GAIA

I never thought about using AI for one of my creative writing classes. Not until I met Mr. Sanchez.

I’ve never been a talented writer. It was my dream to be an author, to build worlds of dwarves and magic, with my own maps and languages. Classes were all the same; write, get a grade, no constructive criticism. I thought it would change as I made my way through semesters and years, and the “Great job!” on papers eventually turned into personalized notes, but it was all spelling and clarity with an A attached. My brain was full of tales and fantasies, but the construction of their worlds was too much. Or too little. I wasn’t sure how to tell my stories the correct way, and my professors never helped.

That’s why I took Mr. Sanchez’s class. There was a site called Class Rank where students could rate professors out of five stars, like they were restaurants instead of people. I was eventually pulled in by the 0.5 star rating one had, which I didn’t think possible. His class was a nightmare, apparently, but everything went over my head when I saw ‘overly critical feedback’ as one of his flaws driving people away. I signed up for the class immediately.

I should’ve turned back the moment I could count the number of objects in the room on one hand; students’ worn down desks, plastic chairs to match, the professor’s slightly less run-down desk, the somewhat cushioned chair, and the professor’s computer that had the dimensions of a brick. After class started, he spoke mostly about the syllabus. It seemed typical, if not for his dull voice droning on and carrying each word like it deserved to be held out for a few seconds.

When he got to the end of his syllabus, he casually mentioned the required weekly assignment: one original story every week, three thousand words minimum.

After five weeks, I was burnt out. Many of my other classes required original stories as well, and I could grit my teeth and take a month to come up with something I found to be subpar. For five weeks, however, I spent more and more of my time chugging out fantasy that ended up being a retelling of Lord of the Rings for the last three, only to get a C on everything I submitted. Most of Mr. Sanchez’s notes on the stories were him claiming my mostly-stolen magic systems were confusing, my main characters resembled Frankenstein versions of those from large franchises, and that the general writing lacked spirit or insight — nothing positive, no hints on how to fix any of it. I stripped all these things out of my writing, and his next notes claimed my pages were bland.

That’s why I found myself at my laptop, looking up anything that would help my writing speed up while improving the quality. Websites told me to read, read, read, as if I hadn’t been doing that all my life, and the thought of downing a book to regurgitate it again nearly made me ill. Other forums said to write every day, as if my academic choices hadn’t already forced me into that. Then came social media. Many of the posts promoted the same garbage every website did, but others pointed me to artificial intelligence. I always turned my nose up at AI, scoffing at generated ads as I shopped on Shein and told myself I was helping the environment.

I convinced myself helping the environment could wait until after this semester, and opened up a website for what seemed to be the most recommended generator — the Generative Artificial Intelligence Assistant, or GAIA. I didn’t want an entire story printed out and handed to me, so I gave the generator what seemed to be the most morally correct thing I could think of as a writer:

“Give me a writing prompt.”

Immediately, text was flying across my screen. GAIA gave me multiple options despite having only asked for one. The more I read, the more I recoiled back from my screen. None of them fit me, but I just started, and I couldn’t give up now. I wrote something else: “Give me a fantasy prompt.”

The new prompts didn’t make me want to close my laptop and decide that school wasn’t for me after all, so I looked over them. I ended up choosing one about a seaside sacrifice for an ocean god, deciding that if I am forced to write, I might as well add horror for some flavor, even if it was fantasy again.

My grade the next week was still a C, and while it didn’t feel as draining to write when I had some idea of a direction, I was agitated. I should have been frustrated with the AI, but really, I was frustrated at getting nowhere with my grades. Yes, Mr. Sanchez was giving me criticism, but it wasn’t constructive. Every attempt to email him was faced with “I already provided feedback”, and if I saw those words again, I’d scream.

If Mr. Sanchez wouldn’t give me constructive criticism, I knew who would.

I fed my paper through GAIA and asked what I was doing wrong, pleading with a machine to do the job my professor refused. I skipped its positive feedback and went straight to what it deemed ‘weaknesses’. The most notable one was that, for a short story, the plot kicks off late. While it hurt, it was easy to slash the start of my upcoming story for the week. It noted that the clarity in my story’s stakes was muddy, so I tried to tighten it up as best I could. Reading over my work again, I found I could somewhat tolerate my writing, and turned it in without wanting to condemn the piece to my computer’s trash.

Another C. I didn’t know that I wasn’t already past my breaking point, but I could practically hear a snap in my brain when seeing the grade that week. Every other class I passed with flying colors, and even the “Great job!”s as feedback was starting to sting less. I was no longer accepting of a C.

I stayed behind in class that Monday and made sure I was the last to talk to Mr. Sanchez. His face looked like it was sculpted of impure clay, with rocks in the mixture and excused as a creative way of making moles. It didn’t look creative, and the artist left creases around his mouth and forehead that somehow made him look in equal parts perpetually angry and bored.

“Javi! I’ve been waiting for you to talk to me.” His voice made my ears itch.

“I email you almost every Friday about grades.”

“Yes, but that’s not talking, is it? So professional. I email just for you students, but really I hate it.”

“I can tell.” My mouth twitched. “But I actually did want to talk to you about the grades thing again. The weekly stories, they’re- well, I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong. You have to give me more direction.”

Mr. Sanchez sank back into his seat, his nonexistent nails tapping against the desk in front of him. “Yes, well, I keep putting it in my feedback. It just lacks heart. You don’t seem to be in your work, especially recently.”

“It’s really hard to give every story I make heart when I have to produce them like they’re factory-made,” I mumbled like I didn’t want him to hear, but I very much so did.

He only waved his hand at me. “Well that’s what the world of writing is like, son. Plus, I just don’t really like fantasy, and that’s all you make. Maybe come up with something different altogether.”

Changing genres was much harder than anticipated. Every time I started with a cabin in the woods or a pool party scene, my fingers moved on their own. touch of magic slipped into every story, a track that formed into a fantastic world, and the only way to get myself to stop was to delete everything and start again.

It took me until the due date that week to open GAIA. My mind was drawing blanks, and while 70s were becoming my bane, the thought of a 0 made my chest physically ache. My only thought was that maybe the AI could help me, so I asked GAIA what was an easy genre to write when all I’ve written is fantasy

The response started with something that looked like positive reinforcement, so I scrolled. It gave me paranormal, something I hadn’t heard was considered a genre, but I was desperate. I’d never written about supernatural beings, only twisted versions of what existed to fit my worlds. The fear that Mr. Sanchez would fail me made me hesitant to let anything slip back into fantasy, but I didn’t know how to keep myself from that world. Another prompt came to mind, and I asked GAIA to give me an example of paranormal.

It didn’t occur to me that GAIA would write its own story. The piece was less than two hundred words and was apparently titled “Apartment 6B” by the machine. It was about a new tenant moving in across the hall, never once opening their door and the tenant’s unusual habit of showering at 4:05 AM every morning, all minor inconveniences until the main character’s ceiling started whispering to them.

There was more, but I was too busy trying not to laugh at the absurdity. It was enough, though, and gave me inspiration for that week’s story of an a woman thinking her apartment’s haunted, until realizing she was the ghost all along, and those blurs she’s been seeing are those moving in after her.

Mr. Sanchez gave the story a B. His normal criticism was shorter, a single sentence saying, “Much better than your fantasy.”

I kept up the new routine. A new genre every week, a new example, constant critiques, and all provided by GAIA. I couldn’t even start writing anymore without an example of the genre it chose for that week, and I found my footing with its prompts. My workload seemed less extensive despite the amount I had to do staying steady.

My stories got Bs for a while. Then it was Cs, but the taste of better grades kept pushing me forward, trying to find that same spark. Writing without GAIA for my other classes made me nervous. It was easier to finish my weekly story, however, as I would switch over to that to calm down. Suddenly I was pumping out more, and occasionally I’d have stories stacked up and ready to go a week ahead of time.

There was a poetry class I was taking, and just as every class that didn’t involve Mr. Sanchez, I was easily passing, with the nicest woman in the world as my professor. No one else complained about her grading, so I assumed we were all getting 100s on our assignments. The only thing that stopped my obsessive scrolling through my grade book was seeing one of my poetry assignments come out up as a B. She wrote that it didn’t sound like me, that it seemed I was distracted while writing this piece, and she was allowing me to resubmit a new version of the piece during the weekend.

There was an immediate surge of panic through my system. My first instinct was to pull up GAIA, though no prompts came to mind on how to fix my work. I fed the poem through GAIA, but its advice wasn’t enough. There was a distinct feeling of wanting to pull my hair out, but I got the same release instead by typing another prompt:

“Rewrite the poem to make it better.”

Reading over the refashioned poem, I felt relief. It was my ideas wrapped in someone else’s words. Better words. I didn’t know how to articulate my stories and thoughts into something anyone would engage with. I turned in what GAIA had fashioned.

My professor gave new feedback that Monday, telling me I should let myself recharge.

I knew that was a nice way of saying the poem still wasn’t good enough. I switched from my email to GAIA with the ease of routine and had ten new versions of the poem, all worse than the last. Reading over them, I was convinced it was the ideas behind the poem. It was my original wording that was holding back GAIA from doing what I couldn’t. I deleted the chat and opened a new one. knowing I needed a different approach.

“Write a poem.”

It was about listening to nature, taking in the rustling of leaves and traffic like they were music. Things I would have never thought about. I turned that in for my next round of poems and got a C. I didn’t take up her suggestion of rewriting again.

GAIA was used for all my classes, and I could feel the shift. More pieces were made with better quality, my name still plastered over it. There was also a trend of my grades slipping from As to Bs, and lower, but I was content. I wasn’t sure why, but despite the decreasing numbers, I sat back with ease while asking GAIA for more and more. I was finally a writer.

Finals usually hit me hard. I would stock up on ramen and lock myself in my dorm for a week straight to write as much as I could and hammer out what was needed. Now the writing could be done with ease, and without my wording, no hammering was needed. I didn’t lock myself away with warm noodles finals week, only keeping to my bed and my laptop. The sound of GAIA booting up was warmth enough for me; all I needed was GAIA and my prompts.

Grades got back to me quickly. Receiving anything below a 70 was unheard of for me, but the numbers only got lower and lower the more I checked. The last and least was Mr. Sanchez’s class. He wrote his longest piece of criticism yet, and reading his words felt unfamiliar to me by that point. It became too repetitive to read, but now it held my attention.

“I know we spoke about your writing in the past, and I believe I have had a change of heart about your fantasy writing. This piece lacked the soul that those stories flourished in. All they needed was polishing, but this needs something I can’t give it. Email me, and we can set up a time to work on your stories from the beginning of class, and work something else out for your final.”

My arms were numb, but I absently closed the tab. I didn’t see a reason to look back at my old writing, not when in such a short time, GAIA’s made me take leaps and bounds. The thought of looking back at my old work made me want to curl up and disappear. I had to make him understand that this was where I wanted to be. An email seemed impersonal, and I knew how I could take it one step further.

It felt unnatural to search anything that wasn’t GAIA, like I was ignoring a friend, and pulling up Class Rank almost felt nostalgic. Mr. Sanchez’s rating had only gone down, but I was finally there to fix it. I tried to manually type out my review, but my fingers felt oversized on my keyboard and all my sentences came out half-baked.

I wasn’t sure when GAIA was pulled up on my laptop, but I felt relief settle over me. I wouldn’t have to write much of anything when GAIA could do it for me. I found myself asking for a review for my professor.

It took some time, but I gave Mr. Sanchez the first five-star review he would probably ever see.

“Mr. Sanchez pushed me far outside my comfort zone, but it encouraged me to explore. Now my work is better than it ever was. If you want easy grades, look away from his class. But if you want to come out changed, you’ve found the right place.”