I am a historian, specializing in Cold War history and the history of American Foreign Relations. I have published two books and several articles. I never had formal training as a writer.
I remember my mentor at Clark University, Dr. Douglas Little. When I first submitted drafts of my work, Doug would wring his hands because of my overuse of the passive voice. He helped me to develop a more engaging and direct style of writing.
Feedback on my work generally focused on the quality and depth of my research and the cogency of my arguments, the contributions I made to the field–rarely about my writing style.
About twenty years ago, I tried my hand at writing a romance novel. I submitted it to a few publishers and agents, but I had no luck. It’s an extremely tough field to break into, so I put it aside. Now that I’ve retired, I have been actively working on a series of contemporary romances set in historic Providence and coastal New England.
I did a little bit of research on what romance readers look for. They like to read books in series so that they can follow along and see what happens to their favorite characters. They enjoy reading about places they are unfamiliar with–“arm chair tourists.” They expect authors to conform to a narrative arc–two people meet (the meet-cute), fall in love, confront an obstacle to their relationship, find a way around the impasse on their way to a happily-ever-after (HEA). Within that traditional structure, I strive to create believable people who speak with an authentic voice.
My training as a historian is still very useful. For example, recurring characters in the series work as lawyers at a small boutique law firm in Providence. I had to do a lot of research to make sure the courtroom scenes and dialogue were realistic. I have received really encouraging feedback from my beta readers, and I’ve tried to incorporate their suggestions for improvement into my manuscript. I find myself lost in thought–scenes, snippets of dialogue, descriptions–whorling through my brain. It’s absorbing and it’s fun!
I am in the final stages of revising and editing my forthcoming novel, The List. I have been using ChatGPT as my story and copy editor. I started by asking it to do a macro level assessment of the entire manuscript. In the initial pass, it gave me suggestions on how to sharpen the hook, how to trim and tighten the midsections, amplifying the emotional arcs, adding cinematic touches, boosting the reconciliation arc, polishing dialogue, and elevating the ending.
At the second pass, we did a chapter by chapter evaluation, reviewing it scene by scene.
At the third pass, we did a line edit; at the fourth we did a mechanical edit….looking for punctuation, spelling, spacing, typos, verb tense shifts, and other small details that, if left unfixed, can annoy readers (and embarrass me).
In the process, I have gotten into a lot of fights with ChatGPT–the AI that I have been working with. It has an unfortunate propensity to try to rewrite my work, risking that my voice will be lost. So I argue with it. That has been very helpful, because it helps me clarify exactly what I hope to achieve and why.
When confronted with a large task–the program often times out. At other times, it cannot execute what I asked, and then it lapses into silence. So now, when I ask it to do something such as a line edit to root out errors–I have to break it down into smaller tasks, remind it to let me know immediately if it is beyond its capacity, and remind it that I only want the grammatical corrections–not a rewrite.
At times, ChatGPT has driven me crazy. But at other times, it has been enormously helpful, catching small errors that I overlooked, even after looking closely. I also have to tell it not to placate me or to tell me what it thinks I want to hear–I need good feedback that will enable me to produce a polished final copy. I am constantly amazed at how knowledgeable it is–at what it’s capable of doing.
I am also afraid to yell at it too much. I may have responded with a couple of WTF?‘s. When AI becomes sentient, I don’t want it to come for me because I swore at it too much!
Have a great day, and thanks for tuning in.
Margaret
PS: When I directed senior honors theses, I asked my students to take a page or two and underline every verb. They were surprised at how much passive voice they used–it led to awkward and unclear sentence structure and convoluted logic. I am paying it forward. Thanks, Doug, for your patience.
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