In my previous post, I discussed how I sent the Clove draft to the AI beta-reading site AuthorCraft. It supplied me with a HUGE amount of useful information broken down into “Critical”, “Moderate”, and “Minor” suggestions for style, scenario, and characters. I saved the info as a PDF, and it was almost 1000 pages, including summaries, media blurbs, and marketing insights. It was NOT AI supplying content for the Clove or doing rewrites; whatever was offered was left to me to consider and use or not.
That said, after reviewing the information, I was surprised by the truly strange mistakes AI makes. Along with the chapter breakdowns, it includes a graphic (like the one in this post) that is meant to represent some of the action in the scene. The graphic should show two younger colonial men, an ox, a draft horse, and maybe a dog, traveling over Mohonk Mountain in the Hudson Valley. The image shows a couple of geezers from the wild west, some odd European(?) cattle in the Alps(?) with their pet bear. Not quite accurate.
The examination and discussion of my writing is much more valid for the most part. Some of the errors are perhaps my fault for not being as clear as I should, but I knew that, and since it is a draft, that’s why I am giving a beta reader the chance to check it. For example, I briefly mention a General’s name, and the AI thinks the person is a character I missed developing. No thanks, I’m leaving him in the non-speaking background where he belongs.
Some of the info is just redundant, and after a while, I started saying, “OK, I get the point.” A human beta reader would probably suggest the same thing more than once in different ways. Machines, am I right?
All in all, I think it is a helpful site. It is quick, cheap, fast, and mostly accurate. The suggestions are on point and without bias. I would recommend it as long as you are leery of mistakes, just as you would with a human you share your work with.
Here’s an AI version of a storm in The Clove. Apparently there are cow/horse centaurs there.
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