Introduction: Editing AI Writing
Now that you've recieved your AI generated short story, you need to refine it using your own writing skills and creativity.
You might not know where to start, so this list provides a selection of strategies and prompts you can use to make this short story your own.
Editing Strategies for AI Stories
1. Add and Change Details
AI often uses very generic terms and word choices, and also is biased towards writing American stories due to the training data used. Try tweaking or adding some missing details.
Example:
Before: "Late at night, Ava heard a squirrel."
After: "In the quiet hour after midnight, Ava sat up suddenly from her warm bed at the sound of a possum making a mess outside."
Tip: Details relating to the five senses are always good to add, and don't be afraid to get specific!
2. Vary Sentence Structure
One of the most boring things a story can do is to have all the sentences be the same length. Look for blocks of similar sentences the AI wrote, and change them up using punctuation or combining content.
Example:
Before: "Ava walked to school. It was a long walk. She was very bored. She missed home already."
After: "Ava was on her way to school, walking like she usually did. It took forever. It was so boring that she missed home already."
Tip: Reading your writing aloud is a good way to find any words or sentences that don't sound right.
3. Improve Dialogue
AI is often trained to write very "correctly", meaning it is quite formal and polite. Not everyone speaks that way. Try to make dialogue more interesting by giving people unique speaking quirks or odd word choices.
Example:
Before: "I am not happy with the book you gave to me," said Ava. "I think it is not interesting. Could you give me another one?"
After: "Hey, uhh... sorry if this is rude, but I'm not really a fan of this book," Ava said, rubbing at her arm. "It's kinda boring, and reading more of it sounds like a slog. Do you maybe have a different book I could borrow?."
Tip: There probably aren't a lot of speaking characters in a story this short, so consider giving each one some words or slang or speech quirks only they use to identify them.
4. Raise The Stakes
AI story generators often gloss over conflict happening, or summarise important events. Don't be afraid to make the important twists and turns of your story more interesting by adding details and challenges.
Example:
Before: "Ava had some difficulty finishing her book report, but it turned out fine in the end."
After: "It took Ava six hours, three cups of coffee, and an extended battle with the possum outside using the business end of a broom. But as the sun rose in the morning, she finally had a finished book report held in her bandaged hands."
Tip: A good way to make writing more interesting is to make the characters face challenges that are both difficult and unusual. Sleeping in and missing the bus is fairly generic. Sleeping in through your presentation is far more interesting, even more so if you have an unusual reason for not waking up on time.
5. Cut Redundancy
Due to the way AI writing works, it will often repeat specific words and sentence structures, or bring up the same idea over and over again. See if you can cut down on these repititions.
Example:
Before: "Ava was ready to sleep. She wanted to sleep because it had been a tiring day, and after so many tiring classes she just wanted to sleep."
After: "By this point, Ava was about ready to hit the hay. She could pass out on her feet after such a long day, especially since every exhausting class had only made her want to run back to bed more."
Tip: A good way of reducing your word count is to find and cut these repitions. A good way of adding to your word count is replacing common words with a more interesting turn of phrase.
6. Setup and Payoff
AI Stories can sometimes trail off and end without tying up all the loose ends, or providing a good solution to any problems from the start of the story. Make sure the start and end match up.
Example:
Before: "And now that her report had been handed in, Ava was happy again."
After: "After handing in her report and getting a high grade, Ava sighed with relief. She could finally stop worrying about failing her English class, and focus entirely on getting rid of that annoying possum."
Tip: If you notice the AI set up a plot point or character or idea early in the story and didn't follow up on it, you can just cut it. However, if you bring that plot point back later in the story in an interesting way, then that will improve the story overall.
AI Editing Checklist
Before submitting your finished work, go down this list and ask:
- Have I added interesting and entertaining details throughout the story?
- Have I made sure that there are varying sentence lengths and structures?
- have I checked to make sure all dialogue is interesting and varied?
- Have I made sure that the struggles and twists are interesting and detailed?
- Have I made sure my story doesn't have too many repeated generic words or phrases?
- Have I created interesting setups and payoffs?
- Have I made sure the beginning and ending match up and create a satisfying story?
- Have I read my story out loud to make it sound right?
- Have I done everything I can to improve this AI story using my own writing skills and voice?