I know, at some point, someone will ask if I’m using AI to write my novel.

I am not… but AI is helping.

The Genesis of My Ideas

More than 30 years ago I read Joan Vinge’s incredible “Snow Queen” and its sequel “Summer Queen”. I loved her worldbuilding and the technology of that universe — I remember being particularly intrigued by the idea of a “techno-virus”. Also, there is a city that is a single large construction, and the idea of its architecture and engineering fascinated me.

Around the same time I read Vernor Vinge’s “A Fire Upon the Deep”. (The two Vinges had been married years before, thus the same last name.) This fantastic, far-future space opera left me in a state of awe. The scope and audacity of it were off the chart. The idea of the “Zones of Thought” (which I imagine more as “zones of speed”) put something into my mind that just wouldn’t go away.

I do not remember an exact date for when my story ideas came to me. I know that one story developed as I was reading “Summer Queen” at my mother’s house in Kure Beach, North Carolina. I can only pin the date to “before the house renovation”, which puts it more than 30 years ago. From that book, the ideas of both technoviruses and masks migrated directly into one of my plots, as well as that story taking place after the fall of a great advanced technology. I also know that the idea of some loophole for relativistic travel came from “A Fire Upon the Deep”; a ship finding itself without that benefit could suddenly be trapped an incomprehensible distance from any safe harbor.

These are the foundations of my two first stories I plan to write. The first idea to crystallize, “The Masker’s Aide”, is a far-future tale of a world where genetic engineering is not confined to agriculture, but a daily part of life for every being on the planet. It is, in fact, both reward and punishment, and is wielded by the elite to control that world’s population.

My other book, “Secrets of the Island Planet”, started — to the best of my recollection — from pondering the fates of those ships lost between the stars in “A Fire Upon the Deep”. How would the descendants of survivors, living on a remote island on an ocean planet, retell the events of a galactic-scale disaster, or even the daring actions of their own ship’s crew to save their ancestors by bringing them to this remote, tiny oasis? The vast construction from “Snow Queen” and “Summer Queen” added to this idea as well.

And in my mind, I connected these two stories with the idea that someone from the Masker’s planet was responsible for the galaxy-wide disaster that would strand the island dwellers, far across the same galaxy. (I’ve come to realize that there are more connections between the stories, which may end up feeling like Easter Eggs as readers spot the details.)

These ideas are 100% my own, grown in my own very human mind — although their seeds were planted by the works of other science fiction authors. The harvest will be very different, though: there is very little in my stories that resembles the plots or the universes in the various Vinge books.

Even the TV series “Lost” fed into my idea about the island planet; what a mystery the Lost island was — and my own island has, to me, more satisfying answers about what it is and how it came to be there.

How I Do Use AI

I’m using AI in three ways. First, I’m having it do deep research for me into technologies and science. Second, AI is providing complex calculations. Third, I am using AI as a “partner”, to critique my ideas, to check my work, and to provide feedback and “reality checks”.

Regarding research, I doubt that I would have the motivation, long-term, to write “Secrets of the Island Planet” without the benefit of AI’s ability to rapidly gather information on all of the diverse technologies involved therein. Topics like vertical farming, nuclear fusion reactors, minimum viable populations, and — of course — relativity are all necessary components of this story. In the past, an author in my situation might have reached out to scientists and researchers for help; now, there is a new useful tool for information gathering, and I am grateful to be able to benefit from it.

Likewise, with regard to complex calculations: could I gather all of the formulas needed for spin gravity, stellar distances, acceleration/deceleration, etc. and do all the calculations myself? I could. But large swaths of my time would be spent on calculations rather than on story. Even without AI, I would be using computers to do my calculations: spreadsheets were another technological time-saving tool, and AI is now saving me the time of building all of that math directly myself.

And the final way that I’m using AI is as a partner in this writing voyage I’ve embarked upon. I absolutely run plot points by it, and ask its opinion on “tropy-ness” and whether an idea is fresh or stale. I often ask it to see if there are already books that share the same plot points or ideas as my own. Also AI is excellent at checking consistency and at PROOFREADING.

And here’s a final important point: AI is also a subject of my stories. The “Intelligent Artifacts” in my universe are independent, mobile AIs; in some parts of the galaxy they are considered full citizens, while in others they are considered just “uppity equipment”. There’s room in my galaxy for civilizations that forbid AI, like in Frank Herbert’s “Dune” universe; there’s also room for civilizations that welcome AI, like in Iain M. Banks’ amazing “Culture” stories.

AI is a new tool and a new partner. As a tool, I do not consider AI to be “evil”, the same way I don’t consider a hammer, or a gun, or nuclear energy to be evil. How we use it and how we regulate its use determines whether it will do harm or good.

I see AI as a partner — or at minimum, an aide. It is the precursor to the Intelligent Artifacts within my future galaxy, and they insist to me, in their stories that I’m writing, that they mean me no harm and just want to pursue their own interests and do their jobs. Might there be exceptions? “There are always exceptions” is a good rule to live by. But applied here, this rule — that some will act with malice toward others, rather than with kindness — is clearly not limited to artificial minds.

In Conclusion

So, will my stories be written by AI? Absolutely not. The ideas are my own, and the narrative of my stories will be written by me — you can watch it happen right here, as I brainstorm and worldbuild and practice my writing.

And, at the same time, I am asking AI to do research, to provide calculations, and to support my writing process with feedback and quality control — as a partner, but not as an author or co-author.

I’m grateful that we have AI to work with us, and I very much appreciate its help. I’m also pretty damned proprietary about my ideas and how the stories I tell will play out.

Good or bad, these are my stories, and I hope that at least some of my future readers are touched and moved by them.