Technology is a wonderful thing: mostly. Unlike Jane Austen in 1815, Austenesque authors today need not sharpen quills, live with ink-stained hand, and cross out words and lines to craft the right story. We do not need to rush down to the stationer to purchase another pack of paper. Our research horizons are limitless where Miss Austen’s were constrained by the speed of the post and her father’s library. Our work exists in a digital universe much in the same manner that the Lady’s stories lived in the little writing desk at Chawton Cottage.
That is the “good” of the computer age. My writing career has spanned from those early days at the Glendale News Press and Pasadena Star in 1982 where the computer was housed in a room chilled to near-subarctic temperatures to the modern age where worn laptops are stacked on the floor of my closet. My observations of the present debate over the use of artificial intelligence—AI—software rise from a context spanning the forty-odd years of personal computing.
Okay: what follows are my observations and not an indictment of any author.
My friend, Carol Manson, penned the following post in the Jane Austen Fan Fiction Authors JAFF of the Jane Austen Fan Club Facebook site in late February:
“This is a bit off-topic, but it might be interesting to those of you who like JAFF, as I do. I was "testing" the free version ChatGPT, and because I am currently editing something for a JAFF author, I chose to use a JAFF-themed prompt: "Write a paragraph in the style of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as if the protagonist Elizabeth was not a Bennet but a Fitzwilliam." The response was SCARY--scary because it is "not bad."
Carol’s experiment appears next. This is what the AI-generated. As she noted, it is “not bad.” Truthfully, I have read much worse (including many of my drafts) that is put out for sale. You can be the judge.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Fitzwilliam of good fortune must be in want of a wife. And so it was with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a proud and reserved gentlemen of considerable wealth and standing. When he met Miss Elizabeth Fitzwilliam at a ball in Meryton, he was immediately struck by her intelligence, with, and independent spirit. But as the daughter of a distant relative, Elizabeth was not considered a suitable match for a man of Darcy's social rank. Despite their mutual attraction, they were each determined to maintain their distance, for fear of causing scandal or bringing shame upon their families. But as they continued to cross paths, they found themselves drawn inexorably to one another, even as they struggled to overcome their own pride and prejudices. In a world where class and reputation were everything, could love truly conquer all?”
Word Count: 144
The purpose of this column is not to analyze the above paragraph, but to ask about the reason any author would use AI to write a story. I can only repeat what I have “heard” on the feeds. I apologize if it comes across like the flabby info-tainment “journalism” that utilizes the “some people are saying” model of innuendo.
There seems to be only one reason to use AI, the inside voice hiding behind a lot of public virtue.
I need to produce three, four, five books every year.
Why?
Austen published six books over an eight-year stretch (ignore the “burp” with Northanger). Harper Lee published one book in her lifetime. J.D. Salinger’s reclusive behavior defied publishers’ efforts to get more books from him. Hemingway published two novellas and seven novels (two posthumous) starting in the 1920s through his suicide.
One of my writing friends, Scott Blade, produces four best-selling novels a year. I sit across from him at Starbucks as he writes: no AI for Scott! Scott has a friend, Bob, who writes a western novella/novel every month. His business is incredibly healthy: all without AI assistance.
Back in the day, there were authors that would pay ghostwriters to help crank out multiple stories a year. Then again, that often was driven by publishers seeking to feed the beast. They wanted to sell hundreds of thousands of copies at $1.99 and needed to punch out dozens every year to keep the investors grinning.
Then there was Erle Stanley Gardner who published eighty-three books in forty years—1933-73. These were 40,000 to 60,000-word quick reads, analogous to today’s short novels or long novellas. Gardner rarely published more than three a year. But, I ask you to imagine how many he might have produced if he did not have to stop every 250 words to put in a fresh sheet of paper.
So what is the need for AI? Why would authors completely abdicate their roles as creators? And stop right there before you suggest that going over and editing AI-produced copy is asserting authorial rather than editing control. No Way!!!!!
And: do not argue that using a grammar/spelling software like Grammarly “is the same thing.” I use Grammarly. It will suggest a sentence rewrite, but it does not alter much except phrase/word placement. And, Grammarly does not insert its own copy into a blank space unlike the 144 words above.
So, why?
Simple…and it is the same old one I mentioned a few paragraphs above: sales—both in the form of actual e-books delivered as well as page reads. If someone can produce for Amazon consumption 1,200 pages every year (see, for example, my first book in thirteen months—The Sailor’s Rest—which clocks in at about 430 Kindle pages), they stand to earn a lot.
Here's the math of how self-published authors are compensated by Amazon:
Sales: 70% of the cover price (so, a $6.00 book sold will send $4.20 to the author)
Page Reads: $.004 per page read. If only 1,000 people read those 1,000 pages, the author would see $4,000.00. Yet, we all know that the Austenesque reading community is a lot larger than 1,000 people worldwide.
I do not care if Scott Blade makes six figures a year publishing four books a year. Those in the Austenesque community who know me know that I could not care less if Melanie Rachel or Nicole Clarkston sells piles of books and gets a zillion (bazillion) page reads.
Would I like my books to sell a lot? Sure! But, what I publish is my work and written with my full understanding of what I have written. You may not like it. You may savage the book in a review. But, whatever you think about the book, you never have to doubt that you are thinking it about MY work, not some machine that has sampled all sorts of JAFF (intentional word use) from the forums.
Maybe folks who use AI should credit their books as “By Jane Smith as told by Univac.”
I do see a time when ironic and satirical books will be released where the machine writes it and the human edits: and the machine gets the “by HAL9000” authorial credit. Until then, “By Don Jacobson” will mean just that.
Speaking of “by Don Jacobson,” my latest is dropping on March 28, 2023. The Sailor’s Rest is a P&P/Persuasion crossover (not a mashup).
Please visit the Amazon page for preorders.
https://mybook.to/SailorsRestPandP
Please enjoy the following excerpt from a Work-In-Progress, Mrs. Benet’s Daughters, 100% written by Don Jacobson. © 2023 by Donald P. Jacobson. All rights reserved. Reproduction is prohibited.
&&&&&&
This story is set before Charles Bingley leased Netherfield Park and thus before any encounters with Mr. Darcy, Caroline Bingley, George Wickham, and other canonical characters.
Prologue
July 17, 1810
They thought she could not hear them, her little blackbirds clustered around the window seat. Their whispers were balm to her senses, at their rawest now that the hearse had rattled its mournful way down the drive and toward the chapel. The riverbed pebbles had been raked smooth this steamy morning. Mr. Hill had shooed away the grooms from their daily duty and took the tool himself. The chief servant painstakingly performed this final service before Thomas Bennet began his long journey to the high meadows.
Now the ladies of Longbourn were alone in the front parlor. Mrs. Gardiner sagely had ushered the other women onto the veranda overlooking the rose beds. Their absence eliminated hospitality’s burden that would divert energies best employed navigating sorrow’s dark waters. In many ways, sadness was a dish shared only between intimates. Even then, each tasted the potage in her own way.
Jane, of course, took the tack that saw their bleak situation in the best light. “I have no doubt that once the men return from…from the funeral, they will have come up with a plan for our care and comfort. We are loved, and our family will take care of us.”
Lydia’s soft reply was nigh unto inaudible, but it brought tears to her mother’s eyes, reddened by three days of mourning. “Yes, Jane, but which family will that be? If I am sent away with Kitty to Aunt and Uncle Philips, how will I see you and Lizzy when you are living in Gracechurch Street?
“And, what about poor Mary? She is always caught in between—neither fish nor fowl—where will she go?”
The rest of her thoughts were swept away in a hiccoughing cascade of fresh tears punctuated by words muffled into a sisterly shoulder. “I…miss…Papa. Why…did he…have…to…leave…us?”
Who would have thought that my fifteen-year-old listened to her father deeply enough to pick up one of his favorite catchphrases? Neither fish nor fowl, indeed!
Lydia’s questioning lament began to chip away at Fanny Bennet’s decade-long defensive lines, her Linhas de Torres,[i] behind which she had hidden since her great disappointment in the year One. She had been unable to face any reduction in her children’s circumstances. Malicious gossip had it that she was frightened of her own destitution after years as queen of the manor. The entail and its faceless beneficiary had terrified her. Every evil she could imagine ate away at her spirit. To replace those fractured foundations, Fanny had built upon her dread and hid behind a miasma of nervous prostration. She had had that luxury up to three mornings ago when a broken Mr. Hill knocked on her chamber door to whisper that Thomas had never awakened.
Now that she had met William Collins and had suffered under his solicitous platitudes, oily slick with salacious undertones, she knew that they could never coexist beneath the manor’s slate roof. That he entertained the idea that a mother would willingly act as a procuress to guarantee her own comfort while one of her daughters ensured his, confirmed the worst. Their time at Longbourn would be brief after she delivered her coldest rejection.
The murmur from across the room broke through her reverie.
“Thankfully we will be only as far apart as the King’s post,” ever-sensible Mary noted, “and, Lyddie, do not worry about me. If either the Gardiners or Philipses can find a cupboard large enough for my bed and bookcase, I will be able to be useful to them and myself.”
Lizzy chuckled, a rare sound in recent days. “I can just imagine you crawling out from beneath the stairs into Aunt Phillips’s front hall and scaring poor Mr. Benton out of a year’s growth.”
Mary genially retorted in a voice that had lost its preachiness after she discovered that her favorite dour Scot was silent on real-world crises. “Now Lizzy: you know that I rise nearly as early as you although I tend to remain above stairs while you tramp through the hills. Uncle Philips does not insist that Mr. Benton arrive at sunrise to light the office fire. It is not as if he is keeping the books at a counting house where poor wretches must make their weekly rent payments before they go to their employment!
“Mr. Benton has a fine future. I hear that he is considering another clerkship in St. Albans with a solicitor who works with the new manufactories and other aspects of trade. Not that he disdains training under Uncle Philips, but he finds land law and wills a bit old-fashioned.”
Kitty jumped in. “You hear tell? And might I be so bold as to ask from whom do you hear? Hah, you are blushing. You are cherishing a tendre for Mr. Benton. Oh, how romantic: you will be the first of us to have her own home.”
Lizzy hissed, “Mary will not be settled in six months or even a year. We will be mourning for Papa, and even if Mr. Benton is her forever man, he is yet a clerk and, like militia officers, makes a pittance, certainly not enough to support our sister!”
The muted bickering went back and forth creating a happy background for Fanny’s reflections.
How much time I wasted lamenting the future where Thomas had died, and we were thrown out of house and home. Of course, I was free to indulge myself because he was not dead, and we were secure at that moment.
Now he is gone, and I cannot have the luxury of worry. My girls are all alone with nobody between them and the world except for me. Time to dispose of the dithering woman who was neither wife nor mother and become the mama they will need.
Come one, come all, and see how fiercely this lioness will defend her cubs and prepare them to survive in this cruel world.
Gripped by a fierce resolve, Mrs. Bennet clapped her hands. Rising to her feet, the matron squared her shoulders and surveyed five pairs of widened eyes.
“Quickly now, girls: while the men are away at the chapel, each of you must pack one trunk with everything that is dearest to you. There is every chance that this will be all that you will be able to carry away once your cousin evicts us. I am preparing us against the storm that is sure to come when I have my interview with that man.
“Pack your sturdiest clothes and boots. We will have to anticipate a time of short commons. Be sensible. Ball gowns are an unnecessary extravagance because we will be in mourning for a year. You older girls should each pack one for yourselves and allow Kitty and Lydia, who are still growing, to select one which may be suitable next year.
“Lizzy: I forbid you to pack more than ten books. Jane: you must ignore Lizzy’s begging you to pack a few more in your case. Mary: I know that you have reams of copied extracts. I suggest you light the fire in your chamber and burn most of them. You might be able to secret some between your chemise and stays. Oh, pack whatever blank paper you can. You can share it with the rest of us.
“Kitty and Lydia: I have no directions for you except to repeat what I said to Jane. Of course, Lizzy will not ask you to pack her books but rather that you, Miss Lydia, must abandon your selfish ways and allow Kitty to pack her own things in her trunk. You already have taken enough of hers as it is.
“Be sure to gather all your jewelry and bring it to me. I defy anyone to rummage around my person trying to find treasure. Elizabeth: do not forget your Grandmother Bennet’s earbobs and, Jane, the same for her silver and ebony ivory hair combs. Oh, collect any money you have. I am sure that your cousin has already rifled through Longbourn’s cash box. Until my dowery can be released, that may be all we have to live on.
“Once you are finished—take no more than thirty minutes, proper packing is less important than getting packed—I will have young James load your valises into the pony cart and run them to your aunt’s house. Hopefully, your uncles may be able to protect the rest of our personal items and move them out of the house within the next few days.
“For years you heard me moaning about being thrown out of Longbourn. Sadly, that will come to pass, but the instrument of our pilgrimage will be the serpent and not the Good Lord.
“I fear that all we will be able to salvage will be that which was listed in my marriage settlement papers: the Gardiner silver and china, some family mementos, and my own jewelry. Let that be a lesson to you girls: make certain that your Uncle Philips prepares your settlement papers. There is no substitute for the protection they will bring. Take it from a solicitor’s daughter.
“As for us, any and everything else will come under your cousin’s gimlet eye. I have managed to hide some of the gifts your father gave to me over the years, but Mr. Bennet’s lackadaisical attitude when it came to record-keeping may well alienate most as property of the estate under the entail.”
She took in the pale faces peering back at her and understood that her daughters’ carefree existence was over, yet their lives had only just begun. They did not know what they did not know, so sheltered they had been. Now, it was up to her to bring her girls through this trial without harm.
“I am no longer a gentleman’s wife. I am the daughter of a solicitor by trade. I have spent more than twenty years above my sphere.
“But with feet in both worlds, I know how to survive.
“I promise each of you this: I will love you fiercely, defend you without quarter, and raise you to be the gentlewomen you were born to be.”
[i] The Line of Torres Vedras was constructed by the British in 1809-10 to deny the French Army Portugal’s capital Lisbon.
Lovely beginning, with an out-of-canon-character Mrs. Bennet who seems to have had an epiphany with Mr. Bennet's death. Have enjoyed all your stories and I am sure this one will be as good as the others, even without AI assistance. Please write faster.
I agree with your thoughts on AI as a writer, as we discussed at the last WIP reading. In your excerpt, I love that Mrs. Bennet is not a cartoon, and am really looking forward to reading this. I will be on vacation soon, and have been saving the Wardrobe series to enjoy while I am lounging around. I probably won't finish completely, but I should make a decent dent. Thanks for the posting.