🚫 Anti-Patterns: How to Fail at AI Writing

“Success is not about being smart. It’s about avoiding stupidity.” — Charlie Munger

In the Writers Factory, we don’t just teach you what to do. We teach you what not to do. These are the “Anti-Patterns”—the common mistakes that scream “I used an LLM to write this.”

1. The “Wikipedia Voice” (Regressing to the Mean)

The Mistake: Asking the AI to “describe” something without a specific angle. The Result: The AI produces a generic, balanced, “encyclopedic” description. It sounds like a corporate press release or a Wikipedia summary. The Fix: Never ask for a description. Ask for an opinion.

  • Bad: “Describe the casino.”
  • Good: “Describe the casino from the perspective of a recovering addict who hates the smell of cheap perfume.”

2. The Adjective Stacking

The Mistake: Believing that more adjectives = better writing. The Result: “The stunning, breathtaking, intricate tapestry of the vibrant, bustling city.” The Fix: The “One Adjective Rule.” If you use more than one adjective per noun, the AI is hallucinating quality. Delete them.

3. The “Delve” Trap

The Mistake: Ignoring the AI’s favorite words. The Result: Certain words are statistically over-represented in LLM training data. If your character “delves” into a mystery, “fosters” a relationship, or “underscores” a point, you have been caught. The List of Forbidden Words:

  • Delve
  • Tapestry
  • Testament
  • Pivotal
  • Nuance
  • Underscore

4. The “Context Window” Cliff

The Mistake: Trusting the AI to remember Chapter 1 when you are writing Chapter 10. The Result: Your protagonist’s eyes change color. The dead villain comes back to life. The plot dissolves. The Fix: Trust the Graph. If it’s not in the Knowledge Graph, it doesn’t exist. Never assume the AI remembers anything outside the current session.

5. The “Pantsing” Fallacy

The Mistake: Trying to “discover” the story by chatting with the AI endlessly. The Result: You get a 50,000-word rambling mess with no structure. The Fix: Structure First. Build the Beat Sheet. Define the Ending. Then, and only then, let the AI draft the scenes.

Final Rule: If you find yourself reading a sentence and thinking, “That sounds nice but means nothing,” delete it. That is the sound of the machine humming.