Who said romance genre could be formulaic?’

[Phyrebrat]

Hmmm…

 

[Venusian Broon]

I tried looking up Rachelle Ayala on Amazon, loads of books, especially 6-12 book series sold en masse (Yeah, no sh*t, AI is being used to 'aid' writing ) But very few reviews on most (under 50) and I couldn't find the negative reviews, even although the system said there were some, so it just gave you the top 4-5 star ones pinned to the main page. Which may just be because it's just looking at UK...but really...suspicious.

Also look up the rwa chapterevents thing too. Yeah, the events cost you to access.

Not saying this is a hustle and scam, but there's an intense smell of something a little unwholesome.

EDIT: So I read a bit of a sample. I am no expert on Romance, but if it's described as 'hot' then that means its a bit like a p*rn script?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Events for romance writers generally do charge.

Also note that the announcement up above refers to "AI assisted" rather than "AI written." I assume that is because Amazon makes a distinction in what it is willing to publish for Kindle. Considering the deluge of short romances (less than a hundred pages each) by new writers that I've been seeing listed, I think that this is a definite trend, so to that extent I think that teaching others how to do this too, is not a scam.

Not that it's a development that I approve of—because it isn't, and the more so because I think the distinction between AI assisted and AI written is likely a very slippery one.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

99 percent of romance novels (written by humans) are dreadful. Now AI will further reduce the quality. Amazing that there is a market for this stuff.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Events for romance writers generally do charge.

Also note that the announcement up above refers to "AI assisted" rather than "AI written." I assume that is because Amazon makes a distinction in what it is willing to publish for Kindle. Considering the deluge of short romances (less than a hundred pages each) by new writers that I've been seeing listed, I think that this is a definite trend, so to that extent I think that teaching others how to do this too, is not a scam.

Not that it's a development that I approve of—because it isn't, and the more so because I think the distinction between AI assisted and AI written is likely a very slippery one.

Yes, my choice of word was a tad harsh, I should have stuck with 'hustle'. In the sense that she's saying she's written 100 books, but if most of them have barely been read/sold and it seems like "quick turnover writing" (i.e. bad) then it feels like somewhat false advertising for her paid events. If she had been a best-selling romance/erotica author (and I could access the low star reviews!), I'd be less cynical.

(After reading a sample or two, it read a lot like the ladies who do 'DInosaur P*rn' - although in their case, their stories were very short, a couple of thousand of words, and felt more like a bit of a knowing joke. But what do I know? Perhaps she's got the same mentality. Just writes bigger manuscripts.)

I suspect the blurring of "assist" and "writing" with AI can only get worse from here on in. We're only at the beginning of what it can do. If you are an author who is used to churning out vast amounts of content, and an AI with minimal input starts produces masses of readable output needing little editing, I feel the lure of an easier path to increase your workrate will be impossible to ignore.

 

[Astro Pen]

Romance, (and erotica), are extremely hard to write, You don't realise this until you try.

Mills and Boone seem to be quite formulaic in their demand list for manuscripts, so I can see where AI might be of interest to help assemble something that "fits the formula". However human relationships, beyond "Dr Love" and all that 19th century "Mama and Papa disaprove of Mr Blenkinsop" stuff. tend to be way more complex. I think the New British Realism was driven by a kind of revulsion of that trend, and I don't think AI is going to be able to craft that gut wrenching contrapuntal mess.
That said, Rom Com definitely has a place and can be fun, I am very fond of "When Harry met Sally." for example, then it was a bit of a mold breaker, and the dialogue was terrific.

PS
I just bought a copy of Anne Rice's "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty." I was disappointed in that it was very much a stylistic clone of Reage's
'The Story of O', which is, let's be blunt, more pornography than romance. I had hoped for something more subtle from Anne

 

[Phyrebrat]

To be clear, I have no particular opinion on romance as a genre. Other than it brings its aficionados (authors and readers alike) a lot of joy.

As someone from an often othered and misunderstood genre myself, I’m uncomfortable with dismissal of styles etc. For horror writers there is an intersectionality of prejudice which beggars belief when it comes from fantasy or sf fans.

My point is the use of AI.

I’ve been using AI as a tool to get me ‘in the mood’ to write by using art generators to make me see my characters. Or certain items germane to the story. Below is something I used to encapsulate the red monks in my sf horror.

Ai has its place but it is early days and there’s a lot of knee jerk reactions going on. I hope we never see a blooming industry where ai works are published but that’s my only concern so far.

Fantasy writers often love to spend more time world building than actually writing. AI can probably assist with the realisation of that.

My personal feelIng on AI writing is: until AI has experienced a hangover or the loss of a child, authors are safe. AI can’t write like me. Can’t write like you. Try to use Chatgtp to write in my lyrical style and see how far you can get without it reading as the most purplish of puce. You’re the sole person who can write like you. There’s as much competition from human authors as AI.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

If I could access the low star reviews!), I'd be less cynical.

Since it possible to give a star rating without writing a review, it is possible you can't access the reviews because they don't, in fact, exist.

 

[Swank]

AI will be aping the human feel of books in no time, because all it needs to do is read all of them. Something we can't do. If no one stops this, all art is going to be gone in a very short time in favor of AI stuff that seems to "just nail it" every time. Melodies you just can't get out of your head, perfect plot lines with no holes. "Actors" that are handsome in just the right way.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

AI is already affecting YouTube. I came across a bike review that clearly used scripts (and voices) generated by AI. A generic list of opinions in no particular order, sometimes incoherent or contradictory. Absolute garbage. And no doubt KDP is being loaded up with this stuff as we speak. I don't think any of us here are in any doubt about what is happening.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Romance, (and erotica), are extremely hard to write, You don't realise this until you try.

TBH I find erotica quite easy, and can happily churn out a couple of thousand words in an hour. I sometimes use it the way a singer does vocal exercises; to get into the flow before working on a more serious or challenging piece. The main challenge with erotica is turning off ones internal censor. As you write, you must assume nobody is going to be reading it, trawl the depths of your psyche, then hit publish!

 

[Phyrebrat]

Excerpt from a PM I have just sent.

I completely agree with you on using AI it’s a slippery slope. Mine is never used as anything other than a mental stimulus and something to override my executive dysfunction stemming from ADHD. As soon as I feel excited to write because I’m inspired by the picture I have created of a character, for example, the AI has done its job and I am free to write.

Oh, and btw this is the real AI pic I generated for my monks.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

@Phyrebrat , what AI application did you use to generate that image?

 

[Phyrebrat]

It’s an app for iPhone called Gencraft.

 

[Oligonicella]

Events for romance writers generally do charge.

Also note that the announcement up above refers to "AI assisted" rather than "AI written." I assume that is because Amazon makes a distinction in what it is willing to publish for Kindle. Considering the deluge of short romances (less than a hundred pages each) by new writers that I've been seeing listed, I think that this is a definite trend, so to that extent I think that teaching others how to do this too, is not a scam.

Not that it's a development that I approve of—because it isn't, and the more so because I think the distinction between AI assisted and AI written is likely a very slippery one.

Very slippery, as in everything except the upload is "assistance".

 

[tinkerdan]

@Venusian Broon The thing about the amazon ratings is that you can rate a book without reviewing it and those are likely the ratings you can't find reviews for. Basically the person thought the book was so bad they couldn't find words to describe.

As to this author--i do see one book with over 900 ratings and a few others hovering around three hundred.

That much said, those are likely not the assisted novels since it says that she has been using the assist for only one year.

In a way it is misleading, that mention pf 100 novels, when many of those were written prior to the year of assist.

 

[Oligonicella]

Excerpt from a PM I have just sent.


Oh, and btw this is the real AI pic I generated for my monks.

View attachment 115173

It's a horror piece?

 

[Phyrebrat]

They all are

I put in ‘screaming monks’ as part of the criteria

 

[Oligonicella]

When using AI to assist in writing, always keep in mind if you are not the one programming the criteria, you are working with some else's (the owner's or programmer's) biases. These can be injected into your results. These systems are grown by feeding it volumes of text to create a honeycomb like structure of 'nearness' relationships, nearness being proximity to other words not concepts. These relationships are pruned by tokens controlling what's allowed not only in but out.

Just recall the recent kerfuffle about Google's AI refusing to generate - not mistakingly not serving up - images of white people. A pope, viking, Revolutionary War soldier - all came back sans Caucasians, even WWII 1943 Nazi soldiers came back sans Caucasians. This was image generation but text generation has the same vulnerabilities. As for the refusing, it was asked to generate an image of a white male. It refused, answering that it couldn't do that because of bigotry and provided a lecture on inclusiveity. Then asked to generate an image of a black male. No problem, image received.

And of course, if you're using one remotely, everything you do is now working data for the owner. While unlikely(?), this is a possible scenario: Your query generates a response. Both are stored. You go on and write. Someone else makes a similar query and the system hocks up the same response, as it has it on hand, and feeds it back to them. They use it and publish it. You then publish. Now you're a plagiarist.

As Phyrebrat indicated, use them for bouncing ideas maybe but never for the text. It's a crutch, warily treat it that way.

News organizations have started using AI. Consider how many news stories have exactly the same phrasing and key words.

Yeah, easy to see, I'm not a fan.

 

[Ursa major]

Now you're a plagiarist.

I don't know how good AIs are at "hiding" (by subtly changing) text they've had fed to them, but if they don't do that, you could end up with text from a well-known author (many of whom are now employing lawyers), albeit one whose work you may not have read, in one's own work, and thus being accused of plagiarism.

Oh, and if AIs are able to "hide" some (unbeknownst to you) text from a well-known author, you may inadvertently, in changing it to something better, recreate the original "stolen" text (and thus be accused of being a plagiarist).