Is AI a cure for writer's block?
Spoiler: probably not
Last week The Guardian published comments from Nigel Newton, chief executive of publisher Bloomsbury.
“I think AI will probably help creativity, because it will enable the 8 billion people on the planet to get started on some creative area where they might have hesitated to take the first step…AI gets them going and writes the first paragraph, or first chapter, and gets them back in the zone.”
Hmm.
I called this newsletter ‘Write More’ because I wanted to talk about being a consistently productive writer. My theory being that you can’t become a good writer without doing some writing. A lot of writing advice, courses, degrees and so on are about improving the quality of your writing, and what I try to do is help with the step before that.
There are all sorts of ways of ‘writing more’. For me, it means publishing serial fiction, and having that weekly deadline to hit. It works for my brain, but it won’t be a fix for everyone. So anything that gets people writing is a good thing, right? It’s exactly what I’m always banging on about!
Except…except there’s something different at play here, something potentially decidedly unhelpful. I’m acutely aware that my general disdain for generative AI is likely clouding my view, but bear with me.
Stare unto the blank page and it stares unto you
There are countless tricks and techniques for getting past the terror of the blank page. Last week I took my son to see
at Dragon Hall here in Norwich and he had a brilliantly simple formula for breaking writer’s block:Awesome thing + awesome thing = totally super awesome thingThe phrasing was aimed at the 7-14 year olds in the audience, but it’s a valid tactic regardless of your age. To take one of Neill’s examples: Dinosaurs are awesome. Jetpacks are awesome. Put them together and you have dinosaurs with jetpacks, and suddenly you have the spark of a story, or of a character, or a monster. And away you go — writer’s block at least temporarily banished.
Much of my serial Tales from the Triverse follows this basic formula, albeit in a more dystopian fantasy direction. Immigration + magical portals = complex societal metaphors! Several episodes in the first couple of seasons were powered by that foundational formula.
Key to recognise here is that the formula provides a framework but doesn’t do any of the actual work. It’s still up to us to think of those ‘awesome things’ and plug them together to make something new. The idea remains very much ours. The process is still driven by the writer or artist.
Tobogganing down slippery slopes
Back to Nigel Newton’s idea that AI can help with writer’s block. That it could write the first paragraph, or the first chapter, to help you get started. Get rid of the blank page and use AI as a sort of jumpstart. It sounds reasonable on the surface.
There’s a logical problem inherent to the suggestion, though. If you have AI write a paragraph, then a chapter, why not keep going and have it write the entire book? That’s the inevitable direction of travel. The unavoidable temptation.
Neill Cameron’s awesome thing + awesome thing formula is never going to stray into writing the book for you. That’s never a risk.
Using AI to overcome the blank page opens the door to AI always being the fix. What if the writer gets to chapter 5 and becomes stuck again? Do they solve the narrative problems, figuring out creative solutions, or do they turn again to generative AI to help them out of the hole? I think it’ll likely be the latter. Maybe not at first, but over time, inexorably, more and more of the project will be surrendered to the machine.
Using AI to get past the difficult bits of writing means that you’re never actually learning how to solve those problems yourself. You’re never improving as a writer. The blank page remains as terrifying as ever, and if one day generative AI was unavailable, you would be as lost as you ever were.
Other techniques for overcoming writer’s block are designed so that, eventually, you won’t need to use them. That’s the point. They’re temporary aids until you can do it yourself. Like using crutches after a leg injury: they help you be more mobile and get around, but you don’t want to be using them forever.
Celebrities don’t write their own books
Lawton’s suggestion does not help overcome writer’s block, but instead surrenders to it. After the AI has generated a paragraph, or a chapter, nothing has really changed for the writer — other than becoming more dependent on another ‘writer’.
In fact, let’s not make this all about AI, because that’s such a polarising topic in 2025. As a thought experiment, replace ‘AI’ with ‘writing partner’. In that situation, the oddness of the suggestion becomes clearer. If I have writer’s block, it makes no sense that I would go to another writer and get them to write my first chapter for me. That would be extremely weird, and doesn’t help me with my writer’s block.
If I was actively collaborating with another writer, and that was the point of the project, then that’s a different situation entirely. In that case, we’re writing the book together, and both contributing. And if a writer wants to ‘collaborate’ with generative AI in such a fashion, go right ahead — it doesn’t appeal to me, but as an experimental new form there’s something of interest there. But be honest about what it is, and about that relationship.
And back to that slippery slope: if I’m collaborating with another writer, but I contribute fewer and fewer words to the project, expecting them to write the whole thing and solve all the problems while I provide occasional feedback or ‘ideas’…well, then I’m no longer a writer on that project.
In fact, the situation there is closer to a celebrity hiring a ghost writer to write their ‘biography’ or airport thriller. It’s cosplaying as an author.
Coming up with ideas is not hard. That’s the easy bit, which anyone can do. Humans are primed for coming up with random ideas, and we all do it all day long.
It’s the craft itself, the actual expansion of an idea into a story, which is the hard bit — and the bit that matters. That’s what makes someone a writer, and what makes writing worth reading.
Firing ideas (aka ‘prompts’) at someone or something else (ghost writer or genAI) does not make you a writer. You’ve essentially hired another writer on commission.
And again, I’m not trying to be gatekeepery here. If you want to hire a ghost writer and have them write your biography: that’s fine! If you want to replace ‘ghost writer’ with ‘ChatGPT’, go right ahead. But call it what it is.
Or maybe I’m being closed-minded
Rewinding a bit, let’s take Newton at face value for a moment. What is the best case scenario?
Let’s suppose a writer does get ChatGPT to write the first chapter of a book, and then the writer takes it from there. They are very disciplined and never ask ChatGPT to write any more of that novel. What happens next?
My concern is that they wouldn’t be sufficiently invested in the text. Writing a book is difficult and time consuming, and it’s essential that the writer remains excited and committed throughout. I write my own stories based on my own ideas, because writing a story based on someone else’s idea doesn’t appeal. I’d get bored, and wouldn’t be properly invested. And if the writer isn’t engaged in the story, why would readers be?
There are exceptions, and they tend to involve money. If Marvel came to me and asked me if I wanted to write a Spider-Man comic, I’d certainly say a resounding ‘yes’. It’s not my character, but it’d be fun and I’d be paid for the work. That’s why in the comics world it’s called work-for-hire, rather than creator-owned. Same goes for ghost writing a celebrity novel — being a ghost writer is a perfectly respectable job.
Taking a concept already established or outlined by AI is like doing work-for-hire but without being paid. ChatGPT is not going to pay you.
The human becomes the ghost writer for ChatGPT. That first paragraph or chapter from the AI? That’s your prompt. It flips the human/AI relationship around, in quite a strange way. Who, really, is the machine in this scenario? Who is actually doing the prompting?
I repeat, ChatGPT is not going to pay you to write the rest of the book based on its prompt, and without that financial motivation there will likely come a point where the human writer drifts away. It won’t be worth it. There’s no investment, financially or creatively. It’s not their project.
Even if a book is produced at the end of the process, at best the writer has sidestepped writer’s block. Nothing has been resolved, and those root issues of lack of confidence, unhealthy perfectionism, and a myriad other things remain.
There’s nothing wrong with prompts, of course. Prompts have been useful writing exercises for decades, and can be very useful. But despite sharing the same word, traditional writing prompts are performing a different function to AI prompts. A traditional writing prompt is never going to go and write the thing for you.
How to actually fix writer’s block
Anyway, I don’t write this newsletter to simply complain about things. So let’s wrap this up with some useful suggestions. Here are some techniques I’ve used over the years to get over the hump and avoid the unflinching stare of the blank page:
Neill’s awesome thing + awesome thing = totally awesome thing is a banger, and I’ve used variants of that unconsciously for decades. Feel free to replace ‘awesome’ with ‘awful’ or ‘funny’ or ‘scary’, and so on.
Pick up a newspaper, magazine or newsy website and browse the lesser-known articles. Away from the headlines that everyone knows about, you’ll bump into all sorts of mad stories from the real world. By the time you’re done, they will have sparked even more ideas for you to develop.
If you’re mid-project but don’t know how to start a writing session, zoom in on a character’s sensory experience. Forget about complex stuff like dialogue, character development, themes, plot, and simply roll around in their momentary experience. What can they smell? What are they seeing and hearing? Are they hot, cold? By the time you’ve explored that, you’ll be in the zone.
Sometimes it’s difficult to get the actual words down, and that’s OK. Don’t stress about it. Instead of writing the actual pages, instead work on developing plot, or character arcs, or world building. Grab a notebook and plan out what’s coming up in the story. It’s all progress, even if you don’t increase your word count.
Use writing prompts! Of the sort that won’t write the text itself.
is sharing prompts over on Notes:Set your targets really low. Sounds weird and counterintuitive, but think small. Don’t sit down expecting to write 4,000 words, as it’ll only stress you out. Instead, settle for 100 words. Or a single sentence. Relax, enjoy whatever you can manage, even if it’s small steps. Chances are, by removing the pressure, you’ll then more easily settle into a writing session and will end up writing a lot more than you intended.
Change your writing environment. It could be that you’re struggling to concentrate because of your surroundings. Is there a quieter room in the house? Or maybe you need to get out of the house altogether and go write in a café or park or library. If you’ve been working at your desk for eight hours on the day job, you might not want to spend another two hours in the same spot writing your own stuff.
Consider publishing early. I write and publish my serial as I go partly because it keeps me consistent. That weekly deadline helps me be more productive, and avoid procrastinating. It won’t be useful for everyone, but that light social pressure was a gamechanger for me.
All of these techniques will help you write more and build a habit. Writer’s block is not really a diagnosable, scientific thing — it’s a collective term that describes issues around confidence and/or lack of experience. Working at the craft is the best way to resolve it. The more you write, the easier it is to write.
But it does have to be you doing the writing.
There are many more ways to overcome writer’s block, of course, so do share your own tips down in the comments!
And I think I should probably let
have the last word on the mater:🔥
Meanwhile.
Did I mention I’m doing Movember? This is a silly annual thing wherein lots of people try to grow a moustache during November, but it is for a good cause. It’s all about raising awareness around cancer and mental health that affect men, particularly because we’re all really quite bad at recognising and talking about this stuff.
Hence, we instead grow daft things on our faces as a way to not talk about it while also…talking about it.
For me, this has meant shaving off my beard, which I’ve worn for at least 13 years. My face feels extremely odd. It’s a sensation not unlike realising that you’ve left the house without wearing any trousers.
Anyway, if you’d like to sponsor my moustache and help raise some money for charity, you can do so here. Thank you.
I find almost all online recommendations these days to be fairly terrible. Netflix never suggests anything good to watch. Amazon suggests I buy absolute trash. YouTube is full of nonsense. TikTok as never caught my attention. Which made this article fascinating reading:
Certainly for me, the increasing cleverness of the technology driving these systems has not resulted in a better experience. Though, Substack does seem to work better than the rest.
Also, and somewhat related, Cory Doctorow has a book out about enshittification. Feels like something we should all be reading.
Right, I’ll park it there for this week. Thanks for reading!
The brain needs to work through problems on it's own to make neural connections. Yes it is painful when you cannot think of something right away, but eventually it will click. You are much better off talking to another person than a computer, we do not want to lose our human to human connection.
You know when you are thinking of a movie and you are trying to remember who that actor was......most people grab for their phones and google it. I refrain. I think and think......and I will eventually get it. A.I. will make our brains lazy. Don't let it. Use your noggin ❤️
Great article. I'm curious what your thoughts about using AI as a sounding board are? I've sometimes used AI as a sort of "rubber duck" to kind of suss out the ideas I have bouncing around inside my head. Sometimes I'll have to chastise it if it starts trying to write for me or starts going off the rails, but usually with the correct prompts I've found it helps me flesh out my ideas a bit.