-food of art; it's easy, convenient, fast, and not the best quality, and accessible to the masses, whereas CGI is like saffron spice; expensive and interesting but not something that should be overused.

[devogirl]

Apr 18, 2024 12:18:07 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

Well at the risk of sounding hypocritical, for one of my mainstream books that I publish under my real name (non-dev stuff) I did use AI to assist in creating the cover art for my next novel. 

I actually think that's worse. So-called AI like ChatGPT is just predictive text. It will never create something original because it's just recombining the text it's trained on. But it has its uses, for example it's not a bad way to check for grammar and spelling errors, although not a replacement for proper copy-editing. But personally I think it's wrong to use AI image generators. First, they were trained by stealing the art from places like Deviantart. I don't even think it's ok to generate images for private use because of this. The issue of stealing for AI training feels worse to me with images than with text. Second, it takes away potential jobs for artists and designers. I have paid dev artists to design the covers of all my books, and it doesn't cost that much, depending on what you want.

[Braced4Impact]

Apr 21, 2024 7:52:35 GMT -5 devogirl said:

Apr 18, 2024 12:18:07 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

Well at the risk of sounding hypocritical, for one of my mainstream books that I publish under my real name (non-dev stuff) I did use AI to assist in creating the cover art for my next novel. 

I actually think that's worse. So-called AI like ChatGPT is just predictive text. It will never create something original because it's just recombining the text it's trained on. But it has its uses, for example it's not a bad way to check for grammar and spelling errors, although not a replacement for proper copy-editing. But personally I think it's wrong to use AI image generators. First, they were trained by stealing the art from places like Deviantart. I don't even think it's ok to generate images for private use because of this. The issue of stealing for AI training feels worse to me with images than with text. Second, it takes away potential jobs for artists and designers. I have paid dev artists to design the covers of all my books, and it doesn't cost that much, depending on what you want.

Well those artists would have to work for mere pennies, because I don't make a lot of money off my books.

[talkingdeafgirl]

Apr 21, 2024 1:15:17 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

Apr 20, 2024 22:00:26 GMT -5 talkingdeafgirl said:

At the rate and the way people are using AI now - more for its for shortcuts. not as a tool.

As of today, AI is rubbish at creating human figures drawing as compared to writing, of course even the writing is also discovered to be plagiarized from multiple sources and containing too many grammatical errors and many other errors and what not. You can't compare AI with CGI, cause with CGI you need loads of human input and touch. Having studied CGI, so I know what it involves to make a movie using CGI. You need a team of animators, artists, editors to make a movie. Whereas, AI is totally computer generated relying on the available vast internet data. And it has a very robotic feel to it.

AI practically does the job for you in seconds hence spoonfeeding you and totally killing the human creativity. It's more of a readymade answer which is handed out and not a tool which can be used creatively or constructively.

Definitely not arguing that CGI isn't labor and cost intensive, but my concern with CGI is that it is used too much in a film to the point where it's a detriment.  It's like practical effects.  A movie can be very cool with stunt explosives, but if a movie has an explosion every three seconds, it would get old fast.  See, the thing is, I see the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a perfect blend of everything.  CGI was used, but most of the shots were on scene in real locations, there were real actors, miniatures, practical effects, stunts, and of course, a great plot and acting.  I feel too many movies today, especially popcorn flicks like blockbuster comic book movies or action films use so much CGI, they hardly have a plot or need for convincing acting.  They figure enough visual eye candy can replace acting and scripts.   Any tool, when used in moderation, is useful, but when overindulged, it's grotesque.  To further the over indulgence, AI is the fast-food of art; it's easy, convenient, fast, and not the best quality, and accessible to the masses, whereas CGI is like saffron spice; expensive and interesting but not something that should be overused.

I agree with you 100% on this!

[talkingdeafgirl]

Apr 21, 2024 7:52:35 GMT -5 devogirl said:

Apr 18, 2024 12:18:07 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

Well at the risk of sounding hypocritical, for one of my mainstream books that I publish under my real name (non-dev stuff) I did use AI to assist in creating the cover art for my next novel. 

I actually think that's worse. So-called AI like ChatGPT is just predictive text. It will never create something original because it's just recombining the text it's trained on. But it has its uses, for example it's not a bad way to check for grammar and spelling errors, although not a replacement for proper copy-editing. But personally I think it's wrong to use AI image generators. First, they were trained by stealing the art from places like Deviantart. I don't even think it's ok to generate images for private use because of this. The issue of stealing for AI training feels worse to me with images than with text. Second, it takes away potential jobs for artists and designers. I have paid dev artists to design the covers of all my books, and it doesn't cost that much, depending on what you want.

AI art is so horrible to look at, looks very artificial and very easy to spot the defects. Being an artist myself, we have been hit hard by this. No one now wants to pay for a quality job done. I have personally lost out clients this way. They prefer easy, cheap and quick solutions. 

And yes, you pay for what you get. You want something exclusive, you need to pay a little extra for the extra mile we go to create something original, which many people don't understand. They have an idea that we just sit and sketch, voila, results! It doesn't work that way. We too have bills to pay.

[talkingdeafgirl]

Apr 21, 2024 7:57:30 GMT -5 Braced4Impact said:

Apr 21, 2024 7:52:35 GMT -5 devogirl said:

I actually think that's worse. So-called AI like ChatGPT is just predictive text. It will never create something original because it's just recombining the text it's trained on. But it has its uses, for example it's not a bad way to check for grammar and spelling errors, although not a replacement for proper copy-editing. But personally I think it's wrong to use AI image generators. First, they were trained by stealing the art from places like Deviantart. I don't even think it's ok to generate images for private use because of this. The issue of stealing for AI training feels worse to me with images than with text. Second, it takes away potential jobs for artists and designers. I have paid dev artists to design the covers of all my books, and it doesn't cost that much, depending on what you want.

Well those artists would have to work for mere pennies, because I don't make a lot of money off my books.

Hence the saying "the starving artist"! Sometimes, we are forced to work for peanuts, which is insulting considering the amount of work and effort we put in creating something. This is why, I have stopped taking commissions, the customers hassle too much and then they have the audacity not to pay at all at the end. I very much prefer to create art and then sell them off. Even that has been hit due to this culprit called AI.