Writing

No, You Shouldn’t Use AI, Even on the Small Stuff

July 13, 2025July 13, 2025 Kara Jorgensen4 Comments

If you’ve followed me on social media for longer than a few days, you know I hate AI. I am morally opposed on every level to AI because it not only destroys the environment but is a tool of fascism. As much as I would like to word vomit about that, instead, I would like to speak about why writers shouldn’t use AI, even for seemingly minor details as so many AI-using authors claim to do.

Here’s the thing, there are no truly minor details or unimportant parts of a book as everything needs to further the characterization and mood of the story.

I can already feel some writers rolling their eyes at that. Feel free to do so at your own peril. Writers who are willing to hand over parts of their project to AI to “free up their time” to do other things should instead look at their relationship to hustle culture and why they have chosen quantity over quality. Hustle culture is rife in the writing world with many author groups pushing a churn and burn mentality where authors need to publish every 3 months or be lost to irrelevancy. If you go onto Amazon’s top 100 category boards for books on writing, you’ll find books about writing more or writing faster. While those can be useful, writing more isn’t the same as writing good or better books. The hustle side of the writing world stresses that readers don’t care about the books themselves. They’ll read anything as long as it checks off a few boxes for them, and that once you have hooked them, readers will come back every 90 days to choke down whatever book you throw at them.

I despise this mentality. For one, it is patronizing to readers. Readers won’t stick around if your book sucks or if the quality goes down over time. We’ve seen this with readers noticing an author with a massive backlist has turned to AI, and they abandon them when the writing becomes nonsensical or the quality change becomes noticeably bad. I don’t like when authors treat their readers like shit or take advantage of them by assuming they will always be there no matter how they treat them or how crappy their books are. If you’re a writer, I believe you should write for yourself first, but anything you sell to readers should be the best it could possibly be for them since they’re the ones supporting you monetarily.

What I hate even more about the hustle culture mentality is the way corporate speak has made its way into creative fields. Creativity can and should make you money. Artists should be paid fairly for their work and be able to make a stable living off of it. At the same time, I don’t think creativity should be treated like a business in the way that corporations expect exponential growth at all times. It is unsustainable. We cannot write more books every single year and increase our yearly word counts exponentially. It is impossible and will quickly lead to burn out and quality loss. In order to meet these unsustainable quotas, authors turn to AI because others have convinced them that if they outsource the tedious parts of writing to the machine, they will free up time to write more of the things they enjoy or just write faster. The problem is that those tedious parts aren’t useless; everything in your book should serve a purpose.

What many of these “write more in less time” gurus purposely ignore is writing as a craft. There is almost no discussion of how to make your writing better, only how to do it faster. If they did care about craft, none of them would be suggesting using AI. As someone who teaches young writers how to better their work, every piece of writing I have seen from AI is far worse and emptier than anything brand new writers in my classes have come up with. AI writing is confusing, devoid of charm or character, and just flat-out bad. 0/10 do not recommend using it because it will take way more time to edit than just writing something yourself. A study with people who code showed that while they thought they were taking less time using AI, they were actually taking longer because they had to review it, fix it, etc (source). This is on top of the environmental harm, the fact that it is a tool of fascism, and a plagiarism machine.

The thing that a lot of writers using AI for the “boring parts” don’t seem to understand is that the minor details are incredibly important to your story. One of my most hated posts online is the whole, “Only English teachers care that the drapes are blue. They’re just blue. The author just gave it a random color. It isn’t that deep.” Sure, that can be true occasionally, but 99% of your descriptions and details should be purposeful. When you are creating a world, even if a story takes place in the real world, you are building a microcosm specific to your characters and the story you are telling. Therefore, there is an added level of cohesion and purpose in those details that might not appear in our material reality. When you are setting the scene, you need to think about how you want the reader to feel while interacting with this part of the world, how the structure fits the function of this setting, and how the point of view character effects the way the world is interpreted or experienced. For example, a character with a phobia of dentists is going to view, experience, and describe a dental office differently than someone who doesn’t think getting their teeth cleaned is a traumatic experience. If you just let AI fill in the description of the dental office, you are losing that context. Even if the character isn’t scared of it, they will still notice details other characters won’t, and while you’re writing your story, that should be something you focus on.

The other place I’ve heard people using AI for “busy work” in books is dialogue. This really makes no sense to me because dialogue is one of the best ways to insert characterization, motivation, and movement into a story. Even if you feed a chat bot relevant information about your character, it isn’t going to understand the context of your work and anything about the character below a surface level. Any dialogue it spits out will be generic, boring, and probably ill-fitting for the moment. This is one of those situations where editing extensively will be necessary and will probably take longer than just writing it yourself.

But what if I’m stuck? Why can’t I just use AI to fill in the gap for me?

Because that’s cheating! It’s cheating yourself out of using your brain to puzzle out what should go next. It’s like saying, “I find this exercise hard, so I’m going to use a motor to move the dumbbell for me.” It isn’t going to help you, and at some point, your writing muscles are going to shrink and atrophy until you can’t write anything without constantly circling back to AI. Using AI long-term causes cognitive problems (source). If you continually use it to help write your books, you will become more dependent on it and eventually get worse at writing. The best way to combat this is to face the things that challenge you head-on. Why are you stuck on this dialogue? Why do you struggle with description? Do you not know when you need to add it, or do you simply need some resources to help you name things?

There are a ton of writing resources online made by authors for authors, many of which are free. Instead of using AI, slow down and invest time and effort into getting better at your craft. I know hustle culture says write more, write faster, publish quicker, but the best way to get ahead as a writer is to take time for yourself and do things to be a better writer. Sometimes, that looks like taking a break to read good books, watch shows that stoke that creative fire, do other crafts to refill your well. Other times, it’s dissecting how other authors write well and figuring out how to do that in your own way. Writing takes work, and work means effort on your part. Using AI to write the things that you struggle with or find boring means that you are cheating yourself out of the opportunity to learn, grow, and become a better writer. Before you run to ChatGPT for help when you get stuck, look up a resource on Google that can help you with this particular thing. If you are struggling, others have too, and there’s a 90% chance that someone has made something to help you figure it out on your own.

Writing

What I Learned from Writing TRR

November 24, 2024November 17, 2024 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Every book is a learning experience. This is something I have been trying to drill into my college students’ heads while teaching my novel writing class this semester. No two projects are the same, and every book teaches you new things. Some more than others. The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3) is one of those books where I felt like I stretched myself and came out the other side a better writer. This isn’t a blog patting myself on the back. It’s more so a postmortem on what I think I did right this time.

The Reanimator’s Remains is the third book in the Reanimator Mysteries series, so I was working with characters I had already worked with twice before. This is important because I think being able to grow as a writer can be dependent upon being comfortable in other areas of the book. Knowing who Oliver, Gwen, and Felipe are and being very confident in portraying them made it much easier to step out of my comfort zone when it came to plot level intricacies. I had never really written a plot (or subplot) that relied upon flashbacks. As a creative writing teacher, I know these things can go badly fast. I was worried about how to sprinkle Felipe’s memories into the story in a way that a) feels natural b) doesn’t break up the action too much c) is useful to the story/his characterization. Felipe is a character who holds his cards close to his chest, so the chance of him spilling all of his traumatic backstory to Oliver was slim to none. Ultimately, I decided the best way to deal with this was through dreams (which can be risky in their own way), but the dreams end up tied into the overarching plot of the story, not due to Felipe’s memories per se but something else. Each dream ended with Felipe waking up in a way that scared and/or disoriented him, which helped to keep the tension from dipping after. I think the big thing about feeling like you leveled up your writing is that you’re just more aware of all the moving parts and how they link together. Instead of dropping them, I have been focused on how can one feed another.

The other thing with this book that I think made it a little better than my previous stories is that I leaned into the things my writers like or have told me I’m good at, which comes down to rich descriptions and crying men. I don’t like drama for the sake of drama in books, which is why I hate third act break-ups in romance novels. With this book, we have two established main characters who love each other very much. They are each other’s main vulnerability, and at this point we know their fears. Half of writing The Reanimator’s Remains was playing on Oliver and Felipe’s fears, especially the ones readers are already privy to. This sort of thing upped the ante when it came to the tension between the characters, and even if readers know things will end up all right, they are still feeding off the other character’s fear. My favorite thing to write is the third act mental breakdown (as opposed to a break-up) where one of the characters has to be exceedingly vulnerable and the other has to meet them where they are and accept them for the hot mess they are. It’s a level of emotional intimacy that just makes the romance so much deeper. This book also has a sex scene that isn’t a sex scene, but I won’t go too deep into that because I don’t want to go too much into spoiler land. All I will say is that sex scenes are about being naked and vulnerable, and the sex scene that isn’t a sex scene is all about letting someone else care for you when you struggle to let down your guard.

Something I feel awkward about sometimes is how I write descriptions. I love a lot of detail. My writing influences are very Victorian, which means I enjoy a useful, well-placed description rich in detail. Part of me worries my descriptions are boring or that modern audiences don’t like them, but I have to remind myself that my audience likes a beefy, evocative description. I actually had a reader tell me how much she loved the creepy cathedral in The Reanimator’s Heart, so in book 3, I was like f it, I’m writing a creepy forest, and you all are going to like it. So I went ass-deep into research about bogs, forests, etc. and let the freak fly when it came to my descriptions. I am a romantic goremonger by nature, so I leaned into it in this book with the Dysterwood, the dead people, and the [redacted] mentioned in the story.

As you become more comfortable with your style as a writer, you need to lean into the things that drew people to your work in the first place. Sometimes, you can go overboard, but for the most part, appealing to your readers by playing to your strengths is rarely a bad thing. Do what you do but better. Keep an eye on all of the spinning plates and figure out how to make your narrative work by having the pieces feed off each other rather than act as discrete, separate parts of the plot/construction. Most of all, never stop trying to get better at your craft and learning.

Writing

On Writing Sequels

February 26, 2023February 11, 2023 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I know a lot of writers writhe in angst over writing sequels or second books in a series, but I think I’m in the minority here as I actually much prefer writing sequels to the initial book. In this week’s blog, I hope I can help you to make writing sequels a little easier in the future.

As per my usual writing caveat, what works for one writer doesn’t work for another, so take all writing advice with a grain of salt.

Why I like sequels and struggle with book 1:

Book one is a blank slate. I have no idea who the characters are when I start writing, or what I know of them is very fuzzy until I’m a decent way into the manuscript. This means, there’s a lot of stopping and starting to figure out if what I’m doing seems out of character for them or that I need to take another look at their backstory to make sure what I want them to be makes sense. By the end of book one, I know who these characters are. I know their personalities and desires, so when I’m setting up book two, the internal growth thread is significantly easier.

With sequels, we have the basis of the world, we have the foundation for the main characters (or most of them) ironed out, and parts of the plot might even be ready to go before drafting book two because they appeared in book one. I worry more about people not liking book two as much as book one than I do the actual writing of book two. There are also some tips and tricks I’ve learned while writing my first book series, which had 3 different pairings that rotated between six books. The books were not a continuous series, but the plots were interwoven into each other along with the growth of the main cast.

While this advice may not be super helpful for books that have totally disparate casts within the same world, a continuous or linked series would probably benefit from the tips below.

Create a “story bible”

As I write my books, I grab the important information like character descriptions, major setting descriptions (or at least the locations of those descriptions), and a reverse outline of book one (with a timeline) and dump them into a document. These catch-all documents are often referred to as story bibles. If you aren’t sure what to include, there are plenty of resources for building story bibles, including various apps. Having a story bible makes it super easy to locate important information later, and I don’t have to read the previous book a hundred times. I still reread the last book before writing the next one to remind myself of how the characters speak and interact, but this cuts down on having to find things constantly.

Trust me when I say nothing is worse than belatedly realizing that a major plot point cannot happen in a later book due to a reason or conflict in an earlier book. If you’re writing a linked series or one that bounces between characters, keep track of timelines especially.

Be careful that this doesn’t become a time suck or procrastination method. I find it easier to grab the info as I write or when I finish the book, and I only add niche items when I absolutely need it. Keep in mind that too much random info will make it hard to pick through, and it will be useless to you unless it’s very well organized.

Follow the Threads

This is something you should think about while writing the first/previous book, though sometimes they pop up unintentionally. Threads are basically loose ends or questions that are left unanswered at the end of a book. Sometimes newer writers think they need to wrap-up absolutely everything in a book, but if that book is intended to be a series, it makes sense to leave smaller questions unanswered in order to get readers to want to go on to the next book in the series.

As a caveat, this doesn’t necessarily mean the book should be a cliffhanger. I’m not a huge fan of cliffhanger endings unless your books are coming out very close together or it’s a traditionally published continuous serious. They generally frustrate audiences as they lack closure.

Threads, on the other hand, are minor mysteries or side plots, little things that seem important and get carried through the book or brought up at the end only to go unsolved or unanswered. With The Reanimator’s Heart, some threads might be how might Felipe change now that he’s undead or whose heart was it in the jar? Besides those, there are also little hints of things in both main characters’ pasts that could be important later.

Why are threads important for sequels? Well, for one, they help to figure out the plot or shape of subsequent books. The character development from one book to the next should make sense and should build off each other. Readers reading your book in sequential order (aka the vast majority of readers) will be excited to see the things you mentioned in book 1 appear in book 2 or 3. It makes your choices feel purposeful, rather than accidental. Even if you’re bad at playing the long game, this helps to create cohesion.

Sequels are siblings, not twins

Much like eyebrows, sequels are meant to be siblings of the books that come before and after them, not twins. What I mean by that is we need growth between books, but the books need to stay true to the tone and general feel of the others. You shouldn’t have a large genre leap or one book be super tragic and the next silly. You can certainly have a very dark book 2 where it feels like hope is lost before they triumph in book 3; that shift in tone is a logical one. If you mess around with genre or tone too much between books, you will turn off readers who liked the preceding book but will feel cheated by that sudden change.

On the flip side of this issue is sequels becoming twins. This is what happens when books in a series are too similar. Often, the problem is caused by not enough character development or plot movement happening between books. With certain genres, like detective fiction, we expect varied plots with a fairly stable main character, but in the vast majority of genres, it’s expected that your characters will grow and change. If you make that change too slow or have them move forward and then revert to how they were at the beginning of the previous book, you will frustrate your readers because they will end up reading basically the same book arc-wise.

This is more like conjoined twins, but a sequel is also not book 1 broken into two books. There’s a difference between the plot/character arc of a series running over two books (a duology) and snapping a single arc like a breadstick into two books. It throws off the pacing horrendously. If you have a proper duology, each book has a properly paced arc that also fits neatly into the series arc. Micro and macro arcs, so to speak.

To keep these issues from happening make sure your characters grow, your tone/genre are similar or compatible, and that each book has a separate arc but also ties into the larger arc of the series (especially if it’s a continuous series).

Just remember when working on series and sequels that book one laid the foundation for all future books. When in doubt, reread the previous book(s) for inspiration and guidance on how to move forward.

Writing

The Truth About Critique Groups

November 6, 2022October 29, 2022 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

Before I get started, I want to make it clear that I believe writing critique groups can be a fantastic resource for bettering your craft if you’re in a group with the right people and dynamic. The key word is if. I should also specify what I mean by critique group. Other names for this might be a beta reading group or workshop group. I use these in my creative writing classes and participated in them in graduate school while getting my MFA in creative writing. Overall, I really enjoyed getting feedback on my work and I find my students get some valuable input regarding their pieces, but outside of a scholastic setting (and inside it if your professor isn’t actively working to keep it from going toxic), they can be very hit or miss. I have put rules in place in my classes to maintain order and keep the participants in my workshops happy, or at least, I try to keep them from leaving workshop dissatisfied. Here are some factors you may want to keep in mind if you are trying to create a workshop group of your own:

Find people close in skill or career level.

The problem with critique groups is that, ultimately, someone always get screwed over if the group dynamic isn’t perfect. To have a successful critique group, you need to have people who are of a very similar level in terms of skill. This means skill as a writer and skill as an editor. Sometimes you have someone who is a better editor than writer, which means they can be a very useful feedback partner, but if you have people of very different skill levels, the lower members of the group might feel like the feedback they get is harsh (especially compared to the feedback others are getting) and the higher members will get useless feedback that strokes the ego but doesn’t really improve their work. As much as I love a good ego pat in a workshop group, it’s demoralizing when week after week, you get told, “great job!” and nothing more. The highest people aren’t getting anything out of it. The lower people are made to feel bad if they aren’t accustomed to feedback or the other members are harsh/rude/not focusing on big picture issues. Often a lower writer will get a shit ton of knitpicky feedback, which is overwhelming but not useful if what they really need to focus on are big picture issues like character development or pacing. The people in the middle who are all close in terms of skill level or are in a place where they’re upwardly mobile with their skills gain the most from the group.

Be selective and expect change.

At some point, people will come and go from the group. That is just a fact of life, but as people outgrow the group or stop writing due to whatever reason, the group will change, and you will need to be careful about maintaining the dynamic within the group. It sucks because many of us in writing groups become friends or start to depend on people within those groups to give good feedback. At the same time, if you are in a group and find you aren’t getting anything out of it, don’t be guilt tripped into staying. The whole point of a group like this is that everyone should benefit. If you find you’re giving good feedback and getting nothing or if you find that your personalities aren’t meshing, leaving is probably for the best. For those creating a workshop group, I highly suggest being at least semi selective. You want people who are of similar skill levels, so you might want to ask to see their work and/or have them give feedback on a piece. I wouldn’t focus on grammar and such, as that is an easy fix, but check if their level of craft would meld well with the rest of the group. Some might think this is being elitist or exclusionary, but in order for a group like this to work, you can’t have a brand new writer stumbling into a group of seasoned writers where they are completely out of their depth and vice versa.

Rules, rules, rules.

The other issue is that you really need some sort of mediation or rules to keep the group structured. What I’ve seen happen online is that there’s one eager person who posts A LOT of material and asks for feedback while others post less often. Resentment grows for the frequent poster and the responses to their work dwindles, especially if they aren’t as eager to give feedback. Basically, the give-and-take balance needs to be maintained. With a workshop in a class, it’s fairly easy to maintain that balance because workshops happen at regular intervals, everyone [hypothetically] posts their work to their group, and those group members [hypothetically] respond to everyone within the group. There’s equal give-and-take and a fairly standardized amount of work that can be submitted. This keeps one person from completely overwhelming the group or being the only one giving feedback all the time. My suggestion would be to make subgroups if the group is decently large (keeping groups to 4 or less people) or create some sort of posting schedule with page limits to keep one person from monopolizing the group. Trust me when I say that in grad school, the person who handed in 10 pages when the limit was 5 got many a resentful eye roll during class. Don’t be that person. You also need admins to enforce the rules fairly and maintain some semblance of order. Toss out those who don’t pull their weight or repeatedly break the rules.

Use virtual meetings apps for workshops.

Something that I am very adamant about with my students is that they give feedback face-to-face or at least voice-to-voice. The problem with leaving feedback without explaining it aloud is tone. It is so easy to get bent out of shape because you think someone is being harsh when they don’t intend to. On top of that, people are less predisposed to casual nastiness if they know they have to say it to the person’s face. I have gotten myself in trouble as college student because I posted feedback to a classmate that they took issue with. I was too blunt and they took it more harshly than I intended. Face-to-face allows for tone or clarification along side written or in-text feedback. I have used Google Meets with my students, which has worked well, and I would imagine something like Discord would work as well. If you are able, I would suggest setting a time that works well for the group and holding it at the same time at regular intervals.

Don’t be an asshole.

I stress to my students that criticism really means constructive feedback, not strictly negative feedback. Constructive feedback instructs the person on what needs to be fixed, is specific, and possibly suggests how to fix it. If you just say, “it sucked,” or “I hate this character,” or “I liked it,” that isn’t helpful at all. Don’t be the person who is needlessly harsh to others. As someone on Twitter once said, “When you’re brutally honest, people remember the brutality, not the honesty.” Make sure your feedback is helpful and coming from a place of instruction and wanting the person to better themselves. How would you feel if someone gave your best friend that feedback? Would you be mad for them? I know we all think we can dish it and take it, but consider if you would be pissed hearing your bestie get the feedback you’re giving others. If you find someone in your group is giving feedback that is harsh (but not offensive), have a discussion to correct them. It might be difficult if they struggle with tone as some people do, but if they can give extra explanation/context with their feedback, it may smooth things over.

At the same time, expect to get criticized.

The inverse of the previous issue is that some people cannot handle getting non-positive feedback. If you’re one of those people who is easily wounded by criticism, don’t join a critique group unless you are purposely working to modulate those feelings. Otherwise, you’re going to resent the people in your group or tank your mental health if you take every bit of criticism as evidence your work sucks. The best writer still has room for growth, and if you join a writing group, you should expect that others might point out where you need to work on your craft. Positive feedback only isn’t going to help you grow. That’s just a fact of learning. I think it’s important to be told what you’re good at, but too much only grows the ego. I find people who reject all feedback as a personal attack particularly annoying in a workshop group, usually because they’re very willing to critique others (hypocritical) or all their feedback is praise (useless). They’re usually the hardest to correct. If you see yourself in this description or take personal offense, you may want to work on your ability to take feedback before you start asking for it. It only gets worse once strangers on the internet read your work.

Those are my tips for how to best deal with a workshop group. If you’re starting your own, please consider the logistics ahead of time, if you’re able to put in the time and effort required, and if the people you invite to join are as committed as you are.