“AI gets them going and writes the first paragraph, or first chapter, and gets them back in the zone,” he said.
We asked five creative writing experts, including authors who’ve published memoirs, novels and short stories, what they think. Would they use AI to break writer’s block?
Their answers – which ranged from “a hard no” to innovative reasons for “yes” – were illuminating, complicated and often surprising.
[NO] AI is fundamentally missing a capacity to make unique associative connections at a level of meaning, idea and word, which are the life force of good writing.
-Nicola Redhouse
Nicola Redhouse lectures in publishing and editing at University of Melbourne, and has published a memoir.
[Yes] I am using text-to-image AI to help generate ideas for my neo-Victorian Gothic novel. For me, the tool is both a research method and an accessibility aid.
-Christopher Rees
Christopher Rees is completing a creative writing PhD at the University of New England.
[NO]LLMs have been trained on ... stolen works. They’re not capable of generating anything truly original, so any prompt they gave would just be rehashing that piracy – and, in a way, making you complicit.
-Seth Robinson
Seth Robinson is a lecturer in professional communications, public humanities and creative writing at University of Melbourne. He is also a novelist and producer.
[Yes] I don’t just use generative AI to break writer's block, I speak back to it ... A fascinating, if uneasy, collaboration.
-Sally Breen
Sally Breen is associate professor in creative writing at Griffith University and the author of a memoir and a novel.
[Yes] Only after I’d exhausted other possibilities. I’m prepared to refine the text generated and I want to think about the differences between humans and machines.
-Ariella van Luyn
Ariella van Luyn is senior lecturer in creative writing, University of New England. She has published a novel and short stories.
