How to Become a Better Writer with AI | SmartBlogger's Jon Morrow

29:39So that's almost, the earlier headlines were almost a little too specific. Like you said, you're now getting into the stage where we're starting to picture a story. All right, so now is the big test. I'm going to include your final suggestion, to chat GPT, which is ignore the original topic. Brainstorm five headline ideas focused on the outcome photo. And then you have some other suggestions there. But like as an example, in these outcome photos, the descriptions were, and I didn't read these, but I read one of them. A relaxed family enjoying dinner at a neatly set table. A family enjoying a sunny weekend picnic in the park without any visible signs of stress or hurry.

30:19Parents peacefully tucking their kids into bed with smiles all around and no signs of resistance or fights. So now this fifth suggestion for the headlines is ignore the original topic, but come up with headlines using all the techniques described, but forgetting the original topic. And you're going to come up with a headline for the outcome photo. Okay, so let's see. We'll put that in. Notice how now it's starting with the outcome. Right. Wow. I think this number four here is pretty creative, actually. Outcome one was a photo of a parent enjoying some quiet time, reading a book while their children are playing contented nearby.

30:57And it says the dominant emotions are overwhelmed, exhausted, desperate. So here are some irresistible headlines. How to snatch those sweet, sweet moments of solitude, a busy parent's guide. That's not so bad because it has that kind of like flowery, almost to the point of a joke, like sweet, sweet moments of solitude, but then it's concrete, A Busy Parents Guide. Seven, and this one's interesting, seven game-changing strategies for squeezing in me time amidst the madness. Because that's really good because I've never heard a single person say, oh, I wish I had better time management for cooking meals.

31:36But I do hear a lot of time people saying, I'm at work all day and I get home and it's kids, kids, kids, I have no me time. And we didn't say that to ChatGPT. but it, from its enormous database, kind of gathered that we were probably in that context of wanting more me time. So seven game-changing strategies for squeezing in me time amidst the madness. I like this one. Books that keep kids busy. 10 titles to buy you precious minutes of peace. So I like that one because it doesn't address time management at all. Well, it does. It buys you precious minutes of peace. so it uses that kind of a transactional thing.

32:19I'm going to give my kids this so I can have some time for myself, but it gives a solution in the title, which I love. Like here's books that kids will read so I could finally cook a meal without arguing with them or whatever. Let's see, let's see another photo outcome. So the outcome photo here that it's going to describe the headlines for, a photo of a parent calmly preparing a meal while children do their homework at the kitchen table. Dominant emotions, stressed, anxious, frustrated. Number one, how to turn kitchen chaos into culinary zen, a parent's guide. Again, I like the consonants with the chaos and the culinary zen.

32:56And then they're sort of poetic in the title there, but then boom, specifics, a parent's guide. And then we have the listicle, nine simple steps to transform homework hour from stressful to serene. Huh, Jack GPT likes to use consonants. You know, repeating consonants. Yeah, the obitiation, yeah. Yeah. Here it is. The surprising reason why you're still struggling at dinner time, and then in parentheses, and how to fix it. 15 must-have kitchen gadgets that cut prep time and boost family harmony. I love these. Let's find one more photo, Alcom. And then here's Alcom 5. There's a photo of a parent calmly dropping off their children at school, looking relaxed and ready to start their day.

33:36The best grab-and-go breakfast foods that will revolutionize your morning routine. I like that. I would like to know what the best grab and go breakfast foods are. The case against rush hour madness. How to start your day with Zen, not zest. Love that. This is good. And these headlines are so much different. Again, I will read a couple of the headlines from the very first prompt. Parenting and productivity. How to excel at both with effective time management. It's like from the Harvard Business Review, but worse. Time-tested strategies. Oh, I read that one. Juggling Jobs, Kids, and Time. The Ultimate Guide for Busy Parents.

34:13It's horrible. So these are good, these prompts and these headlines. What would you do differently, John? Would you have a headline different? They're pretty good. The only thing I would do different here is a little bit more pre-work on really analyzing kind of what keeps parents up at night to try and choose the most effective photos. That's what I would be focusing on. Yeah, so what happened was, I guess, is that my very, very initial prompt, which is just please brainstorm five great headline ideas about the topic, that was really generic and it gave me generic headlines. Here, the photo descriptions, like a relaxed family enjoying dinner at a neatly set table with parents looking content and stress free.

35:06That's almost a little generic. And so now it's coming up, it's kind of squeezing a compelling headline from that photo description. It's not as generic as my initial description of the topic. So you might throw in a little bit more detail on how it should describe the outcome photo. So let me give you a really, really good example. If you're a parent, you're terrified of your kids getting kidnapped or molested. Yes. Right? It's extremely dark topic. You also really, really want your kids to be effective, like productive human beings, like good, productive human beings. I think most parents do.

35:59Like the idea of your kid just sitting on the couch all day is like their worst nightmare. right? Yeah. So what I would do is build photos around both those dreams and those nightmares in my mind that have extreme emotional impact on the audience and then I would use the same headline process that I used here. What's different in my case as someone who's been doing this for a long time is really just the strategy of which photos to focus on. That's so funny. So basically, in addition to saying, perhaps I'm writing an article about time management for busy parents, please brainstorm headline ideas based on the following instructions.

36:51So maybe the first instruction is, keep in mind my worst nightmares are my children being kidnapped or molested and my kids turning out to be dumb schlubs who just watch TV all day. Yep. And then I would include the rest. Yes. If you did that, you would get dramatically better answers. Can I try that? Sure. My worst nightmare are my kids getting kidnapped or hurt. And my other nightmare is my kids doing nothing all day and turning stupid. I don't know how to describe that. And so let's just see just that one change. And so I left in the next suggestion that says describe an outcome photo. So let me see if it's submit and let's see what happens.

37:47Huh, big difference. So for instance, this outcome photo, kids engrossed in educational games or projects at the dining room table while a parent watches over with a relaxed, proud smile. And headline, how to nudge your kids from couch potatoes to brainiacs, a parent's survival guide. So I wonder though, how do I bring it back to time management? It's not as much as I think that's a boring topic. So like for instance, the one here's a headline. It describes a photo of kids sitting at a computer, navigating a child safe website while a parent wants from behind. The headline is the ultimate guide to internet safety, help your kids surf smart and stay safe online.

38:24So I, or 10 outdoor activities that keep your kids active, smart and safer than ever. What you would probably do is at the end of that item zero, say, please combine these fears with the original topic. Ah, yeah.

38:55So I'm trying to think, okay, before I submit this, so basically i'm a parent i'm going crazy i don't have time for myself i work all day at some job i maybe don't like and now i get home and my kids are screaming and now i've got to spend three hours cooking for them and then cleaning and then tucking them in i'm exhausted and i have no time for anything and there's a broader context in that i want my kids to be good people and i don't want them to get hurt. So I'm trying to figure out if I was to write this, I would maybe say, let's say the listicle form. This is hard, actually. I don't know offhand.

39:39I mean, I'm thinking of things like 10 ways to go from the worst parent to a mediocre parent. Oh, 10 ways to keep your kids alive until they're age 20 while still having me time. Yeah, so here's the first one that came to mind for me. Seven activities you can do in five minutes or less that could keep your kids out of prison. I love that. All right, so now that's... So you and I came up with our own headlines. Now let's see if AI could beat us. So I just submitted it. How to keep your kids safe, smart, and engaged, even when you're swamped. It's not bad. No. Yeah, this one's a little bit more, we're going to get to the prison one because I have an idea.

40:26So five essential kid-friendly apps that keep their brains buzzing and their bodies safe. The ultimate guide to child safety and intellectual growth for the overlooked parent. So I feel that's very specifically taking all the nightmares and the topic and combining them together. Yeah, it just did an okay job at combining these. It's not great. Yeah, so let's think though, So maybe my other nightmare, let's just, just one more time. And now then the question is, okay. So on the one hand, if I truly am having a compete with me and I feel like my headlines are better, the other way to use something like this is have it make these headlines.

41:08And then I edit them using my style. So, yep. So I'm going to, I'm going to edit this one more time. and my other nightmare is that I'm the worst parent and my kids will hate me and will end up dead before age 20 or in prison. I have one more idea. Before I read these, describe what a photo would look like of this outcome. What you could do is change it from that would be terrifying. Describe what a photo would look like of this outcome that includes all of my fears and nightmares. I don't know if that makes sense, but we'll see what it does. Yeah. So this process that we're going through here is basically prompt engineering.

42:05So the way I come up with prompts, I'll sit here and just play with things for 10, 20 hours sometimes. while working on a prompt. And then I get it to the point where it's more or less giving me the output I want. Oh my God. This is a great one. I love this one. The No Regrets Parenting Playbook, Navigating the Tough Stuff Without Losing Your Cool or Their Respect. That would be a great book title. Yeah. The Anti-Couch Potato Kids Activity Guide, 15 Fun Ways to Keep Your Kids Active, Engaged, and Away from Screens. Yeah. You know what though? it's interesting. I think it's because my way of describing the, how it should describe the photo wasn't so clear.

42:49So I, uh, now I'm getting addicted. I hope you guys aren't getting, uh, bored. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try. Uh, uh, so I said, I said, describe what a photo would look like of this outcome that includes all of my fears and nightmares. Um, let me just say, describe what a photo like this of this outcome and be extremely descriptive of all the nightmares i described above see all of my areas i described above the problem is in the outcome the nightmares don't exist that's the problem with how i'm doing this and have the photo include the nightmares i described above and be extremely descriptive because i think part of the problem is the photos are not descriptive enough so that they're they're even though the headlines are getting are getting much better the photos need to have more more things happening um so let's see yeah it's still it doesn't quite get fear i think what you might have to do oh my god this one's good though.

43:55Turning Terrors into Triumphs. The ultimate guide for anxiety-ridden parents. From Zero to Hero, How to Be the Superparent Your Kids Love and Respect. It's a little like my, you go from shitty parent to mediocre parent. The ultimate guide to turning guilt into glee. Reclaiming Your Parenting Power. That's a good one. That's a competent one. The surprising reason why your kids might actually think you're cool. That's a good one. I would click on that. How to raise kids who love books more than trouble. Oh, the surprising reason why open conversations could save your kids from juvenile delinquency.

44:34That goes to your prison thing. But sometimes it forgets the time management stuff. It does, yeah. But I still see where it's coming from because we told it specifically to forget the original topic. We did. And we focus on nightmares in the outcome photo. Yep. So, but it's fascinating, you know, this skill of prompting really makes a huge difference in the headlines. So you talk about crafting outlines around different frameworks. I need you to, this is a prompt you gave ChatGPT, starting with, I need you to help me create. Yep. I need you to help me create a detailed outline of the headline, how to give your first speech in five simple steps.

45:23Please focus on specific actions with a timeline of one month. The first step should be joining Toastmasters and the last step should be giving their first speech at Toastmasters. Let me put that in. This is just a basic outline. We don't want this to be incredibly creative. You're just... Brainstorming steps. Right. So this is like step one of creating a framework that's going to make your article. Yep. Okay, title. How to give your first speech in five simple steps. We already told it the title. Introduction, a brief overview of the fear of public speaking and the benefits of overcoming it. How to find and join Toastmasters.

46:04Step two, understand speech structure. If I was teaching people how to give a speech, I would talk about first the fear of public speaking and the benefits of overcoming it, like the benefits in general of public speaking. I would include, here's what the structure of all your speeches should look like. Choose a topic and prepare your speech. And it talks about, the outline has a sub outline, which is, you know, how to practice your speech, craft your speech, and then get feedback so you could learn. This is good. And then what would you do with this? So if you go back to the list of prompts, go down to, so we have writing your article.

46:42Go down to the body, just to show you any examples. There you go. Oh, the body. I see. Please use the outline I provided to write 1 ,500 words in total article. Exclude and ignore the introduction and conclusion. I will write them separately. That's very smart, actually, because it's very funny you say that. Because I've read a lot of articles with writing advice, and I always say, write your whole article and then take out the introduction and conclusion, and your article will actually read better. Because often, an introduction is when you you're not quite sure yet what you're writing. So the introduction is usually the worst paragraph in the whole thing.

47:23And the conclusion, it's like you feel like you have to write a conclusion. So it feels separate from the style of the article. So often an article will read better if you just write the whole article and take out the first paragraph and the last paragraph. And this is a little bit implicitly telling ChatGPT. Focus on following the outline. Provide clear logical thoughts with transitions between ideas. When explaining a point that can be difficult to grass, make sure to provide an example. Empathize with the reader, maybe thinking you are an authority in this subject, but do not talk about yourself or compare yourself to the reader.

47:53Be humble. You're writing in all sections. Use short, punchy sentences, colloquial language, and contractions to create a compassionate and approachable tone. And use rhetorical questions, metaphors, and parallel structure to make your writing engaging and memorable. Use vivid and descriptive language, and so on. What do you mean by parallel structure? I just don't know that. There are a couple of different ways you can do parallel structure, but it would mean you might have several sentences following the same structure together. It's something people don't notice, but it actually makes your writing a little bit more poetic when you do that.

48:33So I'm going to put in this prompt. Step one. Ever had a meet cute with a club? That's what joining Toastmasters feels like, only better. There's that sense of curiosity, the excitement, and the promise of something that'll change your life. So where do you begin? Blah, blah, blah. Okay, I see. So now it's filling out the outline. And it took out an introduction. So it went right to step one, because you told it to take out the introduction. All right, so I'm going to stop it. It's interesting, because now you could then, starting from this, you could then modify accordingly. So it's just like we did with the other one.

49:12So I'm going to just take this one about, can you create an outline for the speech, how to give your first speech in five simple steps? I'm just going to add, I'm going to take out the Toastmasters one because it seems to focus on that. I'm going to say, give techniques from neuroscience for each step and use historical examples of famous speeches in history to support each step. All right, so let's see. This should be insane. Importance of supportive environment. Historical example, Winston Churchill's participation in various debate clubs during his school year. Learning speech structure, neuroscience.

49:54Our brains appreciate structure and predictability. It helps with processing and recall of information. Historical example, Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech with its clear beginning, middle, and end. Choose a relevant and engaging topic. Neuroscience. Dopamine is released when we engage with things that interest us. Choose a topic that will be engaging for you and the audience. Historical example, John F. Kennedy's moon speech, which centered around the exciting and relevant topic of space exploration. Now, this is good. It's doing a whole lot of work. Yeah. Normally, it takes hours and hours and hours to do.

50:31Well, like, for instance, step four, practice and refine your speech. Like, so imagine if I was writing an article about five simple steps. This is a great one. The importance of practice. Neuroscience. Practice helps to build myelin, which speeds up the transmission of electrical signals related to the practice skill. That's very true, but I would not have probably thought of that if I was writing just off the top of my head an article about making a good speech. An historical example. Demosthenes, an ancient Greek orator, famously practiced speaking with pebbles in his mouth and against the roar of the sea.

51:02so that's a really great example because it also shows often you're going to have to give speeches in adversity there might be noise from the conference room next door people might not be listening to you and that's a good way to practice this guy demosthenes 2 000 years ago practiced with pebbles in his mouth um and then deliver your speech but calming pre-speech nerves neuroscience deep controlled breathing can help to manage the body's stress response Historical example, Mark Twain, who despite his reputation as a great public speaker, often dealt with nerves before speeches. Okay, but I have a question.

51:41Explain how Mark Twain dealt with nerves before speeches. Known for his wit. Twain dealt with his nerves in a few ways. First, he was thoroughly prepared. He knew his speeches inside and out. He would often write out the speeches in advance and put in a significant amount of time to practice them. This preparation helped to alleviate some of his anxiety because he knew exactly what he was going to say. He was also known to use humor as a means to ease his nerves. Twain often started his speeches with a joke or humorous anecdote, which not only helped him relax, but also captivated his audience right from the start.

52:15Twain acknowledged his nervousness openly, using self-deprecating humor to put both himself and his audience at ease. In doing so, he was able to channel his anxiety into his performances, using it to enhance his speech rather than detract from it. Moreover, Twain believed in the importance of connecting with the audience. He once said, the right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. This is great. So this here is the article. Like I can give a speech using these examples on how to give a good speech. Yep. And if you told it to use that outline to write an article or a book chapter or a speech, it would do it.

52:57So this is really interesting. And again, do we feel threatened, John? Yes, of course. I wanted you to cheer me up. No, I can't. Here's what I will say. So here's where this is going. Right now, this is a huge opportunity as well. So what we're doing at my companies is using this to dramatically accelerate the content production cycle and produce more content than ever before at an even higher level. Yeah, because here's the thing. It still was me asking to explain in more detail how Mark Twain dealt with nerves. Exactly. And that's finally where you start. You dig and you dig and you dig and finally you hit oil and this is where like the real oil of the gold is of this outline is in this example of these examples of like Mark Twain and if I asked it to make the Winston Churchill one more detailed and so on you know so so it does require at least for now and I'm not trying to make myself better it does to really have something which I consider quality it does require good prompts the flip side is I didn't know these examples.

54:20So it's a great tool because no matter how much research I did, it's helping me direct the research. It's saying, why don't you look at Mark Twain? And I'm like, oh, I didn't think of that. And yeah, Mark Twain was always nervous before his speech. Well, how is he nervous? Tell me. And then it tells me. So it's helping me direct the research. It is. And it's still very much you in many ways. I mean, you made decisions about the outline. You're making decisions about which examples to include. You also made decisions about what order to think through things. So just the decision of doing an outline before you start writing is actually a huge thing that differentiates an experienced writer from a less experienced writer.

55:09A lot of less experienced writers just start writing, and they end up wherever they end up. And then they wonder why it's a jumbled mess of an article. It's true. It's just like my friend who didn't understand saying make my resume eloquent was going to subtly ruin the resume. A lot of people might not. You still have to, just like you said, if I was going to make a logo or some sort of graphic design for a website, I'm not a graphic designer. And if I just say to, to, to mid journey or Dolly or whatever, Hey, make a nice graphic design for my website, make it look sort of Einstein-y like me. It's probably going to come back.

55:53I won't, I myself will not be able to determine if what it comes back with is a good design or not. Like I still need a graphic designer who, who knows good design from bad. Hey, this may be, it needs, it needs fewer buttons on the front page or less scrolling or whatever. I still need a designer to kind of really finish the job. Yep. And I mean, that brings up an interesting discovery that I made. So I've also been using this to test writing emails and email subject lines. And one of the fascinating things is that if I do an email subject line split test, So I test different subject lines against each other to see which one gets the highest open rate.

56:46And then I ask it to guess. It almost always gets it wrong. And what I eventually learned, it doesn't understand the difference between a good subject line and a bad one. And some of the things it believes are actually wrong. so what's an example for example it believes that benefit driven subject lines like how to make more money or whatever are always better than vague subject lines where what what's a better headline like so so in in your split test what's an example that works better than how to make money fast sending you a check. Yeah. Because then there's a curiosity. There's a mystery.

57:43What is he talking about? What check is he sending me? Exactly. What if you say, okay, I'm going to ask it. Make a better email subject headline than how to make money fast. Use the elements of mystery and scarcity. I wonder if we'll understand that. All right. It's a little better. unveiling the secret limited spots for exclusive wealth building strategies it's okay yeah it's okay it's not gonna work but but that's because it's specifically using mystery and scarcity it's unveiling the secret is mystery limited spots for scarcity so so there is there are things john you're gonna do better it seems than this well so here's cow i finally fixed it I told it, so imagine everything you know about email subject lines are wrong.

58:44And here's actually how they work. And here are examples of curiosity subject lines. Now write subject lines. Then it can do it. Oh my God. Do you have those prompts written down somewhere? No, I don't. Not with me. But yeah. That's great. I like this concept of everything you know is wrong because it's still, it doesn't take offense. It's still now going to try new things. Yeah, exactly. It'll even apologize. Yeah, that's so interesting. So, you know, it's interesting though. I still think if I'm writing a book from my personal experience, maybe what I see I could use ChatGPT for is, hey, this X, Y, and Z happened to me, and it was really painful, and I dealt with it this way.

59:41Can you find an example from history that is similar, and I can also tell that story? because a very common technique in narrative nonfiction is to tell a personal vulnerable story, but then also tell a significant story from history that's related. And like it could tell a story that I won't know anything. I don't even know who Demosthenes is. And maybe you will tell me, hey, look at this guy from ancient Greece. This might be a good example for you to use. It's similar to your fear of public speaking. So that's interesting. So I think right now a hybrid model works best. But that said, here's what I'm noticing from this too.

1:00:23Most people don't know that one email is written 10 % better than another email. They'll know if it's 1 ,000 % better, but not 10 % better. So if you're within 10, if CHAPGPT is within 10 % of the average person's email qualities, that's good enough. and could save enormous hours of productivity. Yeah, so the prompts that we're using internally, I'm pretty sure that it makes the writing republish better than 99 % of writers. I believe that because you start off with a landscape where 90 % of written material is already not so good. And I don't mean to be critical of writers. Just so the history of this is that the internet made everyone a writer.

1:01:17We all have a platform now to publish our thoughts. And so, whereas it might take like with any skill, it might take 10 to 20 years to really be in the top 1 % of writers. It's a craft. It's a skill like any other people no longer recognize that because everybody writes. And so there's no curation really. So 90 % is already taken care of. And then with your prompts and with these prompts, you know, like that creative one where you tell it everything it's been doing is wrong and you give it examples of good curiosity-driven prompts, with stuff like that, I bet you can, for instance, that will be better than me because I don't know examples of curiosity-driven prompts.

1:01:57And it's interesting. A type of intellectual property in the future, I believe, will be your prompt library. For your prompt library, That's so fascinating. You know, I had this discussion earlier on my podcast with Hugh Howey, who's a science fiction writer. And we were talking about an article he wrote a few weeks ago where he asked ChatGPT to come up with its own religion. And he said, include an origin of the universe story, an origin of earth story, an origin of human story, give rituals for this religion, give the 10 commandments of this religion, and so on. and what it came up with was fascinating.

1:02:40He said to me, he basically implied, you were very fascinated with this. Didn't you go to Chachapiti then and ask it to come up with a religion? And I said, I actually felt funny because that was your prompt that you did. I didn't want to take your prompt. And so I think there is like an IP, not a legal question, but kind of like almost, we kind of have to get over ourselves that it's okay to use other people's prompts. You're going to just start to steer it towards things you're personally interested in. Exactly. And I think that last, for example, the difference between a top 1 % writer and a top 0.001 % writer is imperceptible to most people.

1:03:31Right. And yet, if you put both of them in the competitive marketplace, the better rider will still win by a Lancelot, even though people aren't aware of why. I mean, it's like, take any game or sport or whatever, like take tennis. The number one tennis player in the world, you and I would not, if we're watching them play, let's say we're watching them play other people. If we were watching them play, we would not be able to tell which tennis player is better than another. Even if you showed me the top 100th tennis player in the world and the top one playing separate matches with other people, I would not be able to tell who's number one and who's number 100 just by visually watching.

1:04:12But if they were to play, and again, it's to your point, there's a billion tennis players in the world. The difference between number one and number 100 is imperceptibly small. But if they played each other, the number one would win 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 against number 100 probably. Yep, exactly. And so the optimism here is that if you want to be a writer, you could still do your style of writing and still pursue topics you're interested in and ChatGPT could help and probably make you a better writer. If you're already a top whatever writer, still ChatGPT could help you with the research, the crafting, the organization, the structure, and sometimes the actual writing itself because it's going to know many more examples of writing than you.

1:05:02And so it's pattern recognition on different topics might include examples of good writing that you don't, that you don't have. So, so even like a, a, a, a Stephen King could get a rough outline of a horror novel that he's never thought of before. And he could get some ideas of images in his head or structure in his about how to present and describe the different scenes in this novel. Ultimately, he'll write it himself, but he might get also examples of horror stories from the past that he didn't know about or hasn't heard of, and he can include elements of those in his final product. And so even a top 10 writer like him could still make use of ChatGPT to improve his writing.

1:05:48But certainly like a mediocre horror writer, of which there are plenty, and there's no criticism to that, they could actually really improve their writing and make more money using ChatGPT. It also goes to your intention as a writer. One of the things I was thinking about, so I wrote a book about writing about AI in two days, okay? And it's not as good as if I had written it myself, but I'm not sure that difference would be noticeable to hardly anyone yeah because it's a how-to book because it's a how-to book right in a how-to book sometimes people pick it up because they just they just want your prompts yeah exactly like right now when i just saw your google document a little while ago with with the prompts and then we've been playing around with it for the past hour uh i didn't you didn't write a whole story about how you came up with these prompts it's just a list of prompts and that was the thing that was For this context, that was the only thing that was interesting to me.

1:06:53I didn't need to hear the story of how you came up with these prompts. Yep. Now, on the other hand, if I were writing my life story, I would care much more about the quality of the writing and storytelling. And I would spend much longer and probably write a greater percentage of it because I would care to accurately reflect my personal experience. So it depends, even on what you're doing, on how useful it can be. Well, it's interesting because, again, this Mark Twain example where Chachi BD describes how Mark Twain deals with his nerves during speeches. This is well-written. It's correctly written and ChatGPT uses some storytelling techniques and so on.

1:07:50It's probably not the style I would write this in, but that's fine. Maybe my style would be 10 % different than this. But to your point, people just want to read about how Mark Twain dealt with his nerves. They might not need that much craft in this. You don't always need craft in writing. Not always. I mean, just like if you're reading a recipe for how to cook a hamburger, you don't care if it's poetic. Right. You just, it needs to be clear. And so it depends on what kind of writing you're doing. In other cases, it is important that it's a different way. So I think it's starting to think about where does it really matter to put in that extra time and put in that expertise?

1:08:45And where does it not matter? And then using AI when it doesn't matter. Yeah. And also, AI is going to continue to get better. It will. So it's going to be interesting to see even the next two, three, five iterations of this. But John, thank you so much. This is very useful. This gives me lots of ideas of how I'm going to use AI in my own writing. Not to skip the process of writing, but to kind of enhance the process of writing. And ultimately, because ultimately what you want to do is engage more people. and I think this provides a lot of tools for that. So again, a lot of people are playing around with AI.

1:09:32There's a billion new AI startups, but I've been really wondering how to just use AI for myself. And part of what I do is I'm a writer and maybe I've been a little bit nervous about delving too deep into this, but I could see now, thanks to these examples, how I could properly use this to be more edutaining to readers. So John, thanks for coming up with these prompts. I know you held the best for your subscribers and stuff. So how can people find out more about your stuff and get all your great prompts? So yeah, if you'd like the book, I set up a deal for James and your audience. So if you go to smartblogger.com slash James, it'll give you the book for only a dollar.

1:10:27You can have the whole thing with all the prompts and everything. And then you can have fun. So smartblogger.com slash James. I really appreciate it. I didn't know you were going to do that actually. So I really appreciate it. I'm sure every listener who does that, tweet out that you got the book and thank John and let us know what you're using AI to write because I'm really curious. You know, it's funny. I just put out a course, John, on Udemy, how to write and publish a book in 30 days. And I do mention AI, but I basically say AI can't replace your unique experience. And I still believe that.

1:11:08And I kind of describe a framework by which you could think about nonfiction topics and write your first book or second book or whatever in 30 days. And I give all my personal tips for writing and the craft. but I think in my next, I really enjoy making these courses on writing. I really love teaching writing and I think in the next course I'm going to do is going to be how to write an autobiography and why it's important to do so and I could see use for AI in that, particularly in terms of coming up with relevant examples analogous to one's own story. Exactly and what I think will be really cool in the future and there could even be a huge business in this is come up with all of the list of questions that a ghostwriter would ask someone if they were writing their autobiography.

1:12:01Wow. Then the person could answer the AI and then it would write their book. I'm sure that's possible. How about this? I'm going to ask you right now and we'll close it off with this book. What unique questions should I ask John Morrow about how to be a better writer using AI tools like ChatGPT? Let's see if ChatGPT would be a better podcaster than me. Probably will be. If you scroll down some. Oh, yeah. John, as an expert writer, how do you think AI tools like ChatGPT could enhance the creative writing process? Could you share any unique ways you've utilized AI writing tools to improve or streamline your own writing price?

1:12:50Well, you did do that. In your experience, what are some of the unexpected benefits or challenges of using AI in writing? That's a good question. How can we use AI tools to enhance our writing without losing the human touch and emotion? That's a good question. It's almost like it knows its own weakness. What's your advice for writers who are hesitant to use AI tools like ChasGT in their writing writers? This is like what we've been talking about the whole time. Can you share a time when an AI writing tool surprised you in terms of its insights or suggestions? I think that's what we want from AI.

1:13:18We want it to surprise us. We want to look at it and say, wow, how did it come up with that? So I can give you one thing that really surprised me. and I'll end this just to because this surprised me and terrified me at the same time. In the beginning of my book, I tell a story about a man who finds a genie and that he rubs the lamp and the genie comes out and says, you can only have one wish. And the guy says, I thought I had three. He said, no, it's a myth. You have one. And you can't wish for more wishes. But that's the only limitation. And so the man thinks and thinks and thinks. And he eventually says, I want to use my one wish to give every man, woman, and child unlimited wishes.

1:14:26but I'll live to the rest of my day with none. And when that happens, lamps appear all over the world. Everyone has a lamp and they all get their own genie forever. And the man finishes by asking the genie, what's your name? And the genie says, AI. Wow. That is a fascinating story. So AI wrote that story. That is beautiful. That is really beautiful. Not only that, the genie then turns around and asks the man, what's your name? The man says, Sam, who's the founder of OpenAI? Ah, Sam Altman. Sam Altman. That's fascinating. So I wonder, you know, in that story, there's this kind of implicit knowledge of goodness, of what it means to be selfless and good.

1:15:35And I wonder if it saw in its million text database, you know, some similar story or or if it really just defaults to selflessness when telling a story like that. It also understood it to such a degree that it understood that it was the genie and that its creator was the man with the lamp. And it decided the names. Yeah, right. That's fascinating also. So interesting. and like you said, there's a little bit of terror in that. There is, yeah. All right, it's going to be a fascinating decade. That's for sure. John, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on and come on anytime. I love talking about all this stuff.

1:16:25I love talking about writing. You're always a great guest. Next time you have like some amazing prompts, bring them on and we'll have AI Thursdays and like more prompts every, you know, so many weeks or whatever. It'd be fun to play with this. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks, John. Again, go to smartblogger.com slash James to get all of John's great prompts and try all this out for yourself. I'm just curious what people will come up with. Thanks so much, John. Thanks, everybody, for listening. All right. Thank you.