Experience

I had never written a book before; I had never even written a short story. I had never even read a book on how to write a book. I essentially stopped writing after my GCSEs because for A-levels and beyond I was completely STEM-brained. This was clearly an issue. To go from 0 pages written to a full novel is a challenge. However, I had a few advantages: I read a lot, I am very stubborn, and I tend to finish what I start. Having read a lot of books, I have an idea of what a book should be like (though the books I read tend to be old or odd). A couple of years ago, despite only ever having run a 5K, I decided to sign up for the London Marathon. To my surprise, I got in, but I persevered and got a decent time, so if I could do that, I could do this.

It was tough going; I crawled along with a couple of chapters, getting feedback where I could. I originally started writing the whole thing in markdown, which was perhaps a mistake, before switching to Word. The greatest burst of activity happened when I was at a debating competition in Copenhagen. After each day I would take myself off to a cafe and just write. I managed to finish a first draft. It wasn’t where I wanted it to be, though.

Planning

What I had neglected to do was plan my story. Sure, there were a lot of thoughts out there, some rough arcs, but when it came to putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys), there wasn’t enough. I had written myself into many different corners, spent a long time on things that didn’t really move the story along, and not explained crucial aspects of the world. It was, in short, a mess.

The solution here would have been to plan more in advance. I know many writers consider themselves gardeners, but I am definitely more of an architect. If I had planned more out, I would have saved myself a lot of time on the next problem.

Rewrites

Then began the rewrites. I have done two major rewrites, both with a few months in-between where I couldn’t face going back to it. I tend to get more done when I have a week or so free rather than doing small amounts every day. I finally finished my last major rewrite, but I have not enjoyed that process. It didn’t feel natural, as I needed to change so much, and there will now be a lot of cleanup.

As stated above, planning would have made rewrites much easier, but another issue was the breaking of momentum; waiting months and months before each rewrite meant the story and ideas changed a lot such that new chapters didn’t particularly align with old ones. In the future I will try and maintain a consistent pace of work.

AI

What about AI? I work in AI, and I get asked a lot about it. I have very little interest in reading anything written by an AI. If I were enjoying a story and found out it was made by AI (at least AI as we currently have it), I would stop reading immediately. This is not a moral crusade. I think AI is an amazing tool. I just am not interested in consuming something someone else didn’t deliberately write. I also don’t see the point of getting AI to write a story for me since it wouldn’t be my story. As such, using AI to write (beyond spelling and grammar correction) is out of the question for me. Out of interest, I asked it what it made of my book. The feedback was far too positive to be useful, and where it tried to give suggestions, it often completely misunderstood the intention of what I had written. I do think AI will play a bigger and bigger part in writing; however, unless something drastically changes, I will keep my work 100% human.

Book 2 and Beyond?

Now this could all have been avoided had I actually sat down to plan everything. For my books that are still very WIP, this is what I have done. I have been slowly crafting the world, characters, and tone until I have a complete mental picture. Then I begin working on the story, doing mini drafts until I know exactly what will happen when and why. Not only will this result in an immediately better story, but I think it will actually save me time in the long run.

I have matured a lot as a writer during this time, and I think the experience was good no matter what I end up doing. I would like to publish my book and will begin looking for people interested in doing so soon. I really believe that my future books will benefit a lot from this experience, and I have a few already being sketched out. I tend to have more ideas than I can reasonably manage, so we shall have to see where it goes.

The Shift from Output to Understanding

Which subject will be least impacted by AI tools? My guess is PE. If you rock up at the pitch without having trained, it’s going to be very obvious to everyone. In-person assessment is key. Great, so we should just have students sit exams every class and then job done? That would be a massive waste of teachers’ time and not very engaging. Students already put more effort into subjects they enjoy, so making it enjoyable should be a priority, as it means they are less likely to check out and just rely on AI tools.

Instead of searching for a new and innovative solution, why not adapt one from the past? Oral assessment. This (in the UK at least) is a form of assessment that is rarely used anymore but is the most effective way of determining whether someone has actually understood something. I believe in a two-minute conversation I could get a better idea of whether someone understands something than in a three-hour exam.

One example of this could be assigning a topic for students to research as homework, and then in class there is a discussion within the class led by the teacher who is responsible for assessing whether the students have engaged with the topic appropriately. This is, of course, heavily dependent on the school and the teacher to assess fairly and correctly (I have some ideas of how this could be standardised somewhat).

Why should we do this?

Many things that we currently test for will no longer be relevant in the future. However, core fundamentals will always be relevant, most critically metalearning. The ability to learn is the most important thing to impart to students; the ability to solve problems and utilise information effectively are also key. Even if many tasks will ultimately be delegated to AI, we must be able to ask the right questions. I believe that by focusing on understanding and not memorisation or repetitive work we can hone in on whether students are really being equipped for the future. AI, like any technology, is capable of providing amazing benefits and incurring terrible costs; it is up to us to decide how we use it.

This article was 100% written by me, a human.

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