A popular novelist with two series (the Finn Teller spy novels and the Pinnacle Peak mysteries) to her credit, Twist Phelan is also a prolific contributor to EQMM. Her EQMM stories have won two ITW Awards and Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award, and they’ve received numerous additional nominations for these and other awards. In 2022, her EQMM story “The Bridge” (May/June 2022) was long-listed (amongst only a dozen stories!) for the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year. A new Twist Phelan story, “Soon It’ll Be Over,” is included in our September/October issue, which goes on sale August 15, and if you’ve got young readers in your family, don’t miss Twist’s first middle-grade mystery, Snowed (2022).  In this post she reflects on a very timely subject—the AI revolution.  —Janet Hutchings

It’s easy to understand the allure of the AI program ChatGPT among aspiring writers. The seemingly miraculous ability to craft eloquent prose with the prompt of a mere few sentences and the press of a button is akin to wielding a superpower. (Don’t believe me? Type, “Compose a sonnet in the spirit of Shakespeare for my beloved husband on our decade of wedded bliss, incorporating our shared passions for [insert interests], his stellar performance as a [insert profession], and his distinguishing [insert physical attributes]” into ChatGPT. You’ll never buy another Hallmark card again.) People are discovering a creative capacity that they may have long abandoned or never even considered. Finally, they can “write” something that appears to be a bona fide story.

Alas, generating writing via the push of a button disregards a simple but crucial truth—a compelling story encompasses more than words arranged on a page.

When people talk about the artistry of quality fiction, they delve into the choices made by the writer—decisions concerning character development and plot construction, stylistic choices and thematic explorations, the nuances of language and the architecture of the narrative. They ponder the author’s background, speculating about the influences and inspirations that have shaped her literary endeavors. They contemplate how a particular book or story fits into the author’s body of work, whether it’s an integral part of or a deviation from her artistic canon.

Each of these elements serves as a portal into the writer’s psyche. In and of themselves, they constitute the very essence of writing. A story transcends its textual embodiment; it encompasses the thoughts and emotions that occupied the writer’s mind during its creation. What distinguishes exceptional writers is not their ability to string together a dozen words into a sentence but rather how those twelve words reflect an author’s innermost being, as channeled through the story and experienced by the reader. When we immerse ourselves in a work of fiction, we partake in the author’s vision—we become conduits for the emotions they seek to evoke, we delve into the intricate and nuanced layers of themes woven into the fabric of the narrative.

Writing isn’t just an act of output; it encompasses the entire creative process. While AI technology currently democratizes the act of writing itself, it has yet to capture the essence of the creative process in its entirety. AI-generated writing provides not much beyond its superficial appearance—that is, what meets the eye on the page. Great writing is measured by its depth of observation and discernment, its ability to reflect the heart and mind of its creator. The difference between the two is akin to the distinction between buying an assembly-line-produced vase from IKEA, indistinguishable among thousands of identical counterparts, and acquiring a unique receptacle from an artisan who painstakingly carved familial icons into the artifact, employing techniques passed down by generations of skilled craftsmen. One is a generic container, while the other is an artistic masterpiece that reveals something new with every contemplation.

Throughout history, writing has withstood the advent of the printing press, the photograph, the motion picture, the photocopier, and the computer. It will survive our newfound ability to produce deceptively convincing replicas of human effort. Yes, just as there’s a market for mass-produced hotel art, there will be (if there isn’t already) a market for books presented “in the style of” featuring shallow renditions of plots and characters previously encountered countless times. (For the record, my husband liked his sonnet!) But there will also always be a market for writing suffused with the human essence—works that arise from perseverance, deliberation, and imagination, experiences interpreted through the lens of a human rather than a machine. Writing that not only reflects the final product but also embodies the intricate process behind it.

Perhaps someday AI technology will replicate the ineffable magic that is central to exceptional writing, the indelible human element that is the basis for all great literary works. For now, though, I’d worry only about the market for Hallmark cards.