Editing a Book Written by AI

About this video

Dale Roberts explains how he edited a book originally generated with Dibbly Create’s Content Writer, arguing AI text tends to be stilted, overly wordy, redundant and sometimes inaccurate, so it needs the same scrutiny as human writing. He had pivoted from an earlier homesteading manuscript to a new book, ‘Fiction Writing: A Practical Guide for Crafting Your First Novel,’ researched with Dibbly’s search-term analysis, title and outline generators, aiming for about 10 chapters and 30,000 words generated one chapter at a time at roughly 1,600–2,200 words per chapter, with the research option producing cleaner, less redundant output with sources to fact-check. His self-editing sequence was: a plagiarism check in ProWritingAid that returned zero instances, a quick Microsoft Word Editor pass for typos and wordy sentences, a more discerning ProWritingAid pass, then listening via text-to-speech without reading along — which he calls the biggest game changer — stopping to fix anything that sounded wrong, taking roughly one to two hours for 30,000 words. Normally he then works through developmental/structural editing, line and copy editing, and proofreading over multiple rounds, but short on time while launching an eight-book series, he hired editor Allison Whitney through Dibbly’s freelance marketplace after asking its Kip assistant for recommendations. Her line and copy edit reduced repetitive AI word choices, fixed comma splices and complex sentences, reworked heavy repetition in Chapter 1, corrected a switch between second and third person in Chapter 3, added a paragraph in Chapter 1 foreshadowing Chapter 10, and restructured a confusing conclusion that introduced new characters for the first time — a storytelling element they ultimately removed altogether. Both conclude AI can produce a book that is not trash, but only with human intervention, editing and a final human touch that preserves the author’s voice.

Key takeaways

• Treat an AI first draft like a human draft: check for plagiarism first (his ProWritingAid check returned zero instances), then edit for stilted phrasing, redundancy, wordiness and inaccuracies before publishing.
• His self-edit stack was Microsoft Word Editor for a quick pass, ProWritingAid for a deeper pass, then text-to-speech listening without reading along to hear problems the eye skips over.
• Editing phases run developmental/structural, then line and copy editing, then proofreading; some editing is better than none, but he normally does multiple rounds between editor passes.
• Editor Allison Whitney’s fixes show typical AI faults: repetitive content in Chapter 1, a second-to-third-person point-of-view switch in Chapter 3, and a conclusion introducing new characters that was restructured and ultimately cut.
• Per the editor’s closing advice quoted in the video, use AI as a tool to enhance creativity and handle technical work, always review and refine its output, and keep the heart of the writing authentically yours.

Episode details: published September 3, 2024 · 22:03 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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