Publication Details
Abstract
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in creative writing and modern publishing is becoming more prominent, a key change in the process of writing, structuring and assessing literary text, specifically novels. This paper explores the revolutionary nature of AI in the composition and plot structuring of the contemporary novel, past the tool-related discourse and explores AI as a participative narrator. Based on a mixed-method research design, the study involves a qualitative narrative analysis and the use of computational text analysis to a structured dataset of more than 120 narrative samples, such as human-written, AI-assisted, and AI-generated novels. There is the application of quantitative measures like lexical diversity, rate of repetition, sentiment fluctuation, ratio lexical narration and dialogue, and structural linearity, and close reading based on narrative theory. The findings suggest that AI-generated novels have unique structural patterns such as a modular organization of chapters, optimal pacing, less stylistic variation, and increased coherence on the surface level. Even though AI-assisted novels retain the human touch, full-fledged AI-generated articles lack in characterization and exploration of the plot. These findings suggest that AI is not an assistant in writing, but a sort of an algorithmic story generator that is not only replicating the role of authorship as a form of co-production between the human and machine as a shared machine. The paper will add to the literature and digital humanities by proposing a model of AI-based fiction analysis based on data and addressing ethical and cultural consequences of the phenomenon of originality, transparency, and value of literary texts in the age of artificial narrative generation.