When I first plugged a chunk of one of my stories into Chat GPT’s AI Writing Coach and asked it to respond, I was surprised that it seemed quite good at doing my job. I had hoped I was irreplaceable. It seemed to have, specifically, lots of insightful and astute praise.
LOTS of praise! My story got a 9/10 from AI. Obviously, the AI has excellent taste! My delight was tempered by the realization that my work as a writing coach was now obsolete. But I was still consoled by the description of my writing as insightful, impactful, resonant, and empathetic.
Then, to test this AI – which I now considered a wise friend and esteemed colleague – I plugged in a meandering and almost unreadable story from a sweet but scatter-brained 8th-grade basketball player I taught long ago. It’s a story memorably rife with craft problems of all shapes and sizes.
To my surprise, Chat GPT also lavished praise on this story. It got an 8 out of 10, which implies that there is no score below 8 out of 10. It was also deemed insightful, impactful and resonant.
I’m not sure the machine can tell if a story is just downright terrible. Or if it honestly would tell you if it was.
The robot offered a few milquetoast and abstract suggestions for improvement.
Curious, I began feeding it the best and worst pieces of writing I could find on my computer and watching how it responded.
It turns out that Chat GPT responds to Lorrie Moore’s most spectacular stories and the chaotic ramblings of my earliest stories with the same combination of perkiness and warmth. Everyone has “subtle” and “interesting” dialogue. Everyone is great! Everyone has room for improvement. Everyone is insightful and deep emotional resonance is everywhere.
The Best Test of Your AI Writing Coach: Mediocrity
Depositing one of my most mediocre stories provided the most illuminating test. This story was published some years ago, and while it’s okay, it’s certainly not amazing. It feels like it was written for a writing prompt because it was.
The AI said the same stuff and gave the story 9/10. Still, among its many abstract suggestions for improvements around a character who felt unreal (the story is about the fact that she feels unreal), and some commentary about the dialogue being dreamlike (like worrying that the Harry Potter books have a lot of wizards in them), it found the most salient problem with that particular story: plot and narrative arc.
Its recommendations:
- “Consider adding a few subtle grounding cues in the prose, especially during transitions between scenes or when shifting from reflection to direct interaction.
- More narrative coherence would help anchor the reader without sacrificing the dreamlike quality.”
Pretty vague, but it later gave more concrete suggestions in response to follow-up questions and pressure:
- Introduce a clearer external conflict or challenge that drives the plot forward (e.g., discovery, eviction, storm).
- Deepen the woman’s motivation to give her eventual departure more weight and clarity.
- Add a climactic moment or confrontation that serves as a turning point for the relationship.
- Make the house a more active, dynamic setting that impacts the characters.
- Give the ending a stronger sense of resolution by having the narrator make a choice or gain a new understanding.
- Allow for subtle character growth in the narrator, even if the story remains tragic.
- Connect class and family legacy themes more directly to the characters’ actions.
As you might have noticed, the challenge here is that these ideas are all quite vague or abstract. “Allow for subtle character growth” is…like? What does that look like in a scene?
AI Writing Coach’s fatal Flaw: Implementation
When I work with clients, we typically meet via Zoom. I screen-share the client’s essay, novel, or short story document and turn on track changes. Then, I read it aloud, cold, for the first time while we’re on the call. As I read, I pause to:
- Ask questions as a reader might: For example, “Wait, is this character’s sister the woman we met earlier?”
- Point out exactly what’s working well: For example, a recent client wrote a gothic fiction story that featured remarkably sharp and interesting metaphors and analogies. His figurative language was surprising, vivid, tonally appropriate, and apt.
- Make minor changes or sometimes pause: We discuss a significant issue that has arisen, such as a lack of conflict within a scene or a lack of agency for a main character. I demonstrate how that significant issue could be resolved.
- Clarify intent: When troubleshooting scenes, I ask the writer what they’re going for. They might state it’s about showing a relationship dynamic or demonstrating certain character traits and behaviors. Then I advise how to specifically rework the passage in question to affect those goals.
- Complex craft approaches: I teach the client, in real-time, about complex craft questions like narrative distance, how to manage mini digressions for backstory, etc.
Chat GPT’s writing coach can’t do any of this.
When I asked it, for example, how specifically it would suggest that I take its example to “deepen the woman’s motivation to give her eventual departure more weight and clarity,” it responded with a slew of suggestions that were derivative, cliched, or irrelevant to the problem in question.
Sample AI solution:
In the beginning, add small moments that hint at her desire for stability, especially in the context of the house. She might touch or study objects in the house with a wistful reverence, as though imagining what it would be like to live there permanently.
Example Scene: After the narrator brings back some food and a bottle, she might inspect an old, dusty photo frame left by previous occupants. She looks at it for a moment too long, then laughs it off, brushing it away like it’s nothing. This small action hints at a hidden longing for something she’s never had but doesn’t want to admit to.
Ha! No thanks! Perhaps it is unsurprising that an AI tool that has been educated on all that has come before in literature will reach for a cliche. AI is, by definition, derivative.
To Sum Up: An AI Writing Coach Can Help, But….
You must be careful and extremely discerning. The AI writing coach suggested several significant structural changes to my story, some mutually exclusive (the house can’t burn down and be taken over by other drifters simultaneously).
Understanding that the latter idea, the competing drifters, has promise. Yet initiating that story element early and giving it space to develop would require a lot of skill.
In a last effort, I asked it to revise the story. It churned out a piece that used the same hammer (the woman’s desire to leave at conflict with her desire to stay) in EVERY single scene. It repetitively leaned on the words “distant,” “leave,” “disappearing,” and “stay.” It became, frankly, heavy-handed and annoying.
And I’ll leave it at that.
About the Author
Peter Mountford is a sought after writing coach and instructor. He is the author of the novels A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism, and The Dismal Science. His work has appeared in the New York Times (Modern Love), Paris Review, Southern Review, The Atlantic, The Sun, Ploughshares, and Guernica. He teaches at University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe’s MFA, and through Mountford Writing. His latest book, a collection of stories called Detonator, was released September 2025.