FROM IDEA TO STORY: THE AI WRITER'S PROCESS

The “Second Brain” is in the writers room... here’s how we'll work with it

A man and his Second Brain.

I Have A Plan

Based on your feedback and what I think can be really useful, I’m going to create a guidebook for the entire writer’s process -- with AI --  over the next ten weeks. 

Writer’s confession: After three weeks of following my original plan, I came to realize that:

1. My readers seem to like when I blended the thinking I’d gathered about writing with AI with my personal stories AND my results. Originally, I’d planned to post these things separately. No more.

2. A good post — one that doesn’t waste your time — takes time. I’m still aiming at finishing this in 10 weeks, but the time between posts might be a bit longer.

I still intend to share both the theory and the messy reality of integrating AI into each step. (The “Syllabus” is below.) 

I will be grounding all of this in the way I’m using AI tools to help write a near-future story about AI called "Autonomous."

Whether you're AI-curious or AI-anxious, I hope that this series can offer the latest thinking and real-world examples of what AI can and cannot do for your writing. 

Over My Career: Did I Bring AI Into The Writers’ Room?

This series is all about how we bring AI into our writing in a way that uses both the best of the “First Brain” (ours) and “The Second Brain” (AI). 

You could think of my career as a trail through peak “First Brain”, “Emerging Second Brain,” to “AI in the Writers’ Room.” 

The first part of my career was filled with great “First Brain” experiences. I’ve been lucky to be taught by some of the great writers: Norman Lear, Jim Brooks, the Charles Brothers, David Lloyd. I’ve worked in some amazing writers’ rooms: Late Night with David Letterman, Jon Stewart, In Living Color. 

Later, I moved into the convergence of media and tech. I took an active role in introducing “The Crowd” into the Writers’ Room via the internet, the web and social media. I was at Disney in the late 90s as we tried to figure out how the internet would change its businesses, at MTV Networks at the dawn of the Web, and at Twitter in the early days of Social Media. There was a lot of good...and a lot of bad in all of this. 

This time, it’s different. This isn’t a new tool in the room. This is a new writer. It is fast, smart, capable, good at inserting itself into things and getting you to rely on it.

If you’ve ever been in a writers’ room, you know this writer. They show up and you immediately think: “OH. I’m gonna be working for this person some day.” 

Not so fast.

We’re charting a path toward better writing with AI. As we walk through the creative process, we’ll discover the value of human intelligence in a world increasingly filled with artificial intelligence. We’ll work to answer how the “First Brain” gets better as it uses this “Second Brain.” 

(BTW -- maybe I’m wrong and the future will be dominated by the Second Brain. In which case, “Hellooooo Overlords! I was on your side the whole time! What can I do for you?”)

A Promise… and a Request

Every post will be useful, entertaining and inspiring. You’ll get a solid takeaway -- a strategy, tactic or tool. I’ll back that up with solid thinking from reliable sources on the topic of AI and creativity. I’ll keep it as brief as possible, so you can get back to writing. 

Okay, this post isn’t brief. But most of the others will be. Give me a break, I’m only human. 

All I ask from you is that you comment, chat, share your experiences. This series is a result of your telling me what you’re looking for from this Substack. PLEASE keep the conversation going. 

The Ten Steps

PHASE ONE: IS THERE ANYTHING THERE? (Steps 1-4)

Step One: Ideas

The first post is all about protecting the heart of your writing from the Second Brain of AI. Second post is all about what we need from an AI writing partner. Third is a post about “Interviewing” different AI tools for the job of being a writing partner. )

Step Two: Research

Monday: AI research: Too much, too quickly? What do we miss when we get a vast amount of information with a few clicks, vs doing our own connecting and heavy lifting? What’s the value of “serendipity”? 

Wednesday: As I research, where did AI help, where did it lead me to new conclusions, and where did I have to go and just do my own work? 

Step Three: The Audience

I use AI to identify my audience. At the heart of this is the concept of Product Design and “The Job To Be Done.” Yes, I believe that entertainment does a “job” for the audience. Understanding the job and the audience is a key to helping you write

In a post called “My Friends Don’t Want To Read What I’m Writing,” I outline how I did this the WRONG way… but still emerged believing that this was well worth it.

Step Four: Is This Shit? 

AI will constantly tell you that you’re doing great work. In this series of posts, I try to pierce through this and find out how to use my own writer’s instinct to test my assumptions.

AND THEN… I use my artificial audience as a kind of “focus group”. Do I hate them? Love them? Are their reactions helpful? We’ll see.

I’ll examine how we use our “gut instinct” and how we can use AI tools to get new perspectives, organize our work, and maintain focus.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “The most essential gift for a good write is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.” Is it even POSSIBLE for AI to act as a shit dector? I’l lfigure out which prompts to use on my projects to see if AI can tell me what’s crap and what isn’t. 

PHASE TWO: THE BUILDING BLOCKS

(I think these are self-explanatory.) 

Step Five: Your World

Step Six: Your Characters 

Step Seven: “The Compulsories” Things that HAVE to happen in your story (Or Not) 

PHASE THREE: OUTLINING.

This phase is based on a process I learned from the great Norman Lear. He constantly asked his writers to focus on what the AUDIENCE was seeing and experiencing. He believed that you constructed stories as a chain, that linked from scene to scene. 

Step Eight: What Does the Audience Know? 

Step Nine: Where Do You Want to Take Them? 

Step Ten: What Do They Need to Learn / Experience to Get From Here to There?

PHASE FOUR: DRAFTS.

When we get to this phase, I’m hoping that we’re all working together on pieces and we can share experiences. I’ll write frequently about the following: 

Writing: When do you insert AI into the process? When is it helpful, when is it intrusive? 

Rewriting: Is AI a good reader / editor? Can you “tweak” your instructions so that it does what you need it to do? 

Final Drafts: Can AI help you know when you’re “Done”? When does working with AI hit diminishing returns? 

Join The Experiment

Drop your thoughts in the comments. I'll be there, probably arguing with Kimmy/Claude about story structure. (See link below)

- Drop a comment about which phase you're most interested in

- Share any AI writing experiments you've tried

- Tell me what terrifies you most about AI and writing

If you’re not a subscriber, here’s the button. You know what to do.

AND if you know someone who might want to join in the fun, please share The AI Writers’ Room with them.

See you in the Notes during the week / weekend and here on Monday!

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AUTONOMOUS: My Adventures with Claude