AI - Part III
I’d finished the first draft of my sequel to First and felt pretty happy with it. I knew it needed at least one more pass and I remember seeing somewhere that Grok could do a developmental edit. For those who don’t know, that’s where an editor looks at continuity, consistency, storyline, loose ends, pacing, and just overall how the book fits together. What works and what doesn’t? I paid an editor to do this for First and it was well worth the money. With (currently) free access to Grok and the chance to see what it could do, I decided to give it a whirl.
I started off by asking if it could do a developmental edit, and Grok replied affirmatively and asked if there were any areas I wanted it to concentrate on. I gave a few suggestions like the ones mentioned above, and it told me it could look at the first chapter, a portion of the manuscript, or the whole thing. I uploaded a Word document with all 75k words. Here’s the part that blew my mind: within seconds it started responding with observations about the story, the characters, and things that didn’t work quite right. Seriously, in 15 seconds I had three pages of feedback. Wow.
I know what the next question is: how accurate was it? Incredibly so. I’d say in the range of 95%. For example, it named a date for the story and told me there needed to be a few indicators of time passage for readers to keep track. Well, that date was exactly that particular day in February 2025, which is not when the story is set. It had an instance where it misinterpreted a character and their actions in a couple of paragraphs, but other than that I was completely amazed at its output. And that 95%? Spot on. Grok asked what I thought and I responded that it was good, at which point it poured out another three pages with an action plan for addressing the issues. It offered to make suggested changes, but I prefer to do those myself. As much as I liked it, I don’t trust anyone or anything else with my story. And I’m not going to be one of those writers who uses AI to write books. I’ll take suggestions and decide if I want to use them or not. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks going through those bullet points, picking the ones I agree with, and improving the book.
Overall? Absolutely incredible. No knock on editors, but getting feedback in seconds instead of weeks was amazing. I hope there’s still a place for editors because the people I’ve worked with are great. I kind of did this as a lark but found it to be really useful. Will I use it going forward? I’ll let you know. I’m going to let Grok take a stab at the manuscript I mentioned in the previous post, the first in a series, and see what I get back. I’ll report back on that experience soon.
To sum up, we’re currently rewatching the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series, one of my favorite shows and one of the best so far this century, and there are scenes in the first couple of seasons where the characters talk about a mystery and the shape of things to come. I can honestly say that with this little exercise I’ve seen the shape of things to come.