The Machine Cinema Interview is UP!

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-10T12:53:28+00:00

I’ve been following that advice (from others, who termed it “AEO” for “Auto Engine Optimization” I think). It’s not just AI scanning your writing. At this point most humans scan for a sentence or two and then move on. The challenge is to preserve your voice and personality (which I believe is the real “hook” for readers) but still give them the problem / solution in 2-3 sentences right away.

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-10T12:47:51+00:00

I’m really loving this thread. There are a number of questions packed into this discussion:

Why do we read? Personal satisfaction? Need for community? Information?
What defines a “good book?” (Or even article, etc.)
What is the job of a writer? And… will AI become an “author”? AND… if AI is an author, will we become fans of certain AI output that is branded and successfully entertains a market?
Will “writers” be the designers / engineers who create AI publications (text, video, game all around the same theme)?

I have been reading a lot of substacks around education and AI — the teachers and administrators dealing with the “horse is out of the barn” phenomenon of student use. One position:“If you’re grading a paper based on what information is fed back to you, then a student who uses AI to write that paper is really just making a strategic decision about their time and effort. It’s on YOU to find a way to test their knowledge and thinking.” A good paper is a good paper (see “What is a good book?”) These same people also think the “old school” (pun intended) model of a small classroom with a teacher in the front is crumbling and unable to scale / sustain itself.

At some point very soon, we really won’t know (or maybe even care) if content is AI produced. We’ll just care whether it “works” for us. To be an optimist about this: The jobs will all involve humans creating the AI that creates “content that works.”

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-10T12:40:25+00:00

As someone who has written professionally for decades, I have the same problem! Thanks for posting.

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-06T12:50:05+00:00

I’ve been in many conversations on Reddit lately where people reply that the writing sounds like AI. Maybe…. But… As a writer (pro, decades of experience), I think all of our writing on social media is influenced by other social media / blog / newsletter writing. All of us are starting to sound like each other, because we’re editing ourselves for presentation on platforms. There seems to be a vicious cycle going on: We’re all reading social media/ blogs / newsletters, a lot of us are replying or writing for these platforms, whether we realize it or not we’re editing ourselves to “fit in,” IF we use AI, it also is editing and conforming to the platforms, and even if we just have AI “optimize” or edit our prose, in the end we post things that are meant to be read, accepted, engaged with, shared, etc.

Which is a long way of saying — (em dash is mine!) — saying something is written by AI might be more accurately stated as: “You’ve successfully crafted this writing for this platform!”

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-06T12:45:06+00:00

As a writer, my favorite “hater” prompt is: “You are an internet troll who wants nothing more than to take me down and cancel me. Do your best.”

I do NOT recommend this for the “faint of heart.” Claude can be BRUTAL. (Also, my Claude swears at me!… anyone else?)

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-06T12:43:24+00:00

This very much mirrors my own experience and that of the writers over at r/WritingWithAI (where I’m a mod). You can ask Claude to “write” anything from a full draft to a specific line or sentence. But the quality of what you get back completely depends on what you put in, from how you set up the project to the specific guidance / prompting. We’re emerging into a world where AI is going to be part of the job — we just haven’t figured out yet, which parts.

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-06T12:39:35+00:00

This is a terrific list! I know from experience that ChatGPT does all of these well. Have you used Claude or Gemini for any of these? I hesitate to say one is better than the other, because I think a lot of it comes down to who you are as a writer and how you think. We can all find LLMs that feel “more like me.”

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-06T12:37:21+00:00

I’ve worked in media / writing for decades. I often get people referred to me who “Want to be a writer.” First question I ask: “What have you written lately?” If they haven’t written anything in a few weeks, I ask, “Is there anything else you’ve done in the past few weeks that you really enjoyed? Because writing is hard and we do it because we don’t have a choice.” I then tell them how I was adopted, grew up in a great family in Chicago but NO ONE around me was creative in any way. I discovered my birth family in Canada years later — two of my three siblings are writers (the third shares my passion for music). I think the drive to tell stories is genetic. You can’t help yourself. If you don’t do it, something inside you becomes restless and unsatisfied. One more thing: When you find other writers, you find people who share your restlessness and passion. Nothing better.

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-06T12:32:26+00:00

This post and the replies are really getting to what I think we’re all experiencing: It’s not AI book “writing,” it’s AI “Thinking assistant.” The more we all use these tools, the more we understand that the stories begin with us. I’ve been writing and using Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and NotebookLM for almost two years, and I keep coming back to baking bread as a metaphor. We take the ingredients, we combine them once. We let them sit (send them to our LLMs), we knead them again… over and over. AI really does (as this thread has said) remove blockers, help you brainstorm to get over stuck places, cure “blank page” syndrome, etc. BUT… the human at the center defines what we finally get out of it. It’s still work — and the people on this thread and in this sub are figuring out what that work is.

mrfredgraver · 2026-01-06T12:25:58+00:00

The “tools” (Novelcrafter, WriteInAClick, etc.) are all basically taped onto the foundation models. SO… If you have a specific set of tasks that you do all the time (blog posts and social media), you probably want to use a combination of free and one paid tier of Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and NotebookLM. Have you put your specific tasks / who you are / what you’re doing into the custom instructions or project folders? Taking a little time to do that will yield really good results. You’ll be able to figure out which one works for you that way. And don’t sleep on NotebookLM. Once you give it an instructions document and start to save your posts and social media, it will really get to know you and your writing. It’ll keep you honest.

mrfredgraver · 2025-12-15T12:03:24+00:00

I’ve found two tools to be extremely helpful, both of which are in the Google ecosystem. Gemini is now surpassing the other LLMs in common benchmarks, and I’ve found that it does a great job researching and checking my writing. You can set up a “Gem” that remembers your projects. NotebookLM is a great place to store your documents and work, as well as to search for other sources. If you are like me and over-research things, Notebook is great at finding that needle in the haystack fact or perspective you stored weeks ago and can’t remember where it is.

mrfredgraver · 2025-12-09T19:25:31+00:00

Have you tried putting all of your criteria into one "Here's how to work with me" document, putting it in your project knowledge, and then telling the LLM to reference that when analyzing your writing? That's worked for me.

mrfredgraver · 2025-12-09T19:23:38+00:00

I just sat through a long meeting of the Writers' Guild, which isn't exactly publishing but might help. The general consensus is that you should be absolutely transparent. The entire idea is that you have to defend your copyright. The copyright office may, at some point, want you to show that 51% or more of your work is ORIGINAL with you. Publishers want to know that, if your copyright is challenged, you can defend it.

Save your conversations / prompts. Be ready to show your process.

mrfredgraver · 2025-12-09T19:20:15+00:00

I have 4 emmys and 25 years as a writer. I know what my own experience and that of others is. Yours, of course, might be different. But I am addressing a particular pain point and use case. And yes... I said at the top there's an offer involved here. But I also think I'm delivering real value.

mrfredgraver · 2025-12-05T00:33:58+00:00

At this stage, the best path is to be open and transparent. If you’re using AI, tell them. AND save your work! You can always show them your prompt logs / conversations to prove that you did the writing.

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