For most of my career, I lived in a world built on logic gates and systems architecture. My daily rhythm was defined by the precision of project management. In that space, your first language isn’t prose; it’s the structured clarity of technical requirements. When you spend decades analyzing how machines process data, you develop a balanced neutrality toward technology. To me, a new piece of software isn’t a monster or a miracle. It is simply a tool—a calculator, a CAD program, or a more efficient way to map a workflow. So, when yet another scandal rocks the publishing industry, I like to take a moment or many to dissect it within the context of my role in this world. And this is where I've landed. Sit tight, it's one heck of a ride...
So, when the industry began to convulse over the emergence of Generative AI, I didn't initially reach for a pitchfork. From my vantage point in the deadline cave of author services, I see AI for what it is—a sophisticated linguistic calculator. It doesn’t "think" in any way we would recognize, and it certainly doesn't "feel." Instead, it predicts the next statistically likely word based on an immense volume of human-authored data. Sometimes it sounds like us because it was taught by us. It was fed our lessons, our language, and our legacies. And based on mathematical probabilities, it simply echoes the most frequently used words, terms, phrases, and sentences it was trained on.
However, the way that tool is used—and what it represents to the creative soul—is where neutrality ends and ethics begin. As a Publishing Partner, my mission isn't just to help an author fix a typo or tighten a plot hole. My job is to take the potential I see in the writing of a debut author and help them polish it until their unique voice rings out with such clarity that no machine could ever hope to replicate it.
The real game in publishing today isn't about avoiding tool. It’s about the practice of craft. It’s about the difference between a story that is passé in the blink of an eye and a classic that resonates for decades. The true mark of a human storyteller is the visible evidence of the progression of growth and craft from one book to the next and the next and the next...
The Beauty of the "Wobbly" Start
There is a specific kind of magic in a debut novel. I call it the "wobble" (as opposed to the wobbly middle of a plot—that’s a different kind of wobble, but still a wobble. And yes, that’s a technical term. I made it up!) It’s the sound of an individual soul learning to walk on the page. In my career, I’ve had the privilege of seeing this firsthand—watching an author move from the earnest, trope-heavy beginnings of their first book to the magnificent, honed mastery of their third.
When we look at early human craft, we often see newbie mistakes. These are markers of growth, and they are beautiful because they are honest. An early manuscript might rely on the metronome rhythm—a steady Subject-Verb-Object pace that feels safe. It might lean on abstract nouns to describe heavy emotions because the author hasn't yet found the physical language for that pain.
Take a look at this line from an author's early work, featuring a hero named Liam:
"The ache in my chest was a dull throb that had become a constant companion."
This is classic early craft. It tells the reader exactly what is happening. It uses a reliable metaphor (the dull throb) and an abstract summary (the constant companion). It’s effective, it moves the story, and it is deeply human—but it is also a safe way to write. Contrast that with a line from that same author’s third book, featuring a hero named Knox:
"The words landed like a lead weight in my gut."
In the second example, the author has found her stride. She is no longer telling us there is an ache; she is making us feel the physical impact. The emotion has been humanized into a visceral, weighted sensation. Who amongst us has not felt that lead weight within us?
An AI doesn't wobble. It doesn't have a debut because it doesn't have to learn. It is programmed to simulate a perfect gait from day one, but because it has never struggled to find its footing, the result is often hollow. It mimics the shape of a story without the weight of the soul that earned the right to tell it. A wobbly human debut is infinitely more resonant than a "perfect" machine-generated average because it represents the courage of a person trying to translate their internal world onto the page.
A sentence can be technically perfect and the reader will feel nothing. A sentence can be messy and frenetic, and therein lies the soul of the author. And within that soul is the beating heart of the reader.
The Gap Between Machine Precision vs. Human Specificity
The greatest defense an Author-Preneur—the writer who approaches their career with the focus of a CEO while fiercely protecting their creative spark—has against the current AI Witch Hunt isn't a watermark or a legal disclaimer. It is specificity.
Large Language Models are built on the statistical average. If you ask an AI to write a scene about a frustrated boss looking at bad resumes, it will give you generic descriptions: The emails were unprofessional. The candidates lacked experience.
But a human author—a person who has lived, observed, and laughed—gives us the "Human Spikes." They give us the gritty, weird, and low-probability details that an algorithm would never prioritize. In the middle phase of our author’s progression, she introduced us to Gus, a security expert reaching his breaking point while sifting through resumes to fill a role in his company:
"Another’s email address is literally partygirl2015."
That detail is pure human wit. It’s a timestamp. It tells us everything about the applicant’s lack of professional evolution without the author having to explain it. It is too specific, too spiky, to be the product of a machine-learning average. We see this again in the early Liam chapters:
"...two kittens, Hello Panda and Hello Kitty, who served as Tally’s furry, four-legged grief counselors."
An AI would name those kittens Bella and Charlie. It would use statistically common names that feel right for a story. A human writer, however, knows that a six-year-old girl in the mid-2020s would name her pets after the brands and characters she sees in her real world. These details create a "Human Fingerprint" that protects the author. They are the artifacts of a lived life. Readers don't bond with the smooth average of a plot. They bond with the specific, messy reality of a character who has a cat named Hello Panda.
Honing the Craft and Hitting Their Stride
There is a glorious moment in an author's career when the training wheels come off and they hit their stride. This is the "Knox" phase. By this point, the author has stopped using "descriptive spam" and has started using sensory immersion. In her first book, the author set the scene for Liam using functional, general adjectives:
“The morning air was crisp and cool... The city skyline, usually a source of calm, felt distant today. My office, with its clean lines and minimalist design, was supposed to be a sanctuary. But my focus was fractured.”
It sets the mood, but it’s a template. It's well written, but by the time she reaches Knox’s story, the environment has become a visceral experience:
"The first thing that hit me was the scent—an overwhelming wave of damp earth, sweet lilac, and the sharp, green smell of freshly cut stems."
Here, the metronome has been shattered. The author is no longer writing to a steady beat. She is playing with the pulse of the prose. She uses the senses to create an immediate, physical contrast between the hero’s sterile world and the heroine’s vibrant one. She has mastered the bridge between the page and the person—she knows that for a reader to truly feel what the hero feels, she must use carefully crafted words to anchor that sensory depth in reality.
We see this rhythmic mastery in the dialogue, too. Liam’s early dialogue was logical and balanced. Knox’s dialogue is "bursty" and character-driven:
"Friday. Dinner. With me."
It is clipped, certain, and distinct. But the pinnacle of this honed craft—the moment that made me, as an editor, stop in my tracks—is a single sentence involving a Siamese cat and a very large man:
"I stood, dislodging a protesting Popcorn from my lap. The wicker chair let out a grateful squeak.”
I cannot express the utter delight this sentence gave me. As a reader, I felt what that wicker chair felt. I actually felt sorry for it! I could visualize the sheer physics of a man Knox’s size—a "security giant"—finally relieving a small, fragile piece of furniture of his weight. And it squeaked!
This is the absolute pinnacle of "Show, Don't Tell." It gives a personality and a "voice" to a piece of furniture through a unique human observation of physics and humor. An algorithm would prioritize the action (he stood up) and the animal (the cat jumped), but it would never think to record the "gratitude" of the chair. That squeak is the sound of humanity.
The Test of Time
The ethics of using AI as a tool are, ultimately, for the individual author’s conscience to determine. How they live with themselves and whether they feel they have truly practiced their craft is a personal matter. But the market, and history, will eventually be the judge. We have to ask ourselves: Will a story stand the test of time, or will it be passé in the blink of an eye?
In 1972, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss published The Flame and the Flower. It was a book that didn't just follow tropes; it defined them. It became a classic because it wasn't a collection of programmed "dramatic beats"; it was a human exploration of the friction between longing and the desperate, stubborn need to remain safe in a world that offers no guarantees. It resonated because it felt real to the millions of human hearts that read it.
The human condition and the questions we ask of it haven't changed much since the time of Socrates and Aristotle. We still wonder about love, justice, betrayal, and what it means to be safe. We also see this in how a human writer handles agency and conflict.
In the story of Liam & Thea, the conflict was largely external—the "bad guys" and the P.I. following them. Thea was often in a position of being protected. But by the time we get to Knox & Millie, the conflict has evolved into something far more sophisticated. It is no longer just about an outside threat, but about the visceral friction created when a heroine’s hard-won agency and personal convictions clash with a hero’s instinct to take control and to give the woman he loves everything her heart desires. A human writer understands that a character’s internal walls and their need for autonomy will often create messy, realistic tension with the person they love. A machine usually makes characters perfectly, boringly agreeable.
Machine-written stories risk being forgotten because they lack the soul of that exploration. They can provide the average of a story, but they cannot humanize a universal truth into a single, unique, "wicker chair" moment. Readers can tell when they are being fed "slop" generated by a machine that has never felt a lead weight in its gut. They crave the growth. They want to see an author practice their craft, stumble through the wobbles, and eventually soar. And for this author, the moment she soared was when the wicker chair squeaked.
The Real Game
The technology surrounding us will continue to change and improve. AI will get better at mimicking the surface of our language, and the witch hunts will likely continue to haunt those who cannot prove their own creative lineage.
But as a Publishing Partner, I am not worried. My mission remains clear: I take the "wobbly" potential of the debut and help the Author-Preneur polish their work until it reaches that magnificent stride. I help them find the "Human Spikes" that make their work bulletproof and their voices unmistakable.
Because at the end of the day, the human heart will always be on a scavenger hunt. It isn't looking for perfection. It is looking for the "squeak of the wicker chair." It is looking for the undeniable, visceral proof that another human soul was there, practicing their craft, feeling the "ouch," and telling their truth.
That is the real game. And it is a game that the machine can never win.
Let’s Chat
I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about this progression—how we move from those first, nervous sentences to the confident, "spiky" prose that defines a career. It’s one of my favorite parts of being in the deadline cave: witnessing that evolution. But sometimes, I also hate the deadline cave because I like sleep.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. What are some of your favorite "Human Spikes" from books you’ve read? Or perhaps you have a memory of your own "wobbly" debut that you now look back on with a smile?
We are all in this together, exploring the love of words and the intricacies of craft. Let’s keep the conversation going! You can find me over on Substack, sign up for my newsletter for more deep dives into the world of writing and publishing, or drop me an email. I’m also hanging out on Facebook if you want to chat books and "wicker chair" moments there.
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