Writing, as a discipline, should have always been focused on expressing ideas without striping away the nuances and quirks of human communication. Well-intentioned advice like “make every word tell”, or “write like you speak” can quickly lead to the most sterile of texts. Good ideas and stories as a source are not enough if every grain is then turned into a formless mush.
Avoiding confusion is always a good idea, but not at the cost of texture. Imagine burying a unique point of view in simple, boring terms and structures. It’s hard to convey a different way of thinking when everyone uses the same words instead of trying to find better ones, that trigger on the reader the desired emotions and reactions.
Hemingway be damned. Seeking simplicity is one way to write, but there’s an equally appealing one: making the reader enjoy the prose so much that they slow down and their understanding increases. Even pause, and re-read. Replacing words, not because the new ones are more difficult, but because they are the right word in context.
I used to use the Hemingway App to make my writing simpler. I then tried using LLMs as an editor, asking whether my writing was clear enough, what parts should be re-written, and how to better phrase ideas. This all stemmed from my lack of conviction in the words I had written. In some cases, this edition made my writing clearer, but it never failed to strip away much of my voice and to decrease my enjoyment of the writing process. Instead of “write like you speak”, I say “write like you write, and call it a day”.
Today is Liberation Day, brought to you by LLMs. We should bask in the new possibilities for real, human writing. “What’s the point of writing anymore?”, you ask. I tell you, the point is that it makes no sense not to strive for wild originality anymore. Being authentic is just way more fun, but that has always been that way. But now, in an ocean of synthetically generated content, uniqueness stands out and sells. Everyone just got permission to flip the script.
It’s time to start a post-modern moment for writing, to stop wasting so much time in ornament and polish, and start writing in an obvious non-AI way. Not by forcing it, but by failing to adhere so frantically to the old principles of good writing. Typos, once feared, become a mark of humanness. I have little doubt that people are writing them on porpose just to show they are human. Yes, even if LLMs can write typos if prompted.
Length is another thing that stopped mattering. To be taken seriously, text needed to be long. Length was a sign of thoroughness. Now length signals filler, because it can be faked. With LLMs, it’s easy to generate long paragraphs that add very little information to the topic. Perfectly polished phrases can be pathetic, if they are low entropy (predictable). What we need is more entropy, more phrases being unexpected. All writing becoming more like poetry.
Another thing AI can’t do is go out, live, and tell the world about it. That’s still up to us, humans, so getting new experiences and trying to influence those around us is still our job. Personal, candid, human-written text is the right way to do it. Asking for an LLM to write your story is like asking C-3PO to recite Shakespeare. Sure, the message gets across, but the voice is not right.
In the age of LLMs, I hope writing, of all kinds, gets more quirky and original. Written communication has needed some change of direction for a long time.