Reddit, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that I would like to read the /r/WritingWithAI subreddit in my version of Reddit’s “for you” page. I’ll own that it’s pretty interesting to check out every now and then.

Like when “Banned: The Definitive Guide” by /u/okidokikaraoke showed up.

I’ve posted a lot of times in the past about things that I hate in other people’s writing. I’ve posted about the things I watch for in my own writing. But this is the first time I’ve seen a post that draws together all the cliches and overusages that AI will throw into your writing if you try to use it to generate writing for you.

Look, I’m a realist. I know people are going to use AI for their writing. I know people are going to use it well, and I know people are going to use it badly. I also know that a lot of LLMs have been trained on the same datasets — like fanfic, for example. So if you just tell AI to write you a book it’s probably going to read as fanfic — the same constructions, the same cliches, the same tropes.

It is possible to train a GPT (or LLM, I don’t know the right usage, I’m not an AI expert) to write like you. Partner 1’s company has done it; now when they write (for example) press releases with AI they come out looking more like they were written by actual humans using an actual style guide. But this takes work, and it usually takes money (to buy a pro subscription to ChatGPT, for example). It’s certainly possible to do it on your own computer, but that requires some really expensive (these days) parts. I actually went through the process to install a GPT on my personal computer using Docker, and I asked it to multiply 2 times 4. It took ten seconds to come back with the answer. Now imagine how long it would take if I used that particular model to write a book — I could legitimately write it myself faster than that, and unlike the AI, I don’t have to train myself to write like me.

If you’re going to use AI to write a book, I can’t stop you. But I encourage you to look at the guide here, compare it to the things you’ve generated, and try to make it sound more like a human wrote it. Even if you’re not using AI, it can still be helpful because if you use some of this stuff people might think you did use AI when you didn’t, and that’s really painful.