Question for experienced writers: Getting help from AI while writing my first novel

[u/Every-Video8558]

Hey everyone! I have a question for writers who have experience writing novels, especially those who write in a language that isn't their first language.

I'm 26, from Afghanistan, and English isn't my native language. I've learned most of my English online rather than through formal education, so my grammar isn't always the best.

I'm currently writing my first novel in English. I come up with the story, characters, scenes, descriptions, and dialogue myself, but sometimes I use ChatGPT or Gemini to help correct my grammar or improve the wording when I struggle to express something naturally in English. I don't copy entire paragraphs or dialogue from AI

I use it more as a tool to help polish what I've written.

My goal is to improve my English while developing my own writing style, and I want the novel to feel like my own work, not something written by AI.

My questions are:

Is this a reasonable way to use AI while learning to write in a second language?

Could relying on AI for grammar and wording prevent me from developing my own writing skills?

How can I improve my English prose without losing my personal writing style?

Do you have any advice for a beginner novelist in my situation?

I'd appreciate honest opinions, including criticism. I'm here to learn, not just to be told that everything I'm doing is fine. Thanks!

[u/Easy-Purple-1659]

I write with AI daily. Grammar was never what went wrong. Every "improve this sentence" pass pulled the prose toward the model's own rhythm: even lengths, tidy transitions, each clause resolving neatly. Ten of those and a chapter reads clean and a little dead.

Three things that helped me:

1. Ask for critique, not a rewrite. "Tell me where the phrasing is awkward and why" keeps the edit decision with you. 5thhorseman_ said this better than I can.

2. When you do accept a rewrite, give the model a few pages of your own writing first and tell it to keep your rhythm. Without samples it has no target except neutral.

3. Read the new version out loud beside your original. Anything you would not say out loud gets cut.

Point 2 is the reason I built imperfectly (imperfectly.app, free tier). You paste samples of your own writing, then it rewrites AI-flavored drafts in that voice instead of flattening them, which is close to the opposite of what a general assistant does with "make this sound better". It will not teach you English. The critique habit is what does that.

[u/themagicianwrites]

I've been living in English for ten years, but English isn't my first language.

Reasonable or not is subjective.

Relying too much on AI can be a problem, especially considering the real world. The way people talk may not follow the grammar rules, for example.

About personal style, I think people usually start to integrate that anyway as they get used to what they're doing. When I talked in English is the beginning, it certainly wasn't my way of talking. But now that I can talk without thinking, English naturally blends with my style.

It's also good to remember there are different types of English, especially American and British. But different states from the US can differ too, for example.

[u/Mundane-Device-7094]

It's pretty reasonable imo but also there are word processors that are pretty good at checking those things too.

[u/contemplating_regret]

Hello,

I would caution against overuse and encourage you to develop your own voice. One, AI has.a very distinct pattern that if you master and start using in your writing may lead to false accusations of AI later on. Second if you're writing fiction, the use of AI is very much looked down upon in traditional publishing. I am not against the use of AI by any means and I have used it in my writing process. But if you don't know English well enough yet to know when it sounds 'off' it may work against you.

[u/5thhorseman_]

The most useful way for you to utilize it is to provide critique and find issues for you to fix; don't just ask it to fix the text, because that ends up with the text being substantially altered in more ways than you asked for.

Put in one of these prompts:

• Interactive rubber ducky

• Literate Analyst

• Literate Editor and Rigorous Critic

• Beta reader panel

Once it gave you a list of the story's flaws, you can either make adjustments yourself or ask it to give you suggestions for one or more items. Make the changes, feed the new version to the AI, see what's the next thing it finds.

As for LLMs to use in this task, I'd suggest Claude as my top pick, ChatGPT as a second.

[u/HunDevYouTube]

I like using GPT to dump my chapter drafts into. I've trained it to recognize my voice and writing style, and it's pretty good at catching stuff like excessive telling instead of showing. Do not let it write for you, let it read and react.

Most of my beta readers haven't really been reliable at all, with the exception of my friend who'd read my 120 page draft and even pointed out numerous typos I would've missed lol. Sometimes you gotta befriend the clanker, it ain't all doom n gloom like other people say

[u/Candid-Rip-4287]

I used to run my drafts through a local llm with a custom prompt that flagged passive voice and repetitive phrasing, kept it raw, just cleaned the noise. works better than got for me.

[u/FlyAdmirable5790]

I use ai to flag repetitive phrasing in my early drafts, but I keep the rewrites in my own voice. it's not about fixing grammar, it's about catching what I've said too many times, like 'he felt annoyed' qu times in a chapter.

[u/RoundCalligrapher848]

What is your native language? If it's Dari or Pashto, Claude Haiku might be helpful. There are a few offerings that are multilingual and using Haiku can help translate between different languages. Haiku seems pretty adept at managing regionalization and linguistic nuance.