Welcome to your robotic kick in the pants
Revision sucks. Especially longer pieces.
But I found a secret weapon that’s a game-changer.
Claude AI.
I was using Claude AI to review my novel for plot holes and thought, “I should recommend this. It’s really good.”
Me deep in thought. Photo by Juan Rumimpunu on Unsplash
But to whom?
Then it hit me. I bet my four readers would like this, too. (Thank you to each and every one of you. You are wonderful human beings.)
My next thought was “maybe I could make some cash since I’m so popular.” :)
Alas, Claude AI doesn’t have an affiliate program, as far as I can tell. A fake one in the United Kingdon almost scammed me.
Gotta watch out for those crooks. But seriously, is this good? Does anyone know? Photo by Crook & Marker on Unsplash
Still, since you might the review useful, dear reader, so I’m going to do it anyway, notwithstanding the lack of loot.
Claude3 Opus — the newest version of Claude AI — is invaluable for revision.
Word of warning, you should not use it to write creatively. Sure, it could draft an email, but if you ask it to compose the next great American novel, it sounds like a right bastard.
Smarter than you while telling you nothing. No heart.
It is a robot after all.
This is how I picture AI, but miniaturized in my computer. Such a cute tin man. Photo by Dylan Hunter on Unsplash
I’ve tried ChatGPT, CoPilot, and Gemini — they all suffer from this way of writing. They also all have hallucinations where they just make stuff up. Especially bad for lazy students and term papers.
Revisions and Summaries
But revisions, now that is where Claude excels. The paid version can read up to 100,000 words. (I read that somewhere, but they’re not paying me to look up a cite, so believe me or not.)
It did read my book (75,000 words) and identified a pretty big plot hole. It also identified my main character’s arc correctly.
I asked it to provide an elevator pitch that needed only a little work and a blurb that needed a little more. Still, both weren’t bad. You can check out the revised blurb and elevator pitch here.
Finally, for fun, I had it draft a “5-star review.” Talk about feeling sky-high. It gushed over my writing and my genius.
So, I asked it to draft a “2-star review.” And ate humble pie. Don’t do that.
The first review was more fun that the second. Both were just Claude AI trying to do what I asked.
Grammar
You can also use Claude for Grammar and Spelling, and to help with sentence structure and phrasing. The problem is you have to copy and paste it into Claude. Claude has no integration like ProWritingAid.
This is it, my first affiliate link. If you didn’t know, that means I’ll earn a small commission when you click the link and sign up for ProWritingAid. ProWritingAid integrates with Word, Google Docs, and Reedsy — my preferred ways to draft. I find it easier to use while drafting or editing than Claude.
One day I’ll write a full review of it. I am an affiliate after all. :) Maybe when I decide I actually want to make money with this writing thing.
Thesaurus
I sometimes struggle with finding the perfect word. Claude3 Opus is better than WordHippo (which I also love) in that you can give it a description of the word you are looking for and it’ll find it. Here’s a clumsy example:
Prompt: I need a word that means sad, but not too sad. Like a little sad. And a little angry.
Answer: The word you might be looking for is “melancholy.” It describes a feeling of pensive sadness, often with no obvious cause. It’s not as intense as deep sorrow or grief but rather a lingering sense of unhappiness and thoughtfulness.
Another option could be “disheartened,” which implies a mix of disappointment and mild sadness, often due to a particular situation or event.
If you want to emphasize the slightly angry aspect more, you could consider “disgruntled,” which suggests a state of being dissatisfied, annoyed, and somewhat angry, usually because of unfair treatment.
When I asked for synonyms of melancholy, it gave me twenty and even tried to help by providing:
Note that while these words all relate to a state of sadness or low spirits, they each have slightly different connotations and degrees of intensity. Some, like “pensive” or “wistful,” suggest a more reflective or introspective kind of sadness, while others, like “dejected” or “despondent,” imply a more severe or hopeless form of unhappiness.
Research and Fact-Checking
Claude3 Opus can research for you and fact-check your work. You can use it to get a quick answer to a question. But be careful of those “ghosts in the machine.” While I found it to be very accurate, every now and again, it will make facts up.
Cons of Claude AI
Cost: Claude AI is a paid service, which may be a barrier for some users, especially those on a tight budget. I pay twenty dollars a month and, even then, it’s not unlimited. If asking it to read an entire manuscript, you may run out of questions and have to wait five hours before you can begin continue. (Though I found it had given me enough information that I had over five hours of work ahead of me, anyway.)
Boring interface: Claude’s interface is taylor-made for writers. It’s text-based and quite basic.
That’s a knee slapper. Screenshot and Prompt by Author.
Limited integration: As mentioned above, unlike tools like ProWritingAid, Claude doesn’t integrate directly with popular writing software. This means you have to copy and paste your writing into Claude, which is cumbersome.
Lack of creativity: Like all AI language models, it struggles with more creative tasks. No AI should be used for that.
I like Claude AI, but it is not a replacement for human feedback. It gave me some useful pointers, but I am still using critique partners, an alpha reader, and will use beta readers when the book is ready. You can read about human reviewers here:
For all its faults, I recommend Claude AI. Pretty sure you can try it out for free.
If you liked this article, please sign up for my quarterly newsletter and receive my FREE short story here.
Comentarios