Recent content by Ned Marcus

AI isn't good enough to write stories so I doubt if many authors are using to do the writing. There would be no point. That's apart from the fact that it's fun to write stories yourself. But for research (especially) and some minor editing, it's fine. Outside of writing, I use AI a lot. It's...

Better ideas. On the second point, I agree. Beta readers (and critique group members) give a good idea of whether they like or dislike the story and what they like or dislike. If the beta reader is closely aligned with the type of storytelling you do, then I would not call them mediocre; I'd...

I assume it's been trained on a lot of stuff, both good and bad. But none of that matters. What matters is whether it can help me or not. Does it give me an idea I can use or not? I see it as a brainstorming tool. As I said, I think a professional editor is better. Human proofreaders are...

I don't understand the hostility towards using AI for things like editing. A good human editor or reader is better than AI, but AI is better than a mediocre critique group member or beta reader. AI is useful, why not use it?

Personally, I don't have my characters swear. It was a conscious decision. I don't think swearing is always bad; I just prefer to work without it—as most writers through the ages have done. The type of swearing that almost always makes me stop reading a book is when it's in the first few lines...

Inventing a language is interesting, but it seems like a lot of work. I think it took Tolkien a lifetime, to develop his languages. For me, it takes enough time just to learn a couple of existing ones. Still, let us know how this develops.

I thought my current 10-month hiatus was long, but 20 and 30 years! How are you both (pmmg and ThinkerX) getting back into the stories again? After 10 months, I've had to slowly reread everything (I was about one third of the way through the novel) editing as I've been going along. Actually...

We could always turn this NaNoWriMo section of the forum into a November Novel Writing section and have our own writing event here.

Accusations are not proof. That's true. But for many people, their aggressive endorsement of AI-generated fiction is enough reason to abandon them.

If true, it's really bad. Perhaps they are finished.

What things?

The controversy was that they decided that AI-generated stories were to be included in NaNoWriMo, and when people complained, they accused them of being ableist and classist. One senior executive left; others have withdrawn their support. Since then, they've tried to walk it back a little bit.

Accepting AI entries makes reaching 50,000 words easier. But it seems to devalue NaNoWriMo. They've lost many people over this.

Me too. I'm still learning English, and it's my native language. I think learning languages is a way of life.

Main side characters I develop in the way I would the protagonist, but with less depth. I give lesser side characters a verb to describe their main orientation and then just write.