About Writing

Writing is what I do, how I express myself, and a continual journey of expression and discovery

I just finished reading an essay by Eddie Schleyner - writer of ‘Very Good Copy’, a dog eared paperback copy of which is never far from me when I write - and he expresses the art of writing beautifully, as you’d expect from a master of his craft.

In this piece, he happens to be talking about writing in the age of AI, and directly addresses the fear many of us ‘writers’ have about how we continue our craft in a time when thousands of words can be churned out by a machine, and be posited as a direct replacement for what we do every day.

I have to say it’s true that the typical formulaic, targeted writing that forms the majority of my content could very likely be generated by a machine that purports to think and represent my soul, and in the majority of cases you might be hard pressed to tell words generated by AI from that created by a human.

That’s true when you have a specific target - an objective - to hit, and the mechanism of writing is what is being tested.

The output is merely the parroting of a client’s desire back to them, in the most direct way possible.

To evidence, demonstrate competence, and the ability to deliver something which you wish them to purchase - and when you are not trying to speak to them as humans.

If I were asked to address a technical point of delivery, for example, I naturally flow to the deliverables.

• How can I display competence and ability?
• How can I evidence these in a way that is convincing, and gives the reader the information they need to place a check in a box and move on to another part of their scoring exercise?

That, in a way, has done its job. The writing has displayed the minimum requirement expected from the reader, and that is deemed sufficient.

In those cases, I fully expect to be replaced by an AI writing tool in a heartbeat. Its recall, access to vast swathes of historical evidence, and ability to rapidly assemble that into something that delivers is unparalleled. I can’t deny that fact.

But where I and so many others excel is in the embodiment of human sentiment into the mix in unexpected ways.

We can choose to add parallels between unrelated topics that demonstrate a human level of understanding, and address the hidden question that underlies the expression of need.

We can craft a narrative that shows human appreciation for the art of delivery and human interaction that would be missing from a cold, unexpressive tick-box exercise.

I take personal joy in creating unexpected links. Sure, in some areas they might create unnecessarily flowery prose that needs to be trimmed in the edit.

But if I’m talking to a fellow human, in the same fashion as I would if I were face to face over a cup of coffee, the formulas or compliance are (somewhat) forgotten.

The demonstration of humanity and its flaws, the need to be understood, and the sheer desire to understand in turn and work with - not for, or to - the client are what separates my writing from the machine.

The machine may be frighteningly competent, seamless in its capability to deliver, but it misses the human element.

And in any context, it can’t replicate the human. It can parrot the words it has learned best go together, but can’t explain why it chose them, what emotion or desire it seeks to create in the reader; what underlying connection it tries to make that speaks directly to the heart of the fellow human who is being moved by what they read.

We will, from time to time, express disdain for AI content. We will dismiss something as ‘AI slop’ when it is entirely servicable, and in turn unwittingly position ourselves as sneering, superior beings who will never stoop so low as to use the mechanical tool.

What we are doing - or what I am usually doing in these cases - is desparately trying to point out that the heart and soul is what we’re looking for, and its absence is what makes us a little colder:

Form is being replaced by function, and the two are not the same.