Reflections on writing an AI novel

I didn't intend to write an AI novel.

I have an idea for a book that I've been fitfully working on for 10 years. When I'm feeling particularly creative, but not particularly productive, I'll open up my journal and write a chapter or fiddle with my story outline.

I haven't written in a while, but I had some time to kill at an RV park in Sedona. I decided to review my work.

It's 2025, so of course I opened up ChatGPT, created a new project, and dropped my character notes in a session. I asked it for feedback and to ask me questions to strengthen the character and its arc. The process was joyful. It asked things like, "What happened the first time your protagonist broke the rules in a meaningful way?" and "When your protagonist was a child, what was scarcer in his home than money?" The character's childhood was critical to the story, so these kind of questions gave me excuses to articulate details I wouldn't have otherwise.

After that, things were going well. The dopamine was flowing. I asked it to use that same process to make a few new characters that I had been thinking about, but never gotten around to writing anything down for. Update my story outline. Update my story bible. All moved into my Obsidian vault.

I had intended to stop there.#

I was happy with my progress, but I was on vacation, and my weekly Claude Code usage was going to waste. Obsidian vaults are just folders and markdown files.

I hadn't tried using AI for creative writing since gpt 3.5 (trash), and after all the wins I got I was curious how well it would do. I put Claude Code in planning mode and asked it to write 2,000 words for my prologue based on the outline.

Planning mode even asked questions on tone!

What came out the other side was something developers are used to with Claude Code at this point: it was about 80% of what I would've written myself. Some paragraphs were unnecessary. Some needed polish. Way too many em dashes. I read it, tweaked it until I was happy, and asked Claude to write the next chapter.

It was the most fun I'd had being creative in a while. I kept going.

I finished the first full draft of the book on Christmas evening while drinking a glass of spiked eggnog. I wasn't keeping track, but I estimate I spent about 60 hours over the month of December on this process. The final book is 57 chapters and over 125,000 words.

I loved the process#

It was like having a tireless creative partner who could switch between ghostwriter and editor on demand. Sometimes I edited by hand. Sometimes I had a more systemic change I wanted to make like a character's voice not being distinct enough, or a subplot needed foreshadowing in a previous chapter. I asked Claude to do that. Sometimes I would open Codex and ask it to read what's been written so far and give feedback. It once pointed out that chapter 14 was significantly darker than previous chapters, and I should lighten it up. I didn't want to. The darkness was the point. It suggested I add some gallows humor instead. I incorporated the idea.

I felt less like a writer and more like a director. If Claude didn't have enough information to use from character notes and the story outline, the chapters it wrote were boring, with details and minor characters I didn't care about. I found that validating. AI still needed me to maintain the vision. My role became keeping the bar high.

As an engineer, I tried using AI to write code in 2023. It was garbage. In 2025, it's obvious this is how most code will get written from now on. I suspect many professions will go through this same reckoning over the next few years. Once you let AI into your process, it is difficult to contain.

In the end, all I really did was apply what I learned about using AI to write code to write fiction. It worked...at least to my satisfaction.

So now what?#

I'm quite proud of the end result. I think it's pretty great. I've read the whole thing a few times and genuinely enjoy it. When you make something, you want to share it.

However, even if all I did was use AI for character designs, this whole book is now radioactive. People react viscerally to the thought of consuming AI output. There's no nuance. It's all slop.

It isn't just books. Many well loved creators are dealing with blowback over AI usage. Larian Studios, the darling that gave us Baldur's Gate 3, recently shared that they use AI in concept designs, and the internet went rabid. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won Game of the Year a few weeks ago, and they admitted that they left placeholder AI art in at launch before patching it out. There was a campaign to revoke all their awards. The competing forces of creative efficacy and consumer preference are going to come to a head at some point.

In this climate, how art is made seems almost more important than the art itself.

Sharing this book, while being honest about how it was made, is a guarantee that the book does not succeed or fail on its merits. It even risks real hatebombing on social media.

If I wanted popular acceptance, I suppose I could rewrite the book by hand, but that holds no interest for me. Using AI was probably the only way the book was ever going to be finished. I had already spent 10 years on it and only achieved maybe 10,000 words.

At this point, I feel as though I have adequately exported my imagination into markdown files. I have checked write a novel off my bucket list to my satisfaction, even if some might say I still have not done so. I just enjoy feeling creative. The next time I get an idea for a book, I will do it again.

My wife's disdain for generative AI content is only exceeded by her love and support of me, and she has agreed to read it. I'm nervous. Her opinion matters a lot to me. Depending on what she thinks, I will decide what to do with it.

If I ever publish it, it will be pseudonymously. I'm not interested in catching that AI smoke.