Over the last couple of years, nearly every client conversation I’ve had has involved some discussion of AI. Mostly, they ask: Should I use AI to write my book? So let’s talk about it frankly.
I wrote my novels before AI existed — at least the way it exists today. Programs like ProWritingAid and Grammarly used AI to some extent to support the writing process, but they didn’t write the book for you.
So: Is using ChatGPT to write a novel or other type of book a good idea?
Where AI can actually help
AI can help with parts of the writing process, such as:
- Researching material
- Brainstorming ideas
- Breaking through blank-page fright
- Generating a rough outline
- Catching continuity errors (before sending your manuscript out for developmental editing)
Used this way, AI is a tool that saves you time on the parts of writing that aren’t related to your voice. Your writing voice is what creates your unique style — it’s the personality and perspective you, as an author, bring to the page. And it’s something AI can’t successfully duplicate.
How AI wrecks a good Book
The worst thing you can do is let AI write your book’s actual prose, especially when you’re writing a memoir or personal narrative. AI has been trained to write the average of everyone’s voice.
Here’s the problem with that: you’re not average. Your story isn’t average. And you shouldn’t sound like every other author — you should sound like you, which means spending the time to actually find your voice.
As a developmental editor, I can spot structural patterns almost immediately that indicate AI was used in the writing process — and no, it has nothing to do with em dash usage. (Although, em dash usage is completely out of control right now.)
What tells me something is often AI-written: it reads smooth but says nothing. It leans on cliché phrases, even when you instruct it not to. It’s oddly perfect, yet completely overwritten.
Readers can tell too. They might not be able to put their finger on what’s bothering them about your book, but they know something feels off.
Should I use AI to write my book?
My honest answer: no.
It’s creating more problems for aspiring first-time writers, not fewer — because it’s only teaching them to be posers. It’s not teaching them how to write.
If you’re a first-time writer — meaning you’ve never written anything before AI told everyone they could be an author — do not begin your writing journey by using AI to generate your prose.
Go ahead and use it to plot out your book, organize its structure, research material, and brainstorm. I use AI for exactly these purposes, both for my own novels and for the books I write for my clients.
But do not ask it to write anything for you — not even prose you plan to rewrite.
To be a writer is to learn the craft of writing, and that takes time. It takes writing a hundred shitty sentences before you write one that sticks and sounds halfway decent. There is no shortcut to learning how to write well, and AI can’t get you there.
All it will do is get you to me when it’s time for a developmental edit — and I’ll send your manuscript back with 800+ comments, because it sounds like everyone else’s, with all the same tired issues.
If you want to write a book: read a lot, across every genre. Work with a writing coach. Learn the art of storytelling. Write a lot of pages you’ll throw away, and use them to find your voice.
The writer’s takeaway
AI can help you plan your book and get past writer’s block. It can’t write your book.
If you’ve already used AI to draft your novel, memoir, or nonfiction book, the fix isn’t starting over — it’s finding a ghostwriter or developmental editor who can take that AI-generated content and turn it into something complete, human, and unmistakably yours. (I know someone. 😊)
About the Author Denise McGrail is a novelist (writing under Piper Punches), ghostwriter, screenwriter, developmental editor, and book coach. She is the founder and director of Ghostwriting Solutions STL, which offers premium writing services to first-time authors, entrepreneurs, brands, and thought leaders.