Writer’s Corner: Word Choices
Posted: July 1, 2024 Filed under: AI Technology, Books, Character Development, Dialogue, Fiction, Setting, The Human Condition, Time travel, Voice, Western, WordCrafter Press | Tags: AI Technology, Dialogue, Editing, Speech, Voice, Word Choices, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read 17 Comments
I don’t need MS Word to tell me that my language might be offensive. That’s me. I use offensive language, usually on purpose, for effect because I want to be offensive, or just because it is what my character would say. Of course, I’m not writing for a YA or younger audience. I would want curse words to be pointed out and questioned, if that were the case.
I cuss. Most of the people I know cuss. Even religious folk have been known to issue a curse or two. If I feel the reaction to a situation would be an issued expletive, then my character will issue it. That doesn’t mean that all my characters are potty mouths, but when a curse is in order, they throw it out there, and I believe it is appropriate in certain situations, and also more realistic.
Even if my protagonist isn’t a curser, like Delilah, who uses expletives such as dagnabbit, the people around her do, so my books do contain some cursing. I don’t feel like a story set on the western frontier, would be true to the period or the frontier culture.
Likewise, the modern day Las Vegas culture in the music circles involves drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll, so naturally my character, Amaryllis, in The Rock Star & The Outlaw is involved in all of that and more, and her language often isn’t ladylike. Even so, I try not to let her get carried away with the curse words. And Sarah deals with the issues of prejudice and sexism, and the language in the story reflects the prejudices of the times, whether the AI editor in MS Word likes it or not.
But my villains often have mouths so dirty even their own mothers wouldn’t kiss them. Respect for women or lack thereof is often indicated in the way a man refers to women. If a character lacks respect for women, which many male villians do, then their language when referring to them may be less than flattering. After all, the way a character speaks is one of the things readers use to clue them in to what a character is like, and then decide if they are a character they should like, or not.
Another speech trait which I use often is the improper use of the English language. In the old west, many people were not educated and used words such as ‘ain’t’ or they cut off the ‘g’ in ‘ing’ words. In Delilah, one of things she strived for was to speak more properly after meeting the Mormon woman, Marta, who was a natural born school teacher and corrected Delilah’s speech automatically out of habit. Many of the less savory characters in the Women in the West adventure series, clue readers into their ignorance by the way they speak. I reckon that’s what I do it fer. These are purposeful misspellin’s that drive my AI spell-check crazy.
Many of my western characters are representitive of the many immigrants who made the U.S. into the melting pot that it is known to be. They speak in different dialects to differentiate them from other characters, which gives them colorful speech that is recogizable without adding dialog tags. In Sarah, Lillian Alura Bennett is one such character, who happens to be an Irish madam at a bordello in Glenwood Springs. And in The Rock Star & The Outlaw, the Mexican dialect of Juan Montoya leaves no question when he is speaking.
In Delilah, I had the opposite problem as the character of Dancing Falcon was a young Indian boy, who had been taught to speak English at the Indian agency with a strict teacher, so his speech is almost too proper, which made his speech sound very formal in places. One of the comments from a beta reader was that no one talks like that, so I went back when revising and added in a place where he talks about his time on the reservation and his schooling experience, to explain why he spoke that way to readers. The point being that a characters speech should reveal something about them, as well as making them identifiable.
It was really fun to create the characters in the My Backyard Friends kid’s book series, which is based on the birds and animals which visit my yard in the Colorado mountains. Katy Cat is a bit of a diva, kind of stuck up, and thinks she’s better than everyone else. She’s willing to help out Timothy Turtle as long as it doesn’t inconvenience her too much. I relayed this information in the way she swishes her tail, (body language), and in the way she talks with a bit of attitude. Heather Hummingbird has a lot of energy, so she talks really fast and rarely perches for more than a few seconds at a time. Charlie Chickadee is a young bird on his own for the first time, so I made him a bit niave. The things he says reveals this more than the way that he says it.
Other reasons an author might make the character’s or even the narrator’s voice a bit quirky is because it is the author’s voice coming through. (You know the voice English teachers are telling you to find? Yep. That one.) To an extent, this is true for me. My own speech is usually rather blunt and to the point, and so are my characters’. I don’t use a lot of colorful purple prose, instead calling it like I see it. Many of my protagonists are the same way. Delilah says what’s on her mind and she doesn’t beat around the bush. Sarah, too, tends to speak before she considers the way her words will be taken.
AI editors don’t understand this, and so variants in speech are often marked as needing correction, when in fact, they are purposeful. This is why, just running through your story with an AI editor is never enough. But there are times when human editors don’t get it either. Kevin J. Anderson tells a story about submitting a book to a traditional publisher who turned it over to a novice editor who corrected all the little quirks that revealed his voice and marked his manuscript up until it looked like nothing but red scribbles. That’s when you know that an editor isn’t a good match for you. Kevin politely refused to work with that editor and they assigned him another one. That’s why it’s important to have an editor that gets you and your voice, and understands the nuances of your character’s dialog.
Finding the right editor isn’t always easy, especially if funds are tight. Many editors will offer a free edit of the first ten pages, or even the first chapter so you can fell them out and find out if they are right for you and your story. I wouldn’t go with any editor who doesn’t offer this, and of course, I offer it through Write it Right Quality Editing Services. Any editor worth their salt will understand that they must be able to differentiate between mistakes and purposful word choices.
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About Kaye Lynne Booth
For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and her Time-Travel Adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
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This segment of “Writer’s Corner” is sponsored by The D.I.Y. Author and WordCrafter Press.
Being an author today is more than just writing the book. Authors in this digital age have more opportunities than ever before. Whether you pursue independent or traditional publishing models, or a combination of the two, being an author involves not only writing, but often, the publishing and marketing of the book.
In this writer’s reference guide, multi-genre author and independent publisher, Kaye Lynne Booth shares her knowledge and experiences and the tools, books, references and sites to help you learn the business of being an author.
Topics Include:
Becoming Prolific
Writing Tools
Outlining
Making Quality a Priority
Publishing Models & Trends
Marketing Your Book
Book Covers & Blurbs
Book Events—In Person & Virtual
And more…
Pre-Order your copy today: https://books2read.com/The-DIY-Author
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Undawntech: Technology That Is Stranger Than Fiction
Posted: April 5, 2024 Filed under: AI Technology, Technolgy, The Human Condition, Undawntech | Tags: Books, frankenstein, Futuristic, horror, Human Condition, mary-shelley, Science Fiction, technology, Undawntech, Writing to be Read 9 Comments
Imagine a world where an insane aristocracy oversees the human race. Classic dystopian novels tell of such extreme societies and caution readers to avoid falling into the trap. The question is: have we heeded the warnings?
1984, Animal House, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and The Handmaid’s Tale are some of the most popular and recognizable stories in this genre. As modern-day writers, we have seen the world fall from stable nation-states to the dehumanization of culture wars, sneak attacks, propaganda, economic downturns, and invasions. Either
the writers from a bygone era were psychic, or everything we are seeing now… was planned. Planned to keep humanity distracted while an elite class work on technology beyond any innocuous application.
Past narratives could not have foreseen the future of augmented reality, artificial intelligence, biochips, mRNA technology, or tracking satellites. By any other name, would dystopic smell as sour?
Let’s take a journey into next generation technologies, most being hidden in plain sight:
For instance, currently, Iridium Satellites can track wildlife, personnel, data and assets, as well as bridging the internet of things… this technology is real-time situational awareness.
“Iridium’s unique constellation architecture makes it the only network
www.iridium.com
that covers 100% of the planet. Satellites are cross-linked to provide
reliable, low-latency, weather-resilient connections that enable
communication anywhere in the world.”
On a mundane level, medicine has exceeded its normal perimeters. With new technology, comes new issues that medical science has no answers to give. mRNA technology has potential, but its numerous and fatal consequences have been obscured from public scrutiny:
“In this paper, we call attention to three very important aspects of
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9012513/
the safety profile of these vaccinations. First is the extensively
documented subversion of innate immunity, primarily via suppression of
IFN-α and its associated signaling cascade. This suppression will have
a wide range of consequences, not the least of which include the
reactivation of latent viral infections and the reduced ability to
effectively combat future infections. Second is the dysregulation of
the system for both preventing and detecting genetically driven
malignant transformation within cells and the consequent potential for
vaccination to promote those transformations. Third, mRNA vaccination
potentially disrupts intracellular communication carried out by
exosomes, and induces cells taking up spike glycoprotein mRNA to
produce high levels of spike-glycoprotein-carrying exosomes, with
potentially serious inflammatory consequences. Should any of these
potentials be fully realized, the impact on billions of people around
the world could be enormous and could contribute to both the
short-term and long-term disease burden our health care system faces.”
Or is there more to injecting untested, unregulated technologies into our bodies than heart inflammation, other serious adverse reactions, and increased morbidity in the injected? What if, the scare of 2020 was to introduce tracking systems into the human genome?
Internet of dead bodies Bluetooth MAC address corpses
https://www.brighteon.com/41a1e7f3-ca8a-42d3-b201-f31e4a2c3189
In a novel, a scientist might believe the only thing the human brain would need to plug into technology like brain chips, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality would be a third strand of DNA made from silicon, but that is so 1980s and 90s technology:
Science: A triple helix to cripple viruses
“As scientists accumulate more knowledge of the sequence and function
www.newscientist.com/article/mg13017644-100-science-a-triple-helix-to-cripple-viruses
of human genes, the triplex approach should allow scientists to turn genes
on or off at will, says Hogan.”
What has grown from hypothesis and curiosity of the scientific community has transformed from the dystopic and into the realm of horror. Technology being employed to change the human race sounds as if the nightmare of Mary Shelley has been realized. The author of Frankenstein once wrote of surgically combining body parts with an electric jolt from lightning. Today’s scientists have gone beyond ethics and straight into creating artificial life forms.
Engineers Put Tens of Thousands of Artificial Brain Synapses on a Single Chip for Portable AI Devices
“MIT engineers have designed a “brain-on-a-chip,” smaller than a piece
https://scitechdaily.com/engineers-put-tens-of-thousands-of-artificial-brain-synapses-on-a-single-chip-for-portable-ai-devices/
of confetti, that is made from tens of thousands of artificial brain
synapses known as memristors — silicon-based components that mimic the
information-transmitting synapses in the human brain.”
As technology advances, external sources to manipulate the human brain are becoming readily available. Pull up a seat. Put on a cap. Play your favorite video game without lifting a finger. Mind and artificial intelligence merge through frequency of brainwaves.
Transfer learning promotes acquisition of individual BCI skills
“Noninvasive brain–computer interfaces (BCI) based on
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/2/pgae076/7609232?login=false
electroencephalography (EEG) have proven efficient in applications
such as neurorehabilitation (1, 2), robotics (3, 4), communication (5,
6), or virtual reality (7, 8). Motor imagery (MI)—mental rehearsal of
a limb movement without execution—is a common EEG–BCI modality.”
As writers, we have to ask ourselves: are we already in a dystopian novel, playing characters, who unknowingly, unwittingly are about to face a critical juncture in human evolution?
What does this evolution entail? Will humans and technology as one creature relinquish our independence? Individual sovereignty? Our Constitutional Rights? Will we be considered homo sapien sapien? Or, homo sapien extincti?
Horror has manifested in our world. The horror that dystopia was not an end, but a beginning to the ramblings of madmen. Writers have the obligation to warn humanity that we have ventured past derangement and into the immoral machinations warned in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
As the establishment plays god, what would the dystopian authors caution us about? What would Mary Shelley write as her sequel to Frankenstein with the knowledge present herein? To be, or not to be… human with all our flaws or a controlled serfdom at the whim of a plutocracy? According to science, we are already there. The only choice now is preservation or slavery.
Isn’t that the conditions writers should be asking of their readers? Because no one else is giving humanity the time to think about the ethical obligations, horrific consequences, or generational ruin that these technologies have laid at our feet. It is not difficult to ascertain: the world we live in is stranger than fiction.
“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.” Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Has the road of futurist technology been paved with good intentions? Only time will tell what the intention for humanity and these technologies are. For humanity’s sake, we better know evil when we see it.
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DL Mullan holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning with Technology.
Her lecture, Spacescapes: Where Photography Ends; Imagination Begins, debuted at the Phoenix Astronomy Society, which then led to her Sally Ride Festival lecture invitations. Her presentation, Bridging the Gap between Technology and Women, won her accolades at a community college’s Student Success Conference. She has been a panelist at speculative fiction, science fiction, and other regional conventions. Her digital exhibition pieces have won awards at convention art shows, as well as garnered her Second Premium at the Arizona State Fair. Currently, Ms. Mullan’s artistic renditions are seen on book covers, blog sites, video presentations, and various merchandise. As an independent publisher, she uses her technical background to innovate the creative arts.
As a writer, DL Mullan loves to stretch her imagination and the elasticity of genres. She writes complex multi-genre stories in digestible and entertaining forms, be it poetry, short fiction, or novels. Her science, history, mythology, and paranormal research backgrounds are woven into her writings, especially in Undawnted’s Legacy Universe. Ms. Mullan’s creative endeavors are available in digital and print collections, from academia to commercial anthologies. She is also an award-winning poet.
Be sure to subscribe to her newsletters and follow her on social media. For further information, visit her at www.undawntech.com and www.undawnted.com.
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Writer’s Corner: A Look at AI Narrations for Audiobooks
Posted: April 1, 2024 Filed under: AI Technology, Audio Books, Fiction, WordCrafter Press, Writing | Tags: AI Audiobook, AI Technology, Delilah, Hidden Secrets, The Rock Star & the Outlaw, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read Leave a comment
Three of my books are now available in AI narrated audiobooks: The Rock Star & The Outlaw, Delilah and Hidden Secrets. I’ve been wanting to get into audiobooks for some time now, but narrators are expensive. Their time is worth it and I don’t begrudge them that, but the hourly rates for narration are high enough to keep audiobooks out of reach for me. But the rapid rise and availability of AI narration has made having my books available in audio a possibility, and I’m really excited about it.
I’ve heard the argument that AI narration is taking work away from human narrators, but in this case, it just isn’t true. I would not have hired a human narrator instead, so I don’t see the harm in utilizing these tools which are now available to me.
I’d love to hear what you think about these AI narrated audiobooks or your thoughts on AI narration, in general. I’ve included my summaries of both experiences here and you can click on the links to hear a preview of each one. If you are feeling generous, you can buy a book while you are there.
Apple Books
I uploaded The Rock Star & The Outlaw to Apple Books through D2D, using the manuscript I uploaded for ebook. They offered four or five narrative voices to choose from. The quality of the narration is acceptable, but they offered no way to preview the content, and did not provide an audio file that could be used on other sites. It also took almost two weeks from the time of upload to publication. Keep in mind that I am not publishing direct through Apple Books, but going through D2D. Perhaps publishing direct, the process might be faster and preview might be available through their author dashboard.
Google Play
I uploaded The Rock Star & The Outlaw, Delilah and Hidden Secrets on Google Play using the same digital epub files uploaded for ebooks. They have a wide selection of narrative voices to choose from. Through Google Play, I was offered a chance to preview the recordings and their dashboard offers the opportunity to edit the text if necessary without changing the digital ebook file. They took a few days from upload to publication, but I was also going through the account approval process at the same time, which may have slowed the process.
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About Kaye Lynne Booth
For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Book 1 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah, and her Time-Travel Adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
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An interesting article on AI narrated audiobooks from someone who’s doing them.
Posted: March 31, 2024 Filed under: AI Technology, Audio Books Leave a commentI’d like to know which platform she is participating in. I don’t have editing options with mine. Not like this.
But this author gives some good insights. Check it out.
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AI Illustrations You Won’t want to miss
Posted: February 19, 2024 Filed under: AI Technology, Illustrations 5 CommentsI just had to share these wonderful AI illustrations shared by D. Wallace Peach over on the Myths of Mirror blog. Wow! She makes her vision, or at least her characters come to life. Check it out.
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Exciting News! The Rock Star & The Outlaw in Audiobook
Posted: February 11, 2024 Filed under: Action/Adventure, AI Technology, Audio Books, Book Promotion, Books, Fiction, Science Fiction, Time travel, Western, WordCrafter Press | Tags: AI Audiobook, Audiobook, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Kaye Lynne Booth, Science Fiction, The Rock Star & the Outlaw, Time travel, Western, WordCrafter Press 7 Comments
It’s here! If you’ve been waiting for The Rock Star & The Outlaw to come out in audio, it’s finally here!
I’m so excited! The Rock Star & the Outlaw is now available in AI Narrated Audio through Apple Books for only 7.99.
https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/the-rock-star-the-outlaw/id1722934411
The audio book is AI narrated, but don’t let that deter you without giving it a chance. The female voiced narration is actually pretty good. And there’s a button where you can listen to a sample on the book’s page at Apple Books, so you can check it out before you buy. Above is the direct link, but it’s also listed on the book’s Books2Read page with all the other distributors where it’s available, so you can get it in digital or print, if you prefer.
https://books2read.com/RockStarOutlaw
If you don’t have your copy yet, what are you waiting for?
Reviews
Still need convincing? Check out these reviews.
Selma: https://selmamartin.com/a-book-review-the-rock-star-and-the-outlaw-by-kaye-lynne-booth/
Book Trailer
Or you can check out the book trailer here:
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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
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Writer’s Corner: Publishing with Draft2Digital
Posted: January 15, 2024 Filed under: AI Technology, Audio Books, Books, Drat2Digital, Publishing, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner | Tags: AI Technology, Audiobooks, Draft2Digital, Publishing, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read 14 CommentsI’ve posted on the value of publishing wide with Draft2Digital and Books2Read links. You can see my previous article here. I am in no way compensated for sharing information about D2D, but I am a big fan of publishing with them.
As an author and publisher who uses Draft2Digital to publish wide, distributing my books globally, including subscription services and libraries, I’m a huge advocate of their services. But I recently caught episode 333 of the Stark Reflections podcast with Mark Leslie Lefabvre titled, “10 Things You Likely Didn’t Know About Draft2Digital”. In this episode, Mark shares a replay of a presentation he gave at 20BooksVegas in early November of 2023, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were several cool things about publishing with D2D which I didn’t know.
I’ve used D2D to publish since 2018, and I was already aware of many of the great tools and services that they offer, such as royalty payment splitting for collaborations, which I use with WordCrafter anthologies. And of course, I knew about using Books2Read links, so potential readers can find your book through most of the major distributors in one place, and in any format in which your book is available.
The ability to publish through most of the publish on some subscription services and get your books onto the major library distributors was one of the reasons that I chose to go with D2D in the first place. What I didn’t know, was that some authors even use D2D’s free tools to create their book files, probably because it is easy and doesn’t require you to have Vellum or a Mac, and then publish direct onto other platforms without using D2D’s aggregating services, and they are okay with that. I use these tools to create my files for my ARC copies, but I prefer to let D2D do all the heavy lifting for me. Publishing direct to all the distributors that I use through D2D would be an outrageous amount of work.
I was also aware of D2D’s “Refer a Friend” program, which provides you an affliliate link you can share for folks to sign up. Any author who signs up to D2D with your affilliate link earns you a percentage of money earned by D2D from any books they sell over the next two years. Any D2D user can get an affiliate link. If you read this and decide to give Draft2Digital a try, you can sign up through my affilliate link, below, and it doesn’t cost you anything. My affilliate link is paid outof D2D’s cut of any works you sell using D2D as an aggregator. Here is my affilliate link: https://www.draft2digital.com/WordCrafter
There are some promo services which I was not aware of. I knew you could create your own independent promos. In fact, I used this feature to set up the WordCrafter Holiday Book Extravaganza in December, discounting the entire WordCrafter Press backlist. In episode 333, I learned how I can also get my book into D2D promotions, which is really pretty cool when you think about it.
I also learned that D2D now offers free AI narration of audio books through Apple Books. Now this is something that interests me, as audio books have previously been out of reach for me due to the expense of narration. You can see my post and discussion on the use of AI here.I knew they had this coming, but it was in the beta stage the last I had heard. Apparently they have rolled it out, and I will be looking into this further in the near future.
I was so excited to learn about this feature of D2D that I just couldn’t wait to check it out.I’m happy to announce that the AI narrated audiobook of The Rock Star & The Outlaw will be available through Apple Books soon.
Mark Leslie Lefabvre is an expert in the publishing industry, having worked for Kobo before coming to D2D, in addition to being a succesful hybrid author. Honestly, he says it all better than I do, and he knows a lot more about the inner workings of D2D. So if you want to know more about what D2D has to offer, listen to episode 333 here: https://starkreflections.ca/2023/11/17/episode-333-10-things-you-likely-didnt-know-about-draft2digital/
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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Book 1 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah, and her Time-Travel Adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
_________________________________________________________
Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
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Writer’s Corner: Let’s Talk About AI
Posted: December 11, 2023 Filed under: AI Technology, Audio Books, book marketing, Book Promotion, Book Sales, Editing, Fiction, Illustrations, Writer's Corner, Writing 23 CommentsThe Debate Over AI
I got an email the other day title, “Use AI to Write Your Book in a Flash”. I think Alexa, and Siri, and Google Assistant are annoying, and only correct a portion of the time. So when I saw this email, my first thought was, “Who would want to read a book written by AI?”
AI applications and tools are improving rapidly, so the idea of AI writing my book for me isn’t that far fetched. But the more I though about it, the more offended I became. I write as a means of expressing myself using my ideas, my words, my voice. I wouldn’t want an AI to write my whole book, no matter how fast it can do it. How could they actually believe an unfeeling, inhuman AI tool could even attempt to write for me?
The fact is, most of us already use AI in our daily lives, and we probably don’t even give it a second thought anymore. Most of us an Alexa, or Siri, or Google Assistant, or an equivilant AI device which we use to gain information, turn on our lights, play music, or even tell us a joke. We’ve come to accept AI as a part of daily life.
But when folks start talking about using AI for writing or narrating a book, concerned voices come out of the dark to express displeasure, siting several reasons why using AI with books and literature is not a desirable thing, but one or two stand out: AI created or narrated books are cheating, and take away human jobs.
We’re going to look at the validity of that argument, but first, let’s talk about the different types of AI and what they can and can’t do. Many of us already use AI in our writing, too, but we may not even realize it. Do you use the automatic spell checker that is built into Microsoft Word? Or maybe you use Grammerly or ProWriting Aid to help polish your words? Not so many because not all authors have audiobooks out, but some, may take advantage of the free AI narration for audio books available on Google Play. And then of course, there is Chat GTP, or [ ] which many authors use to help them in their research or in creating setting or character description.
The Creative Penn Podcast on AI
Joanna Penn is a futurist author and podcaster who is usually at least two or three steps ahead of the trends on The Creative Penn podcast. AI has been a hot topic on her poscast and she has many episodes which cover this topic. Penn is transparent in her use of AI in her writing and in creating illustrations. She has played with AI narration, and even had an AI voice created from her own voice, which she claims has saved her tremendous time in creating her audiobooks, which she previously narrated herself. In a couple of her podcast episodes, Penn plays the AI narrations for one of her audiobooks in a couple of different voices to illustrate the quality of AI narration that could be achieved. And I know that quality has improved even more since she recorded those episodes.
If AI is cheating, then with the narration, Penn is only cheating herself. She places disclaimers, letting readers know if a creative work is made with AI and in what capacity, so no one feels fooled or tricked. Although some people are out there pushing the use of AI to ‘write your book quick’, Penn points out that AI technology are simply tools to be used by the author or artist in the creative process. On The Creative Penn podcast, Joanna talks about how she uses ChatGPT and Mid-Journey to assist her in her research, and how she tells the AI what she is looking for and then can refine her search or tell it to make adjustments to a paragraph or an image until it meets what she has envisioned in her own head.
If you are interested in hearing what Joanna Penn has to say about the use of AI, you might try one or more of the episodes listed below.
- Episode #562 – Co-Creating with AI Writing and Image Tools with Shane Neeley
- Episode #589 – Digital Narration with AI Voices with Taylan Kamis from DeepZen
- Episode #649 – Using AI for Art, Images, and Book Covers with Derek Murphy
- Episode #660 – Co-writing Fiction with Generative AI with Charlene Putney
- Episode #686 – Improve your writing with ProWritingAid with Chris Banks
- Episode #690 – The AI-Assisted Artisan Author with Joanna Penn
- Episode #691 – Generative AI and the Indie Author Community with Dan Wood (Draft2Digital), Michael Anderle (LMBPN, 20BooksTo50K), and Joanna Penn
- Episode #700 – Using Sudowrite for Writing Fiction with Amit Gupta
- Episode #701 – “9 Ways That AI Will Disrupt Authors and the Publishing Industry in the Next Decade [2023 Update] with Joanna Penn and Nick Thacker“
- Episode #707 – “How AI Tools Are Useful For Writers with Disabilities and Health Issues with S.J. Pajonas”
- Episode #712 – “Using AI Images in Your Book Cover Design Process with Damon Freeman”
Now, I don’t pretend to understand a lot of this because I haven’t used Chat GPT or Mid-Journey myself yet, so I can only go by what I hear, but I think it is something that is definitely worth looking into. As a DIY author, publisher, and book marketer, anything that can save me time and help me improve my writing or help sell more books is worth further exploration.
How I Use AI
As I write, I use the AI generated grammar and spellchecker that is built into MS Word, and I bet you do, too. I also employ the free version of ProWriting Aid as I do the final pass on all manuscripts, for myself and others. The AI generated tools pick up errors that I have missed, because hey, I’m only human. I don’t accept every suggestion offered, but they show me things I need to look at, and then I decide if changes are in order, and what type of changes should be made. But again, the AI tools are helpful in pointing out where there are possible errors, or suggesting a better way to say something, but the AI isn’t always right. Suggested corrections don’t always take voice or tone into account, and I, as the author make the final decisions about what goes on the page.
I have not tried using an AI tool such as Chat GPT, but I can see the potential. If I had a tool that could assist me in thinking through each scene, with suggestions for options at my fingertips, I think it would save me a lot of time. And a tool that could help me, who cannot draw well and is not artistic in that way, to create my own images for book covers, illustration and promotion, is something I want to know more about. I’m creating my own images anyway, but perhaps AI could help me make my images better.
Doing my own audiobooks is something I’ve been looking at for a while, but haven’t yet been able to pull off. The idea of creating an AI voice from my own definitely appeals to me, since audiobook creation requires a lot of time that I don’t seem to have. I don’t know enough about it right now to make any rash decisions, but I certainly want to know more. I have listened to AI generated narration that sounds pretty good, and I’ve heard Mark Leslie Lefabvre’s AI narration created from his own voice, which offers few clues that it isn’t the real Mark. (I can’t find the episode now, but at the end of one recent episode of the Stark Reflections podcast, he plays his final reflections read by his AI voice.)
WordCrafter Press also used an AI generated image and voice in the book trailer for the 2023 anthology, Midnight Roost, created by DL Mullan and Undawnted. And frankly, I think it is an outstanding book trailer and the AI made it really cool. This is an awesome way to showcase the authors and the anthology as a whole. Give it a watch below and see what you think. I can definitely see how a tool such as the one used by Mullan could be a great asset in my advertising tool kit.
Midnight Roost Book Trailer
AI is Just a Tool
You can guess from the above post that AI tools are something I have an interest in using. Many of us already use AI tools, even if we don’t look at it that way. I know I used the AI spell checker on MS Word and ProWriting Aid without thinking twice, because they made my life as a writer easier. But as Joanna Penn repeatedly points out, AI can’t do it alone, it needs your input, your humanity, to do what it is programed to do. Alone AI can’t write a thing.
Let me know what you think about the use of AI tools in the comments.
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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; and book 1 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
The future of education
Posted: August 12, 2020 | Author: robbiesinspiration | Filed under: AI Technology, Commentary, Education, Growing Bookworms, Opinion, Parenting | Tags: Education, Growing Bookworms, Parenting, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read | 64 CommentsIn March 2020 the world went mad. A new virus called Covid-19 started spreading rapidly among humans and by the end of that month most countries were engaged in a horrible new way of life called lock down. As with many other countries, lock-down in South Africa started with the closure of our schools.
The schools were given a minimum period of four business days to prepare for lock down and, in the case of my sons’ school, a home school programme. Fortunately, their school had seen the way the wind was blowing and had started preparing for a potential closure period earlier in the month. Even so, the teaching staff were not afforded much time to get themselves ready to go completely on-line with teaching.
On Thursday, the 18th of March my sons started on-line learning. It wasn’t badly implemented, despite the short timeline, and they had had Google classroom meetings hosted by their teachers, on-line assignments, YouTube video sessions and a lot of other help with all of their subjects.
At the end of March their school closed for the holiday and the teachers worked diligently to make improvements to the on-line programme. School reopened on the 6th of May and my boys continued with their on-line learning until the closure of the second term on Friday, 31 July. They even wrote examinations for two weeks under lock down conditions.
A few weeks ago, a good blogging friend of mine, Jim Borden, a university lecturer wrote this post https://jborden.com/2020/07/19/can-what-you-do-be-replicated-by-technology/. One of the questions he asks in this post is the replacement of teachers by Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and on-line learning likely. A most interesting question, especially in light of the current scenario where millions of children have all been testing out this theory. So what do I think after my 11 week baptism of hell with home schooling? Does it make sense to replace teachers with AI?
My answer is a resounding NO! There are some advantages to an on-line learning programme. It would be much cheaper. There would be no need of large buildings to accommodate students and all the related furniture. There would be no need for cleaners, caterers and caretakers.
It would also be easier, I wouldn’t need to sit in traffic every day taking them to and from school.
It would also be far less time consuming as there would be no distractions in the form of socialising, team sports, individual sports, debating, chess, clubs and the numerous other things that fill up a child’s school day. It has also been proven statistically that children retain more information that they learn through on-line learning than in a classroom [personally, I’m not completely convinced about the correctness of this particular statistic].
So why then don’t I believe teaching works as well on-line as in the classroom?
I believe that all children, from the youngest to the oldest in our school system, need the human interaction with a teacher and their peers in order to stay emotionally balanced and motivated. People are social animals and they find isolation very difficult. My younger son has told me repeatedly that he misses his friends and the routine of the school day.
Even my older son, who is highly motivated and diligent has found it difficult to stay focused and disciplined during the lockdown period. The lack of routines and contact with other learners and teachers makes it feel a bit purposeless, even if it isn’t.
I also believe the children learn a lot from socialising. Working and life isn’t all about output and sitting at a computer on your own all day. It is about learning to work in teams and motivate others to deliver to deadlines. It is also about brain storming and working together to problem solve. These are all life skills that you cannot learn alone in front of your computer.
I am not going to go into the benefits of sport and extra curricular activities here, but they are numerous and the lack of these past times over the past five months has been has been very trying for children, and adults too.
Of course, there are also the other more basic issues that make on-line learning difficult. Many children lack access to the technology required for on-line learning, including a reliable internet and a computer. No everyone has these, but even if they did, it would not change my view on the relevance of teachers and teaching in a physical situation.
What do you think? Do you think teachers could be replaced by AI and on-line learning programmes? Has your view on this changed over the past few months? Let me know in the comments.
I made a Covid-19 memories cake recently which caricatured the nursery rhyme, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. I created a young mother with a washing basket full of clothing outside her shoe home. Her many children are all sitting, socially distanced, home schooling. They all have laptops and headsets.
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with seven published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads:
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
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