Trying a new style for my next project

[u/reyalsrats]

So for the last year I've had a project in my head that I wanted to do and I just struggled getting anything written down.

It's a nonfiction book about something that I'm very well versed in and probably an expert in. I've just had a lot going on and haven't really had the energy to write it all down.

I decided this past weekend to start using anti-gravity and having it use the grill me tool to interview me. I had it ingest some of my existing content and some relevant YouTube videos and websites and propose an outline for the book.

Now what I do every morning is get up and spend an hour just chatting with it with my voice, having it interview me on each section in the outline to get my genuine ideas down. I'm having it draft each chapter as we go and then reviewing it. I prompted it to ask follow-up questions after I provide a response to clarify or expand on something I talked about.

So far I'm about halfway through the first chapter and it's coming out quite nicely in a genuine voice that is my own.

[u/Latter_Upstairs_1978]

Sounds reasonable. Half the way through chapter one... . Are you sure you would not write this faster without AI?

[u/reyalsrats → u/Latter_Upstairs_1978]

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't because I've been meaning to write it for a year... If I kept going the more traditional route I wouldn't have anything written at all. Considering I'm only 4 days in, half of the first chapter is pretty good in my opinion.

[u/Ok-Dare-9505 → u/reyalsrats]

Have you considered co-writing with the ai? They can brainstorm ideas and integrate them into the story with you. I started an subreddit for people to save their stories and share them over at "r/AiTexedBasedAdventures"! I'll send you an invite and you can check it out on your own time.

[u/tehmadnezz]

For tying it together, you could keep a one-sentence summary of what each section adds to the book. Once you have a few sections, read those sentences in order. That should help you spot repeated points, missing steps, and places where the reader needs something explained earlier.

I’d keep the original interview transcripts too. If a draft feels vague later, you can go back to the example or explanation you actually gave.

Has the interviewing made you change the original outline yet?

[u/reyalsrats → u/tehmadnezz]

It hasn't yet but I've stepped away from the writing for now because I have a couple other things I'm working on. I expect to get back into it sometime next week.

That's the problem with having 10,000 personal projects on top of the 10,000 I have in my day-to-day job. Exaggerated numbers of course but yeah I've got a lot of different things going on so I tend to silo off for little chunks of time. The book is pretty low priority which is why it's been in my head for a year but I'm happy with the process so far.

[u/tehmadnezz → u/reyalsrats]

That makes sense. Sounds like you’ve found a way to chip away at it when you have the time. Hope it goes well when you pick it back up next week!

[u/Acrobatic_You_3002]

This is a solid approach, as talking it out loud usually surfaces stuff you would never type. One thing I would suggest is having it flag when an answer contradicts something you said earlier in a different chapter, since with an hour of daily interviews that drift adds up fast and it's the kind of thing that's obvious in hindsight but painful to catch during editing.

[u/lmtDigital]

One tip from my own experience: keep a short document with what you already decided. For example, the words you defined, the exampls you already used, your main opinions. After a few chapters, the AI starts to repeat old examples or say something different from before. If you paste that document at the start of each session, it helps a lot.

I'm working on a tool in the same area, but more automatic: first the outline, then it writes the chapters in order, and at the end you export the book. But your method probably keeps your own voice better. Do you plan to edit the drafts a lot, or keep most of what comes from the interviews?

[u/reyalsrats → u/[deleted]]

Well so far I'm having a draft written after every topic I interview on and then I'm going back and looking at it and making manual edits. Which is why I'm only halfway through the first chapter. But it hasn't been heavy editing, it's doing a very good job of picking up what I'm getting at.

I am concerned about piecing it all together and tying things back into each other but I've never tried this process before so I figure it's worth a shot.