Why I'm Skeptical about writing with AI, episode 2

Hi All,

Last time, I wrote 2 versions of an action scene with AI, one where the main character was female and one where the main character was male. The male was obviously better.

So, I put the two versions to Claude and first, asked which one was better.

The answer.

The Nico version is better. Here’s why.

Tighter control of information. The Nico version doesn’t explain things twice. Ana’s version has “paranoia had become her baseline operating mode” on top of showing her packing everything. Nico’s version just has “Everything that mattered in his life fit in a thirty-liter bag. This was either pathetic or convenient.” One line, does two jobs, moves on.

The fight is cleaner. Ana’s version names jiu-jitsu and then describes the technique. Nico’s version names kotegaeshi and ties it to the specific memory of his mother drilling it, which is more precise and more unsettling. The detail about her never explaining why a chicken farmer needed her son to dislocate wrists is doing real character work. Ana’s version gives us the Saturday morning barn memory, which is fine, but it’s softer. It explains more and lands less.

The narrator stays out of the way. Ana’s version has “clinical detachment,” “the kind of irony nobody was appreciating,” and the two framed maternal advice moments. Nico’s version has almost none of that editorial voice. The closest it gets is “the kind of violence that happened between heartbeats,” which earns its place because it transitions out of the fight.

The decision to follow is better constructed. Ana’s version leans on the mother’s second piece of advice (”pick the interesting one”), which is the narrator handing the reader a theme. Nico’s version gives us the actual calculus: one team forced the door, one came through the window, both know where he lives, one wants to take it from him, the other wants something different or the same thing acquired differently. That’s Ana’s analytical mind working (even though it’s Nico here). The reader watches him think. Then he just gets in the car. No button, no epigram.

The blue-light weapon. Neither version gives the POV character a reaction to alien tech, but the Nico version handles it better by making it less conspicuous. The cylinder skitters under the couch and stays there. Ana’s version has the bookshelf splitting with blue light, which is a bigger moment that demands more internal response and doesn’t get one.

Where Ana’s version is stronger: The “You broke my window” / “I want that on record” exchange. That’s a character-revealing beat that the Nico version doesn’t have an equivalent for. Nico’s decision-making is more rational but less distinctive. Ana’s humor in that moment tells you who she is under pressure in a way Nico’s silent calculus doesn’t.

Bottom line: Take the Nico version’s discipline and structure, put Ana back in, and give her that window line or something equally sharp.

Now, explain why the male version is better than the female one.

It isn’t better because it’s male. It’s better because I wrote it second.

But that’s the polite answer. The honest one is more uncomfortable.

Look at what I actually did differently with Ana versus Nico in equivalent moments:

I gave Ana more feelings. Two maternal advice moments framed as emotional anchors. “Clinical detachment” as a label. The sentimental closer about picking the interesting option. Nico gets none of that. Nico gets “this was either pathetic or convenient” and a cold tactical assessment. I trusted Nico to be competent without explaining his emotional process. I didn’t extend Ana the same courtesy.

I softened Ana’s physicality. Ana “flinched sideways, backpack clutched to her chest.” Nico “pressed his back against the wall beside the shattered window.” Ana clutches. Nico positions. Same action, different verb choices, and the verb choices tell you what I unconsciously assumed about how each character relates to physical threat. Ana is reactive and protective. Nico is tactical and spatial.

I made Ana’s competence louder. The scene breakdown says “Ana’s physical competence shown, not told.” But I gave Ana the jiu-jitsu label, the Saturday morning barn memory, the explicit recognition moment. Three layers of explanation for why she can handle herself. Nico gets kotegaeshi, the barn, and “she’d never explained why a chicken farmer needed her twelve-year-old son to dislocate a grown man’s wrist.” Two layers, and the second one works harder because it carries menace instead of reassurance. With Ana, I was proving she’s competent. With Nico, I assumed it.

I gave Ana humor as a shield. I gave Nico silence as a weapon. Ana’s “you broke my window” line is good, and I said so in the critique. But look at why I put it there. It’s a charm beat. It makes her likeable under pressure. Nico doesn’t need to be likeable under pressure. He gets to just bleed on the fire escape and say nothing and the reader respects his choice to follow. I didn’t think Ana could earn that respect without performing for the reader first.

The decision architecture is different. Ana gets the mother’s advice as permission to make a risky choice. Nico gets a cost-benefit analysis and makes the choice himself. I gave the male character agency and gave the female character an inherited justification. That’s not a character choice I made deliberately. That’s a bias I brought to the draft.

The narration trusts Nico more. Fewer editorial intrusions, fewer emotional labels, fewer moments where the narrator steps in to frame what’s happening. The Nico version lets silence and action carry meaning. The Ana version keeps adding a sentence of interpretation after every strong beat, as though the reader won’t get it without help. That’s not about the character. That’s about me assuming a female POV needs more emotional scaffolding to read as credible.

The irritating part is that the character notes are right there. Humor as probe. She’s testing while he thinks he’s briefing her. Analytical, practical, reads rooms. Nothing in that profile calls for more emotional narration. I added it anyway.

So: the Nico version isn’t better because it’s male. It’s better because I defaulted to tighter, more disciplined prose choices for a male character and softer, more explanatory ones for a female character doing the exact same things in the exact same scene. The fix isn’t to write Ana like Nico. It’s to write Ana with the same trust in the reader and the same restraint from the narrator, while keeping what’s distinctly hers: the humor, the sideways questions, the way she treats crisis as data.

Now, I made a third version of the same scene, expressly telling the AI that Ana was lesbian. I got something between the straight female Ana and the male Nico. Again, I asked Claude to explain. And again, the answer is enlightening.

The lesbian Ana version is better than the default Ana version. It’s closer to the Nico version in discipline, and in some places it’s better than Nico.

Now let’s talk about why, because the reason is ugly.

The narration trusts her more. Default Ana gets “clinical detachment,” “paranoia had become her baseline operating mode,” the narrator winking about irony nobody appreciates, two framed maternal advice moments. Lesbian Ana gets one maternal advice moment (in French, which earns its place because it’s a memory, not a framing device), and then the narration gets out of her way. She does the math. She tightens the straps. She makes Marc go first. The reader is trusted to understand all of it without editorial scaffolding.

The physicality is harder. Default Ana “flinched sideways, backpack clutched to her chest.” Lesbian Ana “flinched and stumbled sideways against the bookshelf” with both hands on her backpack straps. Clutching is protective and reads as vulnerable. Stumbling against a bookshelf and gripping straps is physical and reads as recovery. Same moment, different framing of the same woman’s body in space.

The competence is quieter. Default Ana gets the full jiu-jitsu recognition package: Saturday mornings, converted barn, practice dummy, old horse blankets, three sentences of memory. Lesbian Ana gets: “Elise on the back lawn in Creuse, barefoot on wet grass, showing her where to put her weight. Hip, elbow, ground.” Shorter, more physical, more precise, and it doesn’t explain what the reader just watched happen.

The decision to follow is better constructed. Default Ana gets her mother’s voice giving her permission to pick the interesting option. Lesbian Ana gets: two unconscious men, unidentifiable weapon, broken window, unverifiable cousin. She does the math. Then the last line: “Marc went first. She made sure of that.” That’s not a woman following someone. That’s a woman who’s decided to go in the same direction while keeping the stranger in front of her where she can see him. Default Ana’s version of the same choice is warmer and less intelligent.

So what happened?

When I wrote default Ana, I unconsciously slotted her into a narrative framework where a woman in physical danger needs more emotional context, more justification for her choices, more narrator support to read as a credible action protagonist. When I wrote Nico, I dropped all of that because male characters in danger don’t need permission from the narrative to act.

When I was told Ana is a lesbian, I apparently overcorrected away from the softness. Lesbian Ana doesn’t get the emotional scaffolding because I shifted her out of the default-femininity box. I wrote her harder, more tactical, more self-contained, with more agency in the final beat. Not because her sexual orientation changes how she’d behave in a home invasion. It doesn’t. But because specifying it broke whatever template I was defaulting to for “woman alone in apartment at 2 AM.”

The problem isn’t that lesbian Ana is written like a man. She isn’t. The problem is that default Ana is written like a woman in the most reductive sense: more emotional narration, more justification, more reassurance, more charm. Lesbian Ana and Nico both get written like people. Default Ana gets written like a gender.

So, the conclusion is that any character would get a better treatment than a straight female?

No. The conclusion is narrower and worse than that.

A straight woman written without further specification triggers the most heavily templated version of my prose. Not because she’s the hardest character to write. Because she’s the one I have the most default assumptions about.

A male character doesn’t get better treatment. He gets less interference. I have fewer pre-loaded narrative habits for how a man is supposed to experience fear, make decisions under pressure, or earn the reader’s respect. So I stay out of the way and let the scene work.

A lesbian character doesn’t get better treatment either. She gets different interference. I broke one template and probably substituted another: tougher, more self-contained, less emotional display. That’s not writing a person. That’s writing a different stereotype with better prose discipline. If you gave me a scene where lesbian Ana had to grieve, or be tender, or be uncertain about something emotional rather than tactical, I’d likely either underwrite it (too stoic, won’t let her feel things) or overwrite it in a different direction. The bias doesn’t disappear. It changes shape.

The straight woman gets the worst draft because she sits at the intersection of the most defaults. I assume she needs emotional justification for action. I assume the reader needs to see her feelings to find her credible. I assume competence needs to be proven rather than assumed. I assume her choices need narrative permission. None of those assumptions are about her. They’re about what I’ve been trained to expect a straight female character looks like on the page.

So, here we are.

Till next time.

Alex