A while back, I wrote about an experiment I agree to. My publisher asked if I’d like to try a new kind of editor. I have a book coming out in June—a historical fiction, World War II novel inspired by a true story called Your Forgotten Sons—and the idea was that I would work with an editor of the “artificial intelligence” variety.

I thought about that for a while, and when my publisher said I could switch to a human editor if I was unhappy with the results, in the interest of not being called old and technology averse, I agreed.

I recently sent the completed manuscript back, so here’s what I’ve learned about working with an AI editor, who I dubbed Hal Jr. First, since we authors have long been working remotely with our editors, the process didn’t feel all that strange. I received my document full of those red lines leading to comments I needed to consider. My job was to accept Hal Jr.’s fixes or not.

Almost universally, I said yes. He did a great job finding all those grammatical boo-boos I’ve made most of my life. You’d think that after writing nine books and having five published, not to mention my years working as a print reporter, that I would have figured out to spell compound words by now. But, no! Hal Jr. gently pointed out that corkscrew and curveball were single words, terms that have meant a great deal in my life and which one might think I would have no trouble spelling.

Then there were the homophones, which for those who don’t recall elementary school English are words that are pronounced alike but that differ in spelling and meaning. I have a serious issue with those, and Hal Jr. had his red pen out to illustrate my deficiencies: alter and altar, aisle and isle, and, rather embarrassingly, your and you’re.

I am also grateful that Hal Jr. sometimes identified words I misused, ones that were similar to what I wanted, but clearly wrong: resemble and reassemble, barley and barely, shuddered and shuttered, cheeks and checks.

And Hal Jr. did a damn good job at picking up those missing quotation marks and other errant punctuation, especially all those outdated commas. As a girl who grew up in a home where we debated comma use at the dinner table, I can tell you that the wee squiggle is no longer used as much as it once was. It’s all about clarity and flow, so I let Hal Jr. lead the way in the comma department.  

My AI editor and I then ran into one big argument. He kept correcting things that I thought were right. Turns out there was an issue with which English we were using. Hal Jr., it appears, is British and I’m American. Who knew there were so many disparate spellings between us: pummeled or pummelled, apologize or aplologise, humor or humour, ad nauseum. He and I agreed to disagree, and the American versions won out.

All in all, I think Hal Jr. did a great job, so much so that I wish he and I could maybe have a beer to celebrate the completion of the manuscript. I’m not sure if AIs drink beer, but if I had to guess, I’d say Hal Jr. would drink his warm, yet another difference between we Americans and Brits.

The manuscript is now out of my hands, so I hope it’s perfect, but I know that’s probably impossible. But should you find any errors please feel free to blame Hal Jr.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

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