Some writers assume the purpose of ChatGPT is to generate writing — so they want no part of it. Understandably unwilling to surrender their self-expression to a machine, many avoid AI altogether.
I see it differently. The goal isn’t, and never was, to outsource the act of writing and deny ourselves the chance to give voice to our inner worlds. Besides, who ever said the only way to use ChatGPT is to generate prose?
To me, AI isn’t a replacement for human creativity — it’s a catalyst. AI is most valuable not as a source of creativity but as a tool to help us express our own.
My favorite example comes from writer and company founder Stew Fortier:
“The instinct is to say, ‘Oh, this thing just writes for us.’ But I can also prompt it to ask me questions. It can get me thinking by pulling ideas and insights out of me.”
In the months ahead, I’ll share a series of posts highlighting innovative ways professional writers are leveraging ChatGPT — not to do their writing for them but to catalyze their own creativity, elevate their craft, and express their vision with style and grace. First up: reverse interviewing.
Flipping the script
Most people think of ChatGPT as a question-answering machine: Ask a question, get an answer. But Stew Fortier finds it most useful when he’s the one giving answers. He calls it “reverse interviewing” — prompting ChatGPT to ask probing questions that draw out your best insights, clarify your thinking, and nudge you to articulate your ideas clearly and precisely.
Here’s how Stew uses ChatGPT to unlock his own creativity:
“I think of it as a creative collaborator. The question should be ‘How can I use AI to be more creative?’
One paradigm I think is underdiscussed is that you can actually prompt these tools to ask you questions, to get you thinking, to prompt you to start writing.
The instinct is to say, ‘Oh, this thing just writes for us.’ But it can also ask me questions. It can also get me thinking and shape my ideas. What if instead of you becoming a prompt engineer, you see what it can prompt out of you?
The AI can be a nonjudgmental collaborator that helps pull out these great, unique insights from you. I view it as an always-on editor that can help writers do better work — not replace the work they’re doing. They can use it for brainstorming, research, doing the non-writing part of the writing process using the AI.
It’s like if you were in The Onion’s writers’ room. Six of you working together are going to be funnier than you would be solo.
When I’m being honest with myself, I actually wouldn’t ever want to give up the act of writing. Writing is like working out or meditating. It’s one of those activities you value intrinsically. Even if the AI could write perfect prose, I’d still want to write, because writing itself is a valuable act.
Writing is hard. There are so many things that are legit hard about it that make people give up: You haven’t had your coffee yet, you’re short on ideas, you can’t track down a statistic or fact you need for a story. If AI can help with those things, then you as a writer are more likely to show up and do the work.”
What we’re watching this week
Two weeks ago at Harvard, I had the distinct honor of sharing the stage with comedy writer Sarah Rose Siskind and sci-fi legend Ken Liu at Harvard’s CS50, the intro computer science class so popular it’s become a global lifestyle brand, complete with a cultlike following, branded swag, and millions of online attendees.
The discussion touched on everything from writer’s block to humor theory, from AI as a “subjectivity-capturing machine” to, yes, reverse interviewing.
Here’s Ken Liu:
“What I do is I say: You are a very skilled interviewer of writers. You enjoy talking with writers about their project. You like to ask provocative questions about their work. You are not here to give me ideas — you’re here to ask me questions and push me to explain myself to you.
If you ask AI to give you ideas, it’s very difficult to not let the machine’s clichéd-ness get a hold of you. But if you force AI to ask you to answer its questions, you’re likely to come up with really interesting ideas.
Sarah and I have both done writers’ rooms, and one of the most amazing things about being in a writers’ room is the way the intersubjectivity of working with other people multiplies your own creativity tenfold. You just feel so much more creative that way.
Having the AI be the person to push you to be more original, to push you to explain your idea... It allows you to get out of that ‘I’m locked in my head’ space.”