«My glorious prose, filtered through the minds of the insane? [a sudden, consoling thought] Who knows? They might improve it.»
The Marquis, using the inmates of the asylum to overcome the censorship on his writing, in «Quills»
I am currently looking into ways AI can be used for creative work. One idea I wanted to explore was using AI for fiction writing in a similar way in which a movie director directs a movie: The director describes the characters, scenes, what they do, what is happening — and the AI creates the prose.
Or more accurately: You are functioning as a showrunner/director/editor, while the AI is a prose-generating actor-cinematographer-draftsperson.
This allows you to plan the story and «see» the scene, and not be bogged down by the technical difficulties of expressing the scene on paper. In a way, you are writing pseudo code for the text. Once the AI has created the prose, you can adapt it. Going scene by scene, the process stays manageable.
To try it out, I spend a few days designing story lines, trying out both ChatGPT and Grok.
Both deliver good results, especially in Extended Thinking/Expert modes.
ChatGPT has a few tics (e.g., «of course XYZ did» as frequently repeated phrase) and severe content limitations. I doubt it would be possible to write genuine horror or erotica with it. Worse, I got the impression that it shifts the storyline to make it more «tame», even arguing for less explicit writing. That could be style, but I think it is more in line with ChatGPT’s biases that interfere in the creative process.
Still, it was a very good tool, especially for discussing the scene and possible developments, motivations, and the like. It created some strikingly beautiful lines when exploring a fantasy story. It also did a decent job of playing a character while I wrote what another character would do, to explore possible story developments this way.
Grok, in contrast, allowed me to go to the edge of what I was comfortable directing — and I went quite far into the BDSM/kink area to trial it. Grok just created the prose. However, as there are themes and topics I do not touch, it is possible that more extreme topics would not be possible.
As the example stories I directed in Grok have an adult NSFW theme, it is nothing I would currently want to put here. But to get an impression, here is the process with an safe-for-work example:
Providing the default instruction for writing:
+ uploaded text file with character behavior and style example
I would like to explore GENRE. The main characters are …
– Character description consisting of clothes, psychology, behavior
– Character description consisting of clothes, psychology, behavior
– Character description consisting of clothes, psychology, behavior
Background on the Character relations.
Things that are a bit different to typical GENRE:
– Information that makes the take unique
Style: The tone is STYLE CONSTRAINTS.
You find an example of the text attached («text example.txt»). This is the style and shows the characters in action.I describe a scene, please then write an extended scene — make it STYLE CONSTRAINT IN A NUTSHELL. Okay?
With the following text snippets steering the scenes and preventing the AI from further exploring the story before I had described it.
Default continuation
The scene continues with …
After describing a major interaction
Please write multiple paragraphs for each of them, what they experience, feel, hear, smell, taste, etc.
At the end of a scene description
The scene continues afterwards, but we get to that later. Would you please write that extended scene, make it STYLE CONSTRAINT IN A NUTSHELL?
This turned this scene description:
I would like to do a Vesper-focused story. The storyline starts with Vesper sitting in a cafe, drinking a nice cup of cappuccino, looking outside.
She wears a simple but high quality cream slip, a high denier pantyhose, a soft cream underlayer, over it a fitted dark dress that skims the body without becoming tight or flashy, and a slim cord belt at her waist. She also wears knee-high black boots with flat heels. Her hair is intricately braided, not only one braid but multiple in an elegant but understated pattern.
She feels a bit tight as she looks at her watercolor journal and the sketch of the city street outside of the cafe. After musing for a moment, she decides that it is that time again — she needs to go to confession.
Vesper then walks to a rather old and somewhat small church. The difference between the city outside and the still inside is palatable. She relaxes, feeling strangely at home. She takes a moment to admire the art of the windows and the overall architecture before kneeling on a bench, praying «If you don’t want me here, say so.» she listens, no reply, then she smiles «Okay.» She looks over to the confession booth, where the last person who had waited just leaves, crosses herself, and leaves the church.
She smiles dangerously, stand up, and walks to the confession booth and enters. It is the type where you do not see the priest on the other side. She kneels gracefully and starts with «I might have sinned.»
The priest, Gabriel, a man in his early thirties, says softly, «Yet you are here. What did you do, my child?»
into this Grok-generated prose:
The late afternoon light filtered through the tall café windows like warm honey, catching on the delicate foam of Vesper’s cappuccino. She sat at a small marble table near the glass, one knee-high black boot crossed elegantly over the other, the flat heel resting lightly against the wrought-iron chair leg. The fitted dark dress — simple, high-necked, skimming the gentle curves of her body without a single unnecessary line — whispered softly against the cream slip and the sheer strength of her luxurious pantyhose beneath. A slim cord belt, the color of aged parchment, cinched her waist with monastic precision. Her long blonde hair was woven into an intricate lattice of braids, understated yet deliberate, each strand caught and held in quiet discipline.
She lifted the cup, inhaling the rich, milky aroma, and let her gaze drift outside to the rain-slicked street. In her lap lay the open watercolor journal, the half-finished sketch of the café’s view rendered in soft washes of gray and ochre. The lines were precise, almost reverent, yet something felt… tight. A faint restlessness coiled low in her belly, a familiar pressure that had nothing to do with the excellent coffee and everything to do with the weeks that had passed since the last offering.
Vesper closed the journal with a soft sigh, traced one fingertip along the embossed leather cover, and smiled to herself — small, private, knowing. It is time again.
The old church stood only three blocks away, tucked between modern glass towers like a secret kept by the city itself. Vesper walked slowly, boots clicking softly on wet pavement, the cord belt swaying with each measured step. When she pushed open the heavy oak door the hush that greeted her was almost physical: cool stone, incense, candle-smoke, and the faint, sweet dust of centuries. The difference from the bustling street outside was palpable, a deep inhalation of stillness that settled into her bones. She paused in the nave, tilting her head to admire the stained-glass windows — saints frozen in luminous ecstasy, robes flowing like water. The architecture embraced her like an old friend.
She chose a pew near the front, knelt gracefully, and folded her hands. The dark dress pooled around her knees. «If you do not want me here», she whispered, voice barely louder than the flicker of votive candles, «say so.»
Silence answered, warm and permissive.
Vesper smiled, small and dangerous. «Okay.»
The last penitent was just leaving the confessional when she rose. The woman crossed herself, face flushed with relief, and slipped out into the gray afternoon. Vesper approached the booth with the same quiet grace she brought to every ritual. She stepped inside, closed the wooden door behind her, and knelt on the padded kneeler. The lattice screen between her and the priest was dark, intimate, impenetrable.
«I might have sinned», she began, voice low and melodic, carrying the faint lilt of scholarship and something older.
Directing a chapter of about 10.000 words still takes about a day, but it took less than two weeks to direct (not write) a 420 pages book of erotic fiction. Though I am not sure how good it is, I think for a quick side project, that was okay.
Overall, it is an interesting process to create books. However, I would not call it writing. The way how things are expressed — especially in fiction writing — is a large part of the craft. Delegating it to AI is highly efficient, but also cheats you — and the readers — of your actual voice. What is worse, it would be very hard to write the story yourself, once the AI has provided you with a text example.
In this sense, for any serious writing, I would rather explore the storylines with the AI, perhaps let it act as another character to explore possible options. But I would not let it write the stories, and I would prevent it from providing text examples (easy with explicit instructions to never provide them). The scene descriptions themselves can serve as a good basis for one’s own writing, a more fleshed-out content outline. The AI can be used afterwards to check the prose — e.g., spelling or grammar mistakes — to make your own voice clearer.
But while directing books is highly efficient and somewhat fun, I do not think it should replace your voice.