Artificial Intelligence--A Blessing or a Curse?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a hot topic of controversial discussion for many industries. Both professionals and novices are deciding whether to use it or how much to use it to make their personal and professional lives easier. AI refers to technology that allows computers to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, like learning, reasoning, and problem-solving.

Although it seems new, the concept of AI has been around since the 1940s, with the advent of the Artificial Neural Network. It is a series of interconnections that learn to solve problems, and the more they learn over time, the more efficient they become.

Today, the most popularly used is Generative AI, which helps increase efficiency, boost productivity, and strengthen engagement. Examples are ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, and Grammarly. These powering operations can create new data by analyzing our communication patterns. It can power chatbots like ChatGPT to give human-like responses and is getting better at interacting with us. They can generate text, image, video, audio, code, and more. Movie and music suggestions, face and object recognition, and personalization of social media feeds are among many of its uses.

As with any tool, AI has challenges and concerns around accuracy, bias, privacy, and ethical use. Often, we take it for granted that it will be a panacea to solve many of our problems, but we need to be reminded that it is merely an aid to human intelligence. Al cannot feel or think on its own without human input. For instance, chatbots like Chat GPT are only sophisticated sentence completion apps that give logical answers, making it appear human-like. However, AI can never replace the human mind.

We must understand that becoming overdependent on technology may cause ethical harm to ourselves or others. That's why it's important to understand AI's limitations to avoid any problems.

Chatbots often do not provide factual information. Known as AI Hallucinations, these bots use probability to predict the next word, sentence, or paragraph based on what they are being programmed and not necessarily based on sound research. It cannot assess truthfulness and accuracy, so those using AI to generate content need to be careful. Someone researching a topic you write about using AI may catch false information you are unaware of, which could affect your credibility.

AI can be biased and offensive. Often, it is trained on data that is racist, hateful, and biased. For example, Microsoft created a program called Tay that learned to make offensive and stereotypical comments because it learned to do this by interacting with users. Luckily, Microsoft eventually discontinued Tay, apologized, and promised to institute safeguards to prevent hateful speech from being built into AI systems. Many are now calling for better safety measures.

Benefits of AI. Despite some drawbacks, AI offers benefits that have helped improve and enhance systems in various industry sectors. It has revolutionized healthcare, such as discovering new drugs and identifying new cancer cells much more reliably than humans. Used in many other fields, such as software programming, animation, law enforcement, journalism, and agriculture, it helps better educate by summarizing huge volumes of information to enhance and speed up work.

AI for Writing. AI in the creative arts process has allowed many writers, translators, graphic designers, illustrators, and others to streamline their works through improved rewrites and images. The following are guidelines to adhere to when using AI for your writing:

• Writers should commit to maintaining standards by only using AI for generating ideas, editing, and enhancement, not as a primary source of work.

• If using it as a primary source of work, rewrite it in your own words and use your voice to reflect individual tone.

• If using a considerable amount of AI, you must disclose to your publisher, such as Amazon/KDP, and your readers. Disclosure is the best course now until all AI programs are required to use only licensed work.

• Respect the rights of other writers by not using AI to mimic other work styles or infringe on copyrights and trademarks. Show solidarity and support for other creatives, such as illustrators, translators, actors, and voice-over artists.

• AI is a text completion tool that shouldn't be used for research because you cannot trust its accuracy.

• Be aware of and check for potential socioeconomic, gender, and racial biases that could cause harm.

• Draft a clause in your negotiations with publishers that prohibits using your work for AI training.

• Fine-tune AI models on your work and use that fine-tuned model to generate more work in your style.

Although AI is a useful tool, it is only that. We need to learn to use it wisely if we are to use it at all. Curse or blessing? It’s up to us all. Until governments and regulators pass laws across the board to ascertain AI is being used ethically and legally, it behooves us all to be aware of its pitfalls and use it responsibly.

Basic Writing Tips for the Novice Fiction Author

Want to write your first fictional children’s book or adult novel? Penning your own story can be very rewarding but also a daunting experience if you do not know where to begin. If you have an idea for a story but need to learn how to develop it, the following ten tips will guide you. Begin by mapping out your story’s plot beginning, middle, and endpoints in an outline or visual.

Establish a strong introduction—Establish conflict and the main characters at the onset to capture the reader’s attention. The main character must be faced with a problem that will be resolved by the end of the story.

Make your characters credible and interesting—Pull real-life ideas to make your protagonists realistic. Give them unique personalities and quirks that show they are complex and multi-faceted. They should also have the ability to learn and grow.

One point of view—Whether using first, second, or third person to narrate the story, stick with the same POV throughout the story. If you have the main character narrating the story and suddenly change to a third person, this may confuse your readers.

—Details are good, but only when sprinkled throughout the story. Introducing too many characters, descriptions, and other particulars at a time overloads the reader and can cause them to get lost.

Show don’t tell—When the character experiences an emotion such as fear, joy, or sadness, you want the reader to feel what they are feeling, so have your character experience that emotion in a scene rather than telling the reader outright.

Use fewer words with more impact-- Don't be wordy and redundant. If you have two words you can say with one, that will make your writing more succinct. (blizzard vs heavy snowstorm) Use an active voice (the dog chased the cat vs the cat was chased by the dog) and strong verbs (I sped vs I ran quickly). For children's books, make the language simpler. ('For a long time, the sea was a wonderful place to live' vs. 'For many ages, the sea was a paradise for its inhabitants.') Note: You can pare your wording down during the editing process. See my blog, Understand the Editorial Process and Your Content Editing Needs Before Choosing a Service, for more information on editing.

Keep the reader engaged—Give the reader the impetus to keep reading by using foreshadowing, cliffhangers, and delayed emotions to intrigue the reader and create suspense.

Follow genre guidelines for length—For example, the average length of a children’s picture book is 32 pages, but an adult romance novel can be about 100,000 words. Do your research.

Balance the story structure—There are three important components to the writing: reflective narrative, action, and dialogue. It's important to know the characters' thoughts and feelings while equalizing this with incidents and conversation. A healthy dose of each will bring the story to life, maximize readability, and maintain interest.

Resolution and wrap-up—Have a conclusion that ties up loose ends. The resolution signals the point in the story where the problem is solved, or the character faces certain circumstances. Except in children's books, it doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but all components of the plot should come together in a finale that the reader can easily comprehend.

Using these ten guidelines, you will have the framework to transform your creative ideas into a compelling narrative that captures and holds the reader's interest from beginning to end.

Understand the Editorial Process and Your Content Editing Needs Before Choosing a Service

Need an Editor? First, you need to determine the kind of editing that you require. Still trying to figure it out? Were you aware there are different kinds of editing? There are six types of editing, although some of them can overlap. Will you need all or only a few of these to perfect your writing? It depends on your experience level and where you are in your writing. If you are reading this blog, you are probably new to writing. You could learn that these types of editing are an intertwined process that starts with the rough draft and, after undergoing many changes, hopefully, ends up as a flawless, published piece of prose to be enjoyed by many readers. The more experienced you become as a writer, the more focused and aware you will be about the particular edits that need to be done. More seasoned writers can make their own content revisions while still in the writing process of their draft.

However, no matter how established you become as a writer, you will always need a professional editor to look at your writing to make improvements. An objective second set of eyes can see a whole different perspective and will help you see beyond your vision to communicate a better version of that vision.

First, you must look at what stage you are in your writing. If you are in the beginning or middle of a manuscript and find that you cannot continue writing because you feel blocked or stuck, you will need the help of a developmental editor. Your passion for your topic or idea from the onset has now started to fizzle because you can’t find the right wording or research to communicate your story or support your argument. That is when you need the help of an editor to develop your story, hence developmental editing.

Developmental editing involves looking at the entire structure of a body of writing to ensure that major parts such as the plot, character arcs, setting, pace, tone, point of view, and language come together in a cohesive fashion that will resonate with the reader. Some major parts may have to undergo rewrites or revisions to ensure the writing is engaging and makes sense.

What if you have an outline or framework fleshed out for your beginning, middle, and end yet cannot come up with details to organize your ideas or develop your plot? Substantive editing will help with this by improving the content's structure or organization. It delves into the wording, paragraphs, and chapter breakdown to better develop characters, plot pacing, more imaginative descriptions of the environment, and compelling conflict that will hold the reader’s interest. For non-fiction, substantive editing focuses on ensuring the wording is strong and succinct enough to support the author’s argument and fact-checking to avoid false claims.

While Developmental and Substantive Editing consider the overall quality, meaning, and organization of writing, the next phase in the editing process is concentrating on text mechanics. Copyediting involves reviewing the text after the manuscript is complete, such as sentence structure, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and spelling, to check for and correct as needed. If improving word choice is a factor in conveying meaning and enriching tone, the editor may recommend delving deeper into the copyediting process by examining each sentence. Line editing involves going line by line to revise or rewrite a sentence with verbiage that more adequately supports the topic or theme. Again, this may or may not be necessary, depending on your level of experience in writing or editing. Still, any author, at the minimum, needs a copyediting service to remove errors from the text that are easily missed due to the author’s creative concentration elsewhere. Another aspect of copyediting that may be included is mechanical editing. The editor will focus on capitalization, punctuation, and abbreviations to comply with a particular style, such as the Chicago Manual of Style or the Associated Press Style.

Proofreading is the final editing process in which errors in grammar, spelling, or other textual mechanics not caught previously are spotted by a proofreader and corrected before the final draft is published. It is especially helpful if the proofreader is someone other than the editor who brings a fresh set of eyes to the manuscript to catch any errors the editor may have overlooked.

Publishing a quality piece of writing, whether print or digital content, a book manuscript or article, web page content, or a blog, requires adequate forethought and preparation. As an author, you spend much time and effort conveying a message that will inform, persuade, or delight your readers. With the editorial process to improve the readability of your work, the value of that message will be better understood and received. When you know the editorial process, where you are in that process, and how it can impact the enhancement of your writing, you are ready to take the next step to find an editor who can provide you with the kind of content editing that will match your needs.

Check out our editorial services page HERE, or for more information or a quote contact us HERE or email us at: theprolificword@gmail.com