Sounding Board

Image: Perplexity

When I was coming up with my idea for Dark Water, my Ottawa-based murder mystery, I did a lot of brainstorming around DW. I already had a victim and my detectives but I didn't have the killer or a motive.

I just started spitballing ideas while DW and I were driving around the city, running errands, and it was actually something that I heard on the radio that gave me an idea. The motive for the murder is loosely based on the plot of a horror movie—and when I say 'loosely based,' it's extremely loose.

It took about a week of brainstorming before I had enough of my plot to start writing in earnest. Even Kid 1 was consulted for opinions and she asked me very good questions that helped me shape the story even more.

Throughout the writing process, I bounced ideas off DW's head but for the most part, when she was working and I was writing, I used ChatGPT not only as an advanced search tool but also as a sounding board for some of my ideas.

As I wrote in another blog post, ChatGPT seemed to agree with me far too much for my liking. I wanted some critical opinions.

When I started using Perplexity, I started getting what seemed like more honest opinions about my ideas, sometimes being told that my idea was unbelievable or just plain wrong for the story.

When I finished the second draft of Dark Water, I was inspired to continue writing another Calloway and Hayes mystery. I wanted the story to be mostly set in the ByWard Market and to be more psychological in its theme. Plus, I wanted a second story that would also be more disturbing than the first.

And I've already completed five chapters and the prologue to The Watcher.

This time, however, instead of bouncing ideas off my family, I wanted the story to be a mystery for them, too. So I started spitballing ideas off of both ChatGPT and Perplexity to see if they would offer me insight into fleshing out the story.

But I would also take their suggestions and bounce them off of each other. For example, I'd ask ChatGPT about ritualistic killings and history of Ottawa, and then take its answer and run it past Perplexity to gain the AI search tool's insight.

Keep in mind that I'm still coming up with the ideas. The AI tools are just telling me how realistic these ideas are and are coming up with evidence to support the plot. Whenever they suggest writing the story itself, I decline the offer.

I'm the writer.

Plus, any information that these search tools give me are verified through Google searches. Perplexity provides the sources for its information and I check them out, weighing the credibility.

Even though I'm writing fiction, I want it to be as accurate as possible.

What about the other writers out there? Are you using AI to help you shape your stories? Let me know.

Happy Friday!