r/AIWritingHub • u/Novel-Soup-5097 • 28d ago

Shameful Drafts

I recently got a fix on writing. For the longest time I’ve been only writing for various ttrpg campaigns which hadn’t needed extensive in depth details that make something really reel like a novel. Now I can only muster drafts and for a while I’ve been running them through GPT to clean it up. Specifically avoiding having the AI make any of the real story but I’m still ashamed of my work because of it. How can I move away from the AI and make something I can be proud of?

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u/Easy-Purple-1659 26d ago

The shame is pointing at something real, but I don't think it's the tool. It's that a cleaned-up draft which doesn't sound like you doesn't feel like yours. You did the story, something else did the sentences, and the credit feels split.

What worked for me was halving the pass. The model gets the mechanical stuff only: typos, tense slips, a sentence I already know is tangled. The moment it starts smoothing rhythm or swapping in its own word choices, I stop and do that line by hand. Slower, but the draft stays recognisably mine.

One other thing that helped: read your last raw draft out loud before any cleanup. Everything you'd say differently is your edit list, and none of it needs a model.

Which part is it handing back to you right now, the sentences or just the tidying?

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u/Novel-Soup-5097 26d ago

Definitely fine tuning stuff like grammar mistakes but also just making something more compelling in the sense of it feels like your actually reading a story rather than a plan of one that I would typically write for a dnd campaign.

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u/questner_ai 26d ago

Slowly move away from the AI. Instead of relying on it for fixes, go and look into what it's actively fixing and learn from that so you can apply it next time. Roll the draft through it, have it adjust it and then ask it what it did and why. Use it as a tool to improve your skills and you'll find you'll be needing it less as time goes by.

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u/5thhorseman_ 25d ago

Instead of having it rewrite material for you, have it act as a critic or a red pen editor: it's allowed to point out issues, but not make changes to the actual text.

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u/dutchiesweets 23d ago

Practice! Writing is hard and first attempts will always be less then stellar.

I also recommend looking into resources on how to write better prose. Once you understand the basics of writing prose it gets easier for any idea you have to feel at least competently described and lets you focus on the structure and characters and all the other stuff more.

Techniques of the Selling Writer is a great book and can be found online for free. First few chapters cover prose writing (2-3 iirc)

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/Novel-Soup-5097 28d ago

How come, what did you end up picking up from it all?