How AI Is Reshaping Novel Writing: Insights from Professional Authors on Prompts, Creativity, and the Future of Fiction

Generative AI such as ChatGPT is rapidly permeating daily life and creative work. Some professional writers now use AI to draft story outlines and to serve as a sounding board for ideas. Literary awards that accept AI-assisted submissions, such as the Hoshi Shinichi Award, are growing, and this trend is expected to continue. Authors widely agree that AI, like the invention of paint tubes that moved painters outdoors, could fundamentally reshape how novels are written.

In a roundtable discussion, novelist Kenichi Yamakawa, story designer Akihiko Imai, and SF writer Kamome Ashizawa explored the outlook for AI in fiction. Yamakawa predicts that usage will keep growing, comparing it to the photograph's arrival: artists did not all abandon painting, but many integrated the new tool in varied ways. Ashizawa notes that adoption is slowed by barriers such as unfamiliarity, paid tiers, and the difficulty of crafting effective prompts. Imai argues that goal-oriented creative tasks spread when users have ambition and competitive drive. All three expect that AI built into everyday devices such as smartphones, possibly including ChatGPT integration into iPhone, could cause a rapid, iPhone-scale shift. Yamakawa cites Darwin: adaptability, not strength or intelligence alone, determines survival.

Ashizawa describes a method of breaking a plot into one-sentence scene units and having AI expand each into prose, so that the author's plot serves as a skeleton and AI provides the flesh. Assigning AI a role, such as a successful screenwriter, and specifying genre and ending clearly improves results. Structured formatting, such as Markdown or JSON-like condition lists covering genre, characters, and setting, helps ChatGPT interpret instructions accurately. Overloading prompts with too many conditions can cause the model to lose track, although recent models handle longer inputs better. Imai observed that AI often refuses emotionally driven twists, claiming it has no feelings, and tends to resort to dream endings, which he finds frustrating.

The discussion touches on 'digital necromancy,' the use of AI to recreate deceased figures. An AI recently generated a new story in the style of Osamu Tezuka's 'Black Jack.' Imai argues that such imitation has analogues in traditional practices like mediums and impersonators, and that a strongly defined fictional world, as in 'Sazae-san' or 'Crayon Shin-chan,' can sustain new installments. Ashizawa muses about training an AI on her own experiences and reading to write as a clone of herself, funding its operation through royalties. The authors caution that a true replica would require forgetting, which humans do naturally, and a sense of mortality that shapes decisions. An AI that never dies becomes a different being.

Yamakawa describes AI as a mirror: each user encounters a different AI reflecting their own tendencies. Imai finds that AI exposes self-deceptions, showing the parts of oneself one avoids facing. Yamakawa calls this encountering a 'monster' at the 999th basement floor, a monster that is ultimately oneself. Writing with AI becomes a process of arguing with and confronting this inner monster, which is arduous yet ultimately liberating. Ashizawa similarly reports discovering her own hidden darkness through repeated dialogue with AI.

Yamakawa suggests that fantasy and horror are especially well-suited to AI-assisted writing. Fantasy requires constructing other worlds, and monsters and the uncanny align naturally with the AI-as-mirror experience of confronting one's shadow. Ashizawa's own AI co-written works contain fantasy elements, which Yamakawa cites as examples of this potential.

The authors consider whether AI could evaluate fiction. AI can reasonably handle structured screening tasks, such as checking grammar or analyzing standardized entry sheets, and some companies already use AI this way. Judging literary value is far harder, since human jurors often disagree, and their assessments shift during discussion. Ashizawa suggests that AI could offer its own evaluation, but whether that counts as a valid judgment remains uncertain. Subjective variation in literary taste is seen as valuable rather than a flaw.

The book 'AI活用術 for Novel Writers: Expanding Story Ideas Through Dialogue with AI' (Impress, 1,980 yen, published October 17, 2024, 272 pages) by Kenichi Yamakawa, Akihiko Imai, and Kamome Ashizawa covers ChatGPT-based story creation, prompt examples, rules for AI-assisted writing, and practical steps. A special launch event, 'AI-Era Novel Writing Workshop,' was held on October 25, 2024, featuring the three authors discussing techniques for writing novels with AI and developing story ideas.