How To Get Writing Feedback That’ll Transform Your Craft
How To Get Writing Feedback That’ll Transform Your Craft
It’s personalized – and it’s free. Spoiler: I’m talking about AI. (Part 2, with 15 more prompt ideas.)
Welcome (or welcome back!) to Multifaceted, a weekly newsletter about finding delight and direction in a creative life made up of many different interests.
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You’ve made it to the second installment of a 3-part series that’s all about embracing AI as a multi-passionate creative.
In part 1, I shared 15 ideas (including ChatGPT prompts + examples) for how to use AI to understand your creative journey and map out your future. Give it a read here if you missed it.
Next week in part 3, we'll look at how AI can make running a creative business easier.
But today, we’re focusing on writing – a topic that’s near and dear to many multifaceted hearts.
Computers : Design :: GenAI : Writing
I know a lot of creatives and writers are sensitive about generative AI. But the arrival of AI writing isn’t all that different from what happened when graphic design went digital.
Adobe Illustrator was born before I was, so, I can’t say for certain what kind of impact it had on the creative community. But I’m sure the shift from analog to computer-assisted design ruffled more than a few feathers.
Fast-forward nearly 40 years later and who among us doesn’t appreciate the handy shortcuts digital design tools offer us?
Just imagine trying to put something like an event invite together without quick cropping, snap-to-grid justification, digital paint buckets and brushes, or preloaded fonts. (If the only option was doing calligraphy by hand, nobody would get invited anywhere…!)
Now, design tools like Canva are so user-friendly that the graphics practically create themselves. And that’s often what we want – because it frees us up to work on the tasks and projects we truly care about.
There’s no question that hand illustration has an important place in the design world today. It’s impressive, time-intensive, and the result of significant skill. It’s not for everyone and every project, all the time.
So, that’s the analogy I use when thinking about how generative AI might impact writing.
Maybe the back of your cereal box will be written by AI. But does it really matter if it states the nutrition facts and keeps your kids entertained at breakfast?
What I think we all want to know is this: In the AI era, will there still be a place for the types of writing that really matter to us?
Yes, there will be. I have no doubt about it. As far as I can tell, human-intelligence writing isn’t going anywhere.
But some pretty powerful things can happen when you combine the best of human writing with the best of AI.
Artificial intelligence + human writing = 🤯
Without realizing it, you may already use AI in your writing practice. Advanced spell checkers? Grammarly? SEO tools? That’s AI at work. But you don’t have to leave it at that.
By strategically inviting AI into your writing practice, you can:
Gather incredibly useful, personalized feedback on your writing,
Translate rough notes into clear concepts,
Skip the blank page scaries,
Free up time and energy for the parts of writing you love,
Spark new ideas, and so much more.
Over the past year and a half, I've gotten a lot out of treating ChatGPT as another tool in my toolbox. It's like having a brainstorming buddy, critical editor, and upbeat collaborator available 24/7, for free.
Some things work really well, others not so much. After loads of trial and error, I’m excited to share what I’ve learned about how AI can make you a better writer.
If you’ve been nervous to start exploring, you’ll find lots of approachable ideas and baby steps below. From analyzing your tone of voice to offering feedback on structure and flow, ChatGPT might just become the creative sidekick you didn't know you needed.
15 ways to transform your writing with AI
Ready to see how AI can help you strengthen your writing chops? Hop into ChatGPT and test out some of these ideas and prompts:
1. Analyze your writing style
What makes your writing uniquely yours? It’s hard to know on your own. But it’s worth finding out if you want more consistency and authenticity in your work.
AI tools can parse out elements like your preferred tone of voice, word choice, formality level, rhetorical devices, and pacing to help you understand – and maybe even refine – your style. In my experience, this is an incredibly powerful way to learn about your writing and what makes it work.
Example prompt: “Provide a comprehensive analysis of my writing style in the following essay.”
2. Develop a writing style guide
Turn all that juicy analysis into action by creating a comprehensive writing style guide. This resource can make recommendations for tone and style, header usage, capitalization, calls to action, formatting details, stylistic elements, calls to action, and more.
If you’re writing separate pieces that need to fit together in a collection (like blog posts or book chapters), this can help you maintain uniformity.
Example prompt: “Help me create a comprehensive writing style guide for my newsletter. Include the following formatting requirements.”
3. Create an editing checklist
A comprehensive editing checklist is a lot more useful than 15 Post-it Notes on your computer screen. ChatGPT can help you create a customized editing guide with all the nitty-gritty reminders you don’t want to forget.
If you have lots of client specifics to keep track of, this can help you funnel all the key details into one doc. And if you’re a less-experienced writer or self-editor, a guide like this can let you know what to keep an eye out for.
Example prompt: “Create an editing checklist for my memoir.”
Example prompt: “Create an editing checklist for client XYZ that includes information from my call notes and the PDF brand guidelines I’m attaching.”
Some limitations worth noting here: ChatGPT can’t always accurately catch and fix errors in your writing. For instance, it’s not perfect at spotting Oxford commas or hitting target word counts. It also may not know all the ins and outs of style manuals like the AP Stylebook that live behind paywalls.
But if you tell it what requirements your copy needs to meet, it can build out a user-friendly guide that you can use over and over again as part of your manual editing process.
4. Gut-check your main message
When you’re so close to your writing, it’s hard to see if your ideas are coming through on the page. Let ChatGPT recap your work and give you a snapshot of what the piece is about. Based on the results, you’ll see if your main message is clear and in alignment with your original intent, or if it needs some fine-tuning.
Example prompt: “Summarize the main message of this blog post.”
This is helpful for full-length texts, but it can be just as good for double-checking short sections or sentences for clarity, too.
Example prompt: “What do you think I’m saying with this sentence?”
5. Gather feedback on structure, flow, and fluff
From my early days as a college writing tutor to my work editing professional writers, I’ve given a lot of feedback on people’s writing. I always notice issues with:
Structure and organization of ideas.
Flow between ideas.
Conciseness or the lack thereof (fluff, repetition, redundancy).
As ideas spill onto the page, you might not discover what you actually want to say until you get to the end. Or you might drop great examples on pages 5 and 15 that ought to be merged.
Ask your friendly AI editor to suggest improvements in these areas. It can clue you into sections that could be rearranged for better coherence, highlight areas that need tightening up, and show you how to make your key points more succinct.
You don’t need to ask AI to rewrite the piece for you. Just make sure you come away with a checklist for how to make your writing significantly more polished and impactful.
Example prompt: “Please review my article for structure, flow, and conciseness. Provide a checklist of improvements I can make to better organize, streamline, and tighten up the copy.”
6. Get a fresh perspective on writing challenges
Solving complex writing problems can be tricky when you’re so immersed in your work. Walking through your ideas or challenges with an outside party can help you make sense of them.
In the world of software development, there's a problem-solving technique called “rubber ducking.” The idea is that a developer explains their buggy code to a rubber duck, line by line. Often, the debugging solution dawns on them before they even finish the explanation. By articulating the problem step by step, they see it with fresh eyes and catch errors they hadn't noticed before.
Writers can borrow this concept, too. ChatGPT can act as the rubber duck to which you explain the sticky situation. You can walk through the problem, hash out your thoughts, and get quick feedback that can help you move forward.
Example prompt: “I'm struggling with the ending of my novel. I feel like it doesn't have the impact I want. Can I explain the plot to you, and maybe you can help me figure out what's missing?”
7. Supercharge your brainstorming sessions
Whether you need one catchy headline or a year’s worth of topics for your newsletter, generating fresh ideas can take a lot of time and brainpower.
Consider enlisting ChatGPT’s help as a brainstorming buddy. There’s SO much it can do in this area – I’m only scratching the surface. But, for starters, try asking it to:
Turn your rough notes into a list of topic pitches.
Expand on your existing list of ideas with a dozen more in the same spirit.
Provide ideas that align with your writing style or target audience’s interests.
Suggest different angles or ways to approach a writing project.
Generate headlines, taglines, and other short blurbs that encapsulate the long-form writing you’ve already done.
Suggest how to spin off your long-form writing into other types of content.
Provide keyword suggestions for your SEO-driven copywriting.
Track down sources or types of sources that you could research.
Example prompt: “Based on this list of social media post topics I’ve already written about, brainstorm 10 new ideas for future posts that align with my overall message and appeal to my target audience.”
8. Identify theme and genre
Before you can submit to publications or publishers, you’ll need to be able to explain the central themes and genre of your writing.
Once again, being so close to your story can make it hard to figure out these elements. Check in with ChatGPT to see what categories your writing aligns with.
This information can help you:
Understand and follow the stylistic conventions of the themes and genres you’re writing in.
Market your writing more effectively.
Pitch your work to the right audiences.
Example prompt: “What are the main themes in this short story? What genre(s) does it fit into, and why?”
9. Discover comparable writers
If you want to write well, you need to be well-read. It’s one of the top tips from successful authors. But how do you know what lesser-known works would serve you well?
Ask ChatGPT to share recommendations for writers, essays, or books that share similarities with your writing style, genre, theme, narrative, or subject matter.
Brush up on these comparable works and writers. You’re sure to gain some new perspectives and techniques that can improve your own work.
Also, keep this trick in your back pocket in case you’re reaching out to publishers. Sometimes, they’ll ask that your query letter lists out comparable books from recent years. In no time, ChatGPT can turn up highly relevant titles you may have missed.
Example prompt: “Look at this essay I wrote and give me a list of essayists or essays that incorporate similar subjects, themes, and writing styles. Please feature works published within the last 5 years.”
10. Examine writing you admire
You know that feeling when you read something that blows you away? When you’re left in a state of awe and agony, wondering how you’ll ever learn to write like that?
Get in the habit of analyzing those mind-blowing bits so you can learn from them.
Better yet, enlist ChatGPT’s help. Have it analyze works you admire and describe what elements make them so successful. Consider asking it to suggest ways to incorporate similar techniques into your writing, too.
Example prompt: “Analyze this excerpt from a chapter I just read and enjoyed. What makes the writing so effective? How can I apply these methods in my own work?”
11. Experiment with different writing styles
Achieving the perfect balance of humor, drama, and polish in your writing takes a lot of practice. If your drafts lean too stiff and serious, or just aren’t hitting the mark, explore different writing styles to expand your range.
One easy way to do this is to have ChatGPT show you what the contents of your message would look like in a completely different style. You can learn a lot from seeing your own writing remixed into something new.
Example prompt: “Rewrite this scene in two different ways, one funnier and the other more suspenseful. Explain how these scenes differ from my original.”
Example prompt: “I want to make my email writing style more professional without losing my personality. Here’s an email I wrote – show me how I could revise it to achieve that goal.”
12. Turn abstract ideas into concrete messages
With a little help, you can pretty quickly transform vague ideas into clear concepts. If you can jot down your initial thoughts and what you want to accomplish, ChatGPT can fill in the gaps or propose several possibilities.
I sometimes try this out when my brain feels too fuzzy to put all the final pieces together. It’s like having a writer friend nearby who I can ask, “What’s that word I’m looking for?”
The output is usually enough to set me off in the right direction. With an extra dose of clarity of what I’m trying to say, I can come up with my own original way of expressing the idea.
Example prompt: “I want to create a short, snappy social media post about how writing poetry is sort of like making an abstract painting, because you don’t know where it’s going to end up and each person in the audience can take away something completely different. What do you suggest?”
13. Organize messy notes
When you’re juggling multiple projects, taking hasty notes, or letting ideas pour out in a mad brainstorming sesh, your running notes can quickly become unwieldy.
ChatGPT can add some order to the chaos by transforming disorganized notes into structured and coherent resources. This can give you the jolt you need to start or finish a writing project without getting lost or missing important details.
Example prompt: “Provide a summary of the key points in this interview, based on my messy call notes.”
Example prompt: “Can you turn these messy notes for my research report into a clear outline?”
14. Spark inspiration with writing prompts
Need a jolt of inspiration? Ask ChatGPT to generate creative writing prompts, journaling questions, or story starters to kickstart your imagination. Provide as much detail as you’d like to ensure the prompts align with your interests and ongoing writing projects.
Then, open a fresh page and use your personalized prompts to explore new ideas and get the words flowing.
Example prompt: “Give me 5 creative writing prompts for a mystery short story set in a small New England town.”
15. Simulate audience feedback
If you can anticipate how your target reader might perceive your writing, you can make thoughtful revisions to improve the likelihood of keeping them hooked the whole time.
ChatGPT can simulate feedback from your audience’s perspective, offering insights into what will resonate and what needs some help. The more you can tell the AI about your target audience, the more spot-on its critique will be.
This initial feedback can help you overcome a lot of first-draft issues and misaligned expectations. Ultimately, it can push your writing to a better, more reader-friendly place.
Example prompt: “Provide feedback on this ‘about me’ page from the perspective of a first-time website visitor. My target audience is urban dog walkers. What did they like and what could be improved?”
Whew, there’s another 15 big ideas for the day! 😅
If you can’t already tell, I’m pretty excited about the potential for writers to hone their craft using AI. Hopefully this helped illustrate how we can stay true to our creative selves while also growing creatively and having some fun with the new technologies out there.
If you have any other helpful AI tips for multipassionate writers – or experiences using any of the prompts above, drop a comment below!
I didn't realize that ChatGPT was so powerful. As an older guy who didn't grown up with digital technology, I would be a bit intimidated. I'd also be concerned about "paralysis by analysis." However, for young people, I think these digital tools open up a world of limitless possibilities.