The Myth of the “Pure” Writer
Use every tool in the toolbox
Do the work yourself.
Those two sentences are not a contradiction. They are a litmus test. If you can’t hold both, you’re either performing a blessed act of purity or a performance in helplessness.
There is no prize for having written “completely alone.” No trophy for suffering. No secret literary order meeting in a candlelit basement to hand out medals to the ones who refused help and developed scoliosis with dignity.
Use whatever you need.
Books. Conversations. Editors. Therapy. A mentor who tells you the scene is dead. A friend who reads your dialogue and says it sounds like a hostage note. A consultant. A deadline. Artificial intelligence. Everything is allowed.
And if you doubt that, look at the part of the industry people pretend not to see.
Publishing Already Runs on Tools (Editors, Consultants, Test Readers)
The moment a publisher accepts your manuscript, help pours in through the walls. Editors. Copyeditors. Proofreaders. Test readers. Marketing people with blunt instincts about boredom. They don’t just pat you on the shoulder and whisper “bravo.” They cut. They question. They grind your beautiful little indulgences into something that can survive daylight.
Norwegian author Ingvar Ambjørnsen wrote his books with one finger on the typewriter, one letter at a time. If you think those manuscripts went straight to print without anyone adjusting, tightening, and elevating the text, then you believe in fairy tales.
No one calls that cheating. They call it “the process.”
Publishers and other authors like to say using AI is “cheating.” They pull their glasses down and stare at you like you licked the communion wafer. Some of them even want you to sign a document swearing you never touched such a service, as if creativity is a virginity ritual and the only real writer is the one who never asked for directions.
Imagine defiling oneself like that.
You are supposed to get up in the morning, write three sentences, and then let your thoughts wander freely until the next morning. You should spend two years on a book.
Three years is better.
That’s what proper authors do!
Except the truth is uglier and more ordinary: there is no single right way. What is right for one author is poison for someone else.
Some writers release several books a year and get praised for it. Some take years. Some write in isolation like monks. Most don’t. Most have systems. Tricks. Rituals. Scaffolding. Pressure. Someone to talk to. Someone to argue with. Someone to tell them the chapter is lying.
Why AI Gets the Moral Panic
AI—the elephant in the room—is a tool. And as one, it’s an ever-present consultant. A sparring partner that never gets tired, never has a bad day, never needs its ego stroked before it gives you an honest answer. It can help you think clearer. It can show you the path you kept refusing to walk down. It can say, “Here are five angles you’re ignoring,” and sometimes one of them hits like a slap because you recognize yourself in it.
That is enough.
That is valuable.
But that is also all it is.
The same service is offered by human consultants.
The problem is not what you use. The problem is what you avoid. The thing authors are afraid of.
Exposure.
They fear the moment when the text reveals who carried the weight. Sometimes imposter syndrom is real. Sometimes it’s not. Another well-known author—Per Petterson—was always afraid to be “found out” and couldn’t mentally handle criticism while writing. Yet, he wrote on and has a number of awards to his name.
If you let someone do the writing instead of you, it shows. Always. Whether it’s a consultant, an editor, a ghostwriter, or a machine. The voice goes flat. The sentences stop sweating. The subtext evaporates. The prose starts behaving. It becomes correct. Polished. Dead. Like a smile held too long.
You can feel it when a paragraph wasn’t lived through.
You can feel it when a book has no pulse because nobody bled into it.
A tool can suggest. It can provoke. It can offer alternatives. It can help you see. But it cannot choose for you. It cannot know which lie you’re protecting. It cannot take responsibility for the line that ruins your relationship with your father, or saves it, or proves you never wanted one in the first place.
That’s on you.
You are the one who must know where the sentence should take a breath.
You are the one who must know when something jars, not because it’s “wrong,” but because it’s true and you’re flinching.
You are the one who has to stop and ask: What do I actually mean here? What am I trying to sneak past the reader with a pretty rhythm?
Dag Solstad once said he got stuck and asked his publisher to send a literary consultant. They spent a day together. Sharp mind, excellent reader, and still: no solution. The consultant didn’t understand the problem because the problem wasn’t technical.
It was existential.
It belonged to the writer.
So in the end Solstad did what every writer does, no matter how many tools are on the table. He went back into the mess alone and wrestled the paragraphs into being. The book got published. Not because he suffered the correct amount, but because he did the part nobody else could do.
Take heed. Help is not the enemy. Laziness is. Cowardice is. The desire to be spared the cost.
You can use all the tools in the world, but you cannot outsource the moment where you decide what the text is willing to say. You cannot delegate your nerve. You cannot fake the internal click of recognition when a line finally tells the truth and you hate it a little because now you have to live with it.
So yes. Use the tools. Use editors. Use friends. Use a spreadsheet. Write in a coffin. In a sound-proof room. Write in the nude. Write in bed. Use a Ouija board if it helps.
Then do the one thing no tool can do: make it tell the truth. Give it the life that can only come from you. If you don’t have nerve, no tool in the world can save you. It’ll just make your excuses faster and your prose smoother on the way to the grave.
The reader isn’t a gullible priest handing out absolution. There is no “A” for effort. The reader is a bloodhound. They will sniff the cowardice in paragraph two and drag it onto the carpet.
And that’s not a pretty sight.
If you absolutely can’t write, but use AI to generate your texts… Stop. That’s not what it’s for.
Q: Is using AI for writing cheating?
A: Not by itself. It becomes a problem when you outsource decisions, meaning, and voice and present it as your own thinking.
Q: Can writers use AI ethically?
A: Yes. Use it for brainstorming, critique, structure checks, and alternative phrasing, but keep authorship: intent, selection, and final voice.
Q: Will publishers reject AI-assisted manuscripts?
A: Some publishers ask for disclosure or have policies. The practical risk is policy compliance, not “moral purity.”
Q: Does AI ruin a writer’s voice?
A: If you copy and paste. Voice survives when you treat AI as a sparring partner, not a replacement writer.
This is an excellent article. Before I sent my manuscript to an editor I was paying for, I had it play the role of a highly respected reviewer with a gigantic following and a reputation for complete honesty. I asked if for a fair review. It pointed out several flaws and I fixed them and did it again. the instant feedback was priceless. Some of us don't have the resources to pay someone to do that for us. Thank you for writing this.
Great article. Really informative.