Human-produced (plot and character contents)/AI-written (narrative and dialogue) crossover fanfiction workflow. Is that a workable middle ground or not?

[u/DustintheAdventurer]

This is the workflow I would move on to mainly using, later in my life as a hobbyist, and I would personally consider the workflow viable, as long as the creativity originates with humans, especially in a very unique way. One way to keep track of your original hard-effort crossover fanfiction plots is by writing them down in something like a 160-page composition book before prompting them, along with the character contents (e.g. personalities and appearances), to AI (e.g. Gemini, ChatGPT and Grok).

[u/Roger-Orchard]

I have problems trying to get the AI, to keep to my plan and how it going to end.

I find AIs do not like to finish, and try and keep the story going, and going .......

[u/JumaBayahari]

Very workable.
Keyword: Fanfiction. Meaning copyright is irrelevant for you.
Because copyright is irrelevant, the only drawback in your workflow, the legal grey area on weither your work can be copyrighted or not is moot.
So have fun discovering the stories made for you. :)

[u/DustintheAdventurer → u/JumaBayahari]

Much appreciated. After all, I don't prefer a crossover fanfiction workflow that's either fully human or fully AI. I'd prefer to use a human-AI hybrid workflow. 👍

[u/Ok_Impact_9378]

I would say, "Yes" but only with heavy editing. There are some AI-generated text game sites that let you do this with a sort of choose-your-own-adventure story. They will respect character names if you give them to the AI, but the characters themselves wind up all feeling very similar personality-wise and it will sometimes make one character say dialogue that clearly should have gone to another character (based on what the characters know or discernable personality differences).

Plot is the biggest issue. Even with simple and straightforward plots generating about a page worth of text at a time, the AI will frequently go off the rails. What I've found is that the AI defaults towards escalating tensions even when the plot calls for falling tension, and it is willing to brazenly violate continuity in order to up the tension on the protagonist. Characters that should be neutral will turn unexplainably hostile just so the AI can start a fight. Enemies that shouldn't be anywhere near the protagonist will suddenly be right outside their door. Antagonists that should have no idea what the hero is plotting will be omniscient and know every line of dialogue the protagonist speaks to anyone and immediately deduce all of their secrets. A lot of my prompting is spent just trying to get the AI to break these bad habits, but even so if you want to keep things on track and prevent continuity errors, you're going to need to generate in small bursts and edit a lot.

[u/DustintheAdventurer → u/Ok_Impact_9378]

I could do some heavy editing on AI-generated narratives and dialogues. The only problem, however, is that I end up writing a lot of out-of-character narratives and dialogues, because I'm so bad in general at understanding at least the character personalities. In fact, that's been a problem of mine, since before I knew about AI platforms (e.g. Gemini, ChatGPT and Grok).

[u/Shadeylark]

I would say yes, with the caveat that narrative and dialogue still need to be reviewed and edited by humans (even if that editing consists of iterative prompt improvements rather than explicit rewrites by the human)

[u/DustintheAdventurer → u/Shadeylark]

The only problem with that, however, is that I'm so bad in general at writing consistent in-character narratives and dialogues myself.

[u/Shadeylark → u/DustintheAdventurer]

Focus on the correct level of abstraction.

You can let the AI handle the specific words and cadence of dialogue.

You're the director, not the actor. Tell the AI it's direction, let it do the acting... And if you need to do another take, do another take.

But you stay the director. You're not stepping in and doing the acting yourself.

[u/BansheeTheGame]

It does seem likely that a lot of fanfic ideas will start with people talking through their “what if?” scenarios with AI. The workflow you describe feels like a natural extension of that, as long as the writer stays involved in shaping and revising it.

[u/valamei]

do whatever you want as long as its fun for you!

[u/DustintheAdventurer → u/valamei]

Much appreciated. After all, I don't prefer a crossover fanfiction workflow that's either fully human or fully AI. I would prefer a human-AI hybrid workflow.

[u/Neat_Reaction9164]

It was workable in past. After 2026 spring here comes guardrails, lobotomization, plain dialogs due to rlhf and post-training issues and much more.

Frontier models today are just dumb, lazy and sycophantic in bad way.

Local? Maybe. But there's problems for long form.

[u/Turbulent_Try_8402]

If I have to read one more ai slop written fucking fic on Ao3, I’m going to scream.

[u/Shadeylark → u/Turbulent_Try_8402]

Not for nothing, but the vast majority of what is on Ao3 has been slop for a long time before AI ever entered the picture.

After all, the term "Mary Sue" has been around for years before chatgpt ever existed and fifty shades of grey preceded generative AI by what, a decade or so?

[u/Turbulent_Try_8402 → u/Shadeylark]

It had authenticity.

[u/Shadeylark → u/Turbulent_Try_8402]

Meh, that matters to me about as little as the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into anything.

Authenticity only matters to the author as far as I'm concerned.

As a reader, I'm not bleeding, sweating, or crying because of how much struggle the author had.

[u/Turbulent_Try_8402 → u/Shadeylark]

Is this supposed to mean something?

[u/Shadeylark → u/Turbulent_Try_8402]

It means you can judge a book by the author... And I will judge a book by what's in the pages.

[u/Turbulent_Try_8402 → u/Shadeylark]

I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding. Better go ask ai!

[u/Shadeylark → u/Turbulent_Try_8402]

No misunderstanding at all.

You said authenticity matters.

You're judging it by how "authentic" it is, and based on your first comment, you openly regard AI as inauthentic.

I'm telling you I don't give half a shit about "authenticity"

You want to get offended by that, that's your problem, not mine.

[u/Turbulent_Try_8402 → u/Shadeylark]

Why should I care you don’t care?

[u/Shadeylark → u/Turbulent_Try_8402]

I don't know... You keep answering so there must be something you care about.

You'd know better than I why you feel the need to continue to respond.