I Love ChatGPT!

One of the reasons I love writing historical fiction is that it gives me an excuse to go poking around in the past. I wasn’t particularly fond of history in school, probably because we spent an inordinate amount of time memorizing “three causes and three results” of every war that ever occurred. History was, apparently, the story of warfare and politics, another topic that isn’t pleasant to read about.

It’s only in recent years that I discovered history as the stories of real people. Their actions and reactions, the way events changed their lives, the people who affected their decisions, are the true history of the world. When a friend or relative is killed in battle, the reaction isn’t to ask what caused the battle or what would happen as a result. People feel the pain of loss of a loved one, how they affected your life, how you’d never have the chance to sing or eat or hug or dance with them ever again.

Those real stories are what inspire my characters and writing, and the first thing I do before starting to write a new book is go back through some of the books and articles I’ve saved that I think might be the source of the plot or a subplot or a character in this one. Little bits and pieces tend to float around in my brain, emerging again when I start thinking about the next book. One will pop up, and I’ll say to myself, “Right! I was going to use that when I got to X’s story!”

Except I can’t remember where I read it or if it was real or in someone else’s novel. I certainly

don’t remember the details surrounding that flash of brilliance. If I was really smart (and not too tired to get up and go to my office), I’d made a note in this smallish spiral notebook I keep with those details and, hopefully, the book or article or website I found it on. Unfortunately, I’m not all that smart.

I’ve had one of those ideas, the key idea for “The Captive and the Cowboy” as a matter of fact, bubbling around in my brain for the last week. It’s not in that notebook and it’s not in my story bible for the Cactus Cowboys series, so I pulled out the primary references I partially or fully read before writing the first book. These are no lightweight volumes. I have two non-fiction books of 450 pages each, one of which I haven’t started reading, a masters thesis I found via Google, and a few personal accounts published during the time period.

No joy.

I knew my idea, the concept of the idea, was really vague, too vague to put into Google. I’d have to spend a lot of time rephrasing my search criteria before finding what I’d read before, if Google ever did find it. And if I’d even recognize it. Yesterday I spent more than an hour trying to find something of the history about a notation on a map I’d found with absolutely no success at all. I wasn’t in the mood to do that this morning.

But then I thought, “What about ChatGPT?”

Another one of those random ideas that I’d picked up this past week was that ChatGPT was going to replace Google for searches. Hmmm… I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t had that frustrating experience yesterday. Since I’ve recently been trying to see if AI would be useful for brainstorming novels (Not writing. That’s the part I love doing.), I figured I’d give it a go. And voila!

Within minutes I had vindication for my memory, a specific example of the event I was thinking about, plus several pieces of related information once I asked ChatGPT questions about what it had given me to begin with. Now I can move on with my planning for the new novel, knowing I have historical fact to back up the plot I had in mind. You have no idea what a relief that is.