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Recent surveys (from Gotham Ghostwriters and BookBub) verify what you probably have already guessed, that there are profound divides between writers who use AI and writers who downright refuse. But interestingly, these surveys have also shown that around 60% of writers do use AI tools of some kind.
So, when you’re creating a software program for writers, you have some choices to make. Do you alienate your anti-AI users or your pro-AI users?
Or do you try to find a compromise that works for the greatest number of people?
One of my favorite tools that I use in my fiction writing is Plottr, which I introduced to y’all back in Episode 74. It’s a program that lets you visualize your story from beginning to end and keep your notes on characters, themes, settings, and other plot elements all in one central place.
When I interviewed Plottr’s education outreach lead back in 2023, I had bought the basic program for myself, which is a tool that you download and use offline. I’ve used it for at least three different writing projects, and it’s helped make my process much more streamlined.
So when the folks from Plottr reached out to me to chat about new developments, I was excited. However, when I looked into it and saw that they had a new tool that used AI, I got very uncomfortable. I’m way more on the skeptical side of this issue, and I was scared to see another program I use get gobbled up by AI features.
But then I got curious, because I noticed that it was being implemented in a different way that we see in products like Google Gemini or Microsoft Copilot (or, if you listened to my last episode ProWritingAid). The difference is that instead of forcing AI features on Plottr users, they offered a choice where users could stick to the completely AI-free Plottr program, or buy the AI-powered Storysnap either on its own or as an add-on.
Seriously, it’d be nice if more companies would do that instead of making you jump through hoops to opt out.
No matter my own feelings, I can understand how that statistic poses a dilemma for software companies that don’t want to go out of business. Plottr seems to be trying to create a solution that gives both groups what they want, and I wanted to know more about how that choice was made and where those lines were drawn. When I interviewed Plottr’s founder Cameron Sutter about the way they’re trying to employ ethical AI use, I learned that a lot of careful thought was put into how to deploy AI in a way that avoids using stolen works and doesn’t write users’ stories for them.
I’m not here to sell you Storysnap, but I did make space in this interview to talk about it (even though, as you’ll hear, I struggle to pronounce it correctly). To keep it simple: Storysnap helps series writers create a personal story bible, so they can easily maintain continuity throughout each book. Cameron does a good job explaining how they’ve attempted to address issues about privacy and what measures they’ve taken to keep the AI from training on users’ work.
Personally, I’m probably still going to stick to using Plottr on its own, happily and wholeheartedly. But take a listen and decide for yourself where you draw your line.
(Who knows—you might not even make it past Cameron and my discussion about pizza toppings.) But I hope you do.
