AI, and the writer's journey: A conversation with Matt Witten

Ever wondered how artificial intelligence is shaking up jobs and our creative landscape?

 Join us as we unpack these changes with bestselling author Matt Witten. In this episode, Matt dives into the ethical dilemmas faced by journalists in his latest novel, Killer Story.

He shares insights into the evolving challenges of journalism and how AI might just be the next big disruptor.

From securing an agent to seeing Leonardo DiCaprio's company adapt his book The Necklace into a movie, Matt takes us through the highs and lows of his publishing journey. 

We explore his 20-year stint in television and how it influenced his transition back to writing novels. 
 
Whether an AI enthusiast or a budding writer, this episode is packed with invaluable advice and compelling stories you won't want to miss.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

it had a lot of short-term issues with people who lost their jobs right then, uh, you know, when the cotton gin came in and people lost their jobs, but uh and other other um parts of the industrial revolution, but I think ultimately it really helped people. So, you know, with ai, I think it's. You know, there are definitely people that are already losing their jobs people that work at grocery stores. Soon there will be people who are drivers who will lose their jobs because of self-driving cars. I think there will be a lot of paralegals who will lose their jobs. There will be all kinds of people in every kind of field that are going to lose their jobs. I just have to have the faith, as regards jobs, that this will also be good, you know, for the world.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. Today we have with us author and writer Matt Whitten, who has written in all kinds of genre, including novels, tv shows, stage plays and movies. His most recent novel, which I have here, killer Story, was published by Ocean View Publishing in January 2020. He has written a number of popular TV shows, including House, slow and Older, pretty Little Liars, medium, homicide, csi, miami Judging Amy, supernatural and other shows. So, matt, thank you for joining us today. I'm really excited to have you here, especially that you're a writer of many of my favorite shows, including Medium, which I love, but we'll get to that later. So thank you for joining me, matt.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Thanks for having me. Natasha Glad to be here.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Of course, and you're a fan of mystery and thriller Same here. So we have a lot in common. So, matt, first thing first. First, I want to talk about your latest book, killer story, if you can tell us a bit about it, especially that it involves a podcast. So if, if you can tell uh, the viewers and the listener a bit about your killer story and also how it's doing, how it's, since it's just published it in January, what was the reaction? The floor is all yours.

Speaker 1: 2:48

Thank you, natasha. People are enjoying it. I'm getting a lot of good comments on it, good reviews, and, yeah, it's about a podcast. I'm a fan of podcasts, I'm a fan of true crime podcasts, and I've been fascinated that there's so much pressure on journalists now to get clicks.

Speaker 1: 3:05

You know, so many newspapers are going out of business, so many journalists are losing their jobs, and so the main character in this book is a young woman named Petra who just got laid off from her fourth newspaper job in a row through no fault of her own, and she's trying to find a footing in the journalism business, and she gets this idea that she's going to do a true crime podcast for the newspaper that's thinking of laying her off. She's going to do a true crime podcast about the murder of a young woman who she actually knew personally. This young woman was like a younger sister to her. She was an alt-right YouTuber not one of my favorite genre of people, but our hero, petra, knew this girl from before she became an alt-right YouTuber and knew a good side of her too. So, in any case, she starts this podcast to investigate the murder of this very famous person, person, and, in the process, in order to get clicks and in order to have her podcast be a success, she finds that she has to cut corners, maybe do some things that aren't quite ethical.

Speaker 1: 4:19

And in a couple of sentences I'd say that the book is about a person in a very difficult field who starts out very idealistic, like so many journalists do, which is to have this. You know, they want to tell stories, important stories that are good for the world to hear. She starts out super idealistic and then, with everything that's going on in the business her personal difficulties, keeping a job in this crazy business, journalists' jobs losing, dying and the need to get clicks she does some things that are less and less ethical and she goes down a slope morally and then at the end of the book she has to find herself again. She has to find who she was at the beginning, her idealism and what she really wants to do in life. So I always think of the book as someone who starts here, goes down here and then comes back up here and then comes back up.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Oh wow, so the book was published by Ocean View Publishing, correct? So how, like? How did you get to Ocean View Publishing? Did you have to have an agent?

Speaker 1: 5:22

What was your publishing journey? My publishing journey, let's see, it's kind of. I mean, 25 years ago I started writing murder mysteries. I started out as a playwright. Then I decided that my most favorite thing in the world to do was to read murder mysteries and so I thought okay, that's my favorite thing. I even like that more than going to see plays. Why don't I try writing a murder mystery? So I wrote some murder mysteries four years ago that got published by Signet.

Speaker 1: 5:42

I can tell you that publishing journey. I'll tell you the one funny part about that publishing journey. The one funny part about that publishing journey was that my very first novel uh, it was turned down by 30 agents. Um and uh, some of them had read the whole book. You know, some of them just read a chapter, some just read the synopsis. Anyway, it got turned down by 30 agents. Eventually I got an agent who was actually the agent I wanted the most, but it took him six months to get back to me. Anyway, finally I got the agent, he sent it out to publishers and I had three offers inside of a week I mean literally three from major publishers. It was published by Sigma. So that was a funny publishing journey.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Then I wrote those four. Then I got the call to novels mystery novels. Then I got the call to come out to LA and so I wrote for TV shows in LA for about 20 years and then, like Rip Van Winkle, I'm the Rip Van Winkle of novel writing.

Speaker 1: 6:32

After a 20-year sleep I started writing novels again and again because I love them. At this time around I tend to enjoy thrillers more so than murder mysteries, although I love them too. So both these books that I've written since then the Necklace came out three years ago or two years ago and then Killer Story came out this year so you know again, it was just a case of writing what I love. And I chose Ocean View because I did have an agent, or do have an agent, and he submitted to Ocean View just because they like this kind of book. Ocean View has some really good authors that write thrillers and crime novels, and so they seem like a good home for the book. So I don't think it was more complicated than that. My agent just identified that these would be a good company and they were. I've been very happy with them.

Speaker 2: 7:24

So you've had the same agent since way in the beginning, or did you change it?

Speaker 1: 7:28

no, that agent, uh, he left the business, he, he married a woman with money and decided he didn't need the aggravation of being a book agent.

Speaker 2: 7:36

So I don't blame him it's.

Speaker 1: 7:39

It's a very difficult job, I mean it's hard to make money as a book agent and so, yeah, I have a new agent that I got maybe three years ago. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:48

And how did you get the new agent?

Speaker 1: 7:49

Just curious A friend of mine who's an editor at Scholastic recommended me to him and him to me. So I had a recommendation and that's how I connected with him.

Speaker 2: 8:00

So you didn't have to go through the query process and all of that.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Not really. I mean I just sent him an email and you know, in the on the title of the email it said something like query from you know, matt Witten, friend of you know, my editor, my editor, and so so like he can just look at the title of the email and say, oh, this is this person and she she might have also mentioned me to him, she might have sent them an email too. So yeah, I mean, I did have to send the book, so the book had to be good, but yeah, I didn't have to wait months and months for him to read and it started with a leg up. So yeah, I mean, for people that want to get an agent, that's certainly a very good route, just to have a personal connection to the agent.

Speaker 2: 8:42

Yeah, that's true. So your first book, the Necklace, I read that they're turning it into a movie or a TV show. If you can tell us a bit?

Speaker 1: 8:51

Yeah, it's been optioned by Leonardo DiCaprio. So the state that it's in is that we're looking for the right actor to attach to the lead role, and so that's where it's at With movies, even since the beginning of movies, but especially now, it's like it's not really sufficient to go into a studio with a uh, with a good script. It's also necessary to go in with someone attached to be in a director or an actor. So at this stage, it's at the stage of um, attaching a director or actor, Although I will say that, you know, during the strike, nothing's being done.

Speaker 2: 9:29

So well. But a big name like Leonardo DiCaprio how did he find out about the book? I mean, did he actually read the book and like how did this all happen?

Speaker 1: 9:39

I have a TV agent also and at the same time the way I wrote the book was I wrote the first draft of the novel and then you know, I'm a screenwriter to TV writer to. Then I wrote the first draft of the screenplay because I thought it would be a good movie, and then the screenplay taught me some things about the novel. So I went back and wrote a second draft of the novel and doing that taught me some things about the screenplay. So I wrote a second draft of the screenplay about the screenplays. I wrote a second draft of the screenplay and then, at the same time that my book agent sent the book to Ocean View, my TV slash movie agent sent the script to Leonardo DiCaprio's company. And so that's how it was Again, just my agents both did a good job and I guess it was a good, well-written or whatever. So they both sold pretty quickly and they sold simultaneously. So that's the story A little bit different from usual stories.

Speaker 1: 10:28

Usually, you know, a TV or movie company will, you know, buy the rights to a novel that they like, and that's how it happens, and then they'll hire someone to write it. But you know, the story of this was a little different. I wrote Spring Play. At the same time. It was optioned by Leonardo DiCaprio's company, which is called Appian Way. Also, it was co-optioned by another company called Cartel Pictures. They joined together on it. I just want to make sure I name them so I'm accurate.

Speaker 2: 10:56

Okay, wow, congrats. This is exciting news. What do you do now? Are you a full-time author and writer or do you have a day job? Or is that your day job?

Speaker 1: 11:09

I mean I do, you know, I've been very fortunate in the sense that, you know, I made a fair amount of money in TV, which I worked on without a break for 15 years and worked on for 20 years, and so I'm not, you know, and our kids are through college. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I don't, I don't have to worry too much. So, yeah, I just, I'm just, you know, I just write, that's what I do Mainly. I write novels now, but this past year was a little bit different. This past year I got a job writing a pilot for NBC and then I got a job writing a um, a Hallmark mystery movie for the Hallmark channel. So with a little more TV this year, but yeah, anyways, that was this year. But I don't know, I'm just always writing, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:54

Oh well, lucky. Well, I'm always writing, but not as exciting Like I don't write for TV. But this, you know, this is like the dream of of a writer.

Speaker 1: 12:06

So you said also well, let me say, before you say not as exciting for tv, tv is definitely exciting. Uh, for all the reasons that you know, you might imagine, one might imagine, novel writing is freaking great. I mean novel writing. You get to write what your dream is. You get to write what your vision is. You, I would just say that, again, you get to write what your, what your dream is, and you get to write what your vision is. You, I would just say that, again, you get to write what your, what your dream is and your vision, and there's something very special about doing that, and you rarely get a chance to do that when you're writing for TV. So to me, uh, I w, I would, I would say that writing novel, novels, is as exciting as writing for TV, or perhaps more so. So if that, if that makes you, makes you feel happy about what you're doing, I'll just say there's positives and negatives about every.

Speaker 2: 12:49

Yeah, that's good to know. So I read somewhere that you basically spend a big chunk of your time reading mysteries and thrillers. Is that correct? Yeah, okay, so tell us your top five reads or authors that you like and enjoy. So, especially now it's summertime, I'm going to the beach next week. You know what book shall I have? And I love mystery and thrillers. I mean, my first novel was A Murder in the Street.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Your first what?

Speaker 2: 13:20

My first novel. Oh good yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:27

So I'm curious to know what books shall I bring with me to the beach? Oh god, I'm so, you know, I'm so terrible because there are so many books that I like and I always wind up saying the books I read most recently. So I'll just say is it okay with you if I say one that's not a mystery or a thriller, because yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Okay, so as long as it's a beach read, I don't want something too depressing.

Speaker 1: 13:44

This is not depressing. It's called Lessons in Chemistry oh yeah, I have it.

Speaker 2: 13:50

I haven't read it yet, but I have Okay.

Speaker 1: 13:53

I just think it's wonderful. It's, you know, for your listeners, or you know, it's a book about a woman who is, you know, in the early 60s and she's in the United States and she's struggling with all the different obstacles to to women at that time and it just it reminds me so much of my mother, so much of my mother, everything she went through, and I just love this book. It's very, it's very funny, very moving and very beautifully written and just a wonderful, wonderful main character.

Speaker 1: 14:20

And then again the other book I read most recently and then again the other book I read most recently I just loved. It's called the Matchmaker's Gift and it's about a woman who was a matchmaker in New York and the Lower East Side back in the early 1900s and then her granddaughter, who was a divorce lawyer in the present time. So it goes back and forth between the two and it's just a wonderful book. So let me think about the thrillers. Oh okay, I love Colleen Hoover. I just think she's great and it's just a wonderful book. So let me think about the thrillers. Oh okay, I love Colleen Hoover.

Speaker 2: 14:48

I just think she's great. I love Verity. I loved Verity.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Verity was fabulous, and I just finished yesterday a book called it Ends With Us by her.

Speaker 2: 14:57

And I just thought that was great.

Speaker 1: 14:58

I guess that's more of a romance than a thriller too. I have to tell you some thrillers I love, but and a thriller too. I have to tell you some thrillers I love, but I love it ends with us, because it's about I don't think I'm giving you know, giving a spoiler it's about this woman who, um, I don't know if this is a beach read exactly, except it's quick. I mean, I don't mean quick, it's called. It ends with us. It's very.

Speaker 2: 15:16

I read it. I read it, okay so and that was amazing.

Speaker 1: 15:19

I was trying to think what you know know for me and maybe for other people you know. You always wonder why people who are getting um physically abused stay with their abuser and like this book did a better job of explaining that to me than any book that makes it sound like a serious book. It's also just quick moving and a great romance yeah, I liked it.

Speaker 1: 15:36

I liked it yeah so let me think of a straight up thriller. Well, this is one I read a couple years ago ago that sticks with me, by someone named Steph Cha and it's called I think it's called this House Will Stand, but her name is Steph Cha, and it's about a crime in in Los Angeles and it's just. It's a great story about what's great story about people. It's also about the Korean-American community there and the black community there, and it's just a terrific novel.

Speaker 1: 16:09

Anyway, those are a few of the books that I read. Sorry, I didn't include more thrillers in there, but anyway.

Speaker 2: 16:14

Okay, that sounds fascinating. Any favorite authors?

Speaker 1: 16:18

Mr Lee Well, I would say the authors that I've read everything that they ever wrote would be Elmore, leonard, richard Price, michael Connelly, james Caine, dashiell Hammett, and I would say those are ones that I've read. You know everything. So those are. Those are some of them, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:40

So do you finish a book a week or more than that? What's your rate? That's a good question.

Speaker 1: 16:45

It depends what's going on in my life right then. I think it's probably more like to be completely honest, I think it's more like a book. Uh, to be completely honest, I think it's more like a book every 10 days or every two weeks.

Speaker 2: 16:55

So ah, okay. So what advice would you give to aspiring mystery writers or thrillers? What would you tell them?

Speaker 1: 17:04

I think I I generally give three pieces of advice, and one is right and one is read and one is community. So the right part of it is just keep writing. It's as simple as that. The read part of it is you know, read books in the genre that you love and um and, and you know, write in the genre that you love. I mean, that's, that's what I've done. 25 years ago when I really liked a cozy, mysteries, that's what I wrote. Now, when I write like much harder edge thrillers, that's what I write. So, do a lot of reading, write. And then the third thing is community. I think it's really helpful to have.

Speaker 1: 17:38

I'm in a writer's group that meets many Fridays. I'm in another writer's group that meets once a month on Tuesdays. I'm in another writer's group that meets sometimes on Sunday nights. I often do my writing at a coffee shop in Los Angeles where I know five of the other writers who also show up. My wife calls it. She says it's like cheers for writers, the TV, and I think there are probably other things I do to have community for writers.

Speaker 1: 18:08

I go to writers conventions uh, now Charcon and a thriller fest and left coast crime, where you meet a lot of mystery writers and hang out with them, play poker with them, and I, I guess, I, I guess I'm saying that because it is a cliche, but writing is a lonely business. And so if you uh, um, incorporate it into your life that that it's not going to be a lonely business, uh, then it's not. I mean, I have all these communities of writers and, um, I hang out with them a lot and and, uh, you know, we tell each other stories about what we're going through in the publishing business, which can be very difficult, and also we give each other stuff to read. Like, I know, some people don't give anybody something they write until, like the end of the they've written the whole book and then they give it. I couldn't do that, I'd be too panicked. I prefer a writer's group where I show people a chapter at a time, two chapters at a time.

Speaker 1: 18:56

Um, so that's what I would say rewriting and really just try to form a community. However you do it and there are different ways you can do it Start your own writing group with friends, you know. Do a meetup thing, uh, join a class. I mean, I've taught TV pilot writing at UCLA Extension for the past 20, 25 years. I teach one course a year and the students in my class, and other people's classes too, you know, after the class is over they just keep meeting. You know, they meet each other in the class, find like-minded people and they continue in the group afterwards. So, yes, that's my advice. However you do it, you it. Find a way to connect with other writers and be part of a community.

Speaker 2: 19:36

What kind of conventions and conferences do you think writers should go to, at least in the US?

Speaker 1: 19:42

Well, two that are great for crime writers are VoucherCon and ThrillerFest, and these are conferences that you go to. Maybe it costs 200 bucks, I think, for BachelorCon, maybe 400 or 500 bucks for Thriller Fest. Plus, you know, you might need to pay for a hotel if you don't have friends who live right there. And you just meet a lot of aspiring writers. You meet a lot of established writers At some of these places. You meet agents and managers and editors and you go to different panels that they have and then at night people hang out at the bar and it's just nice. You meet people and you meet some people that you'll stay in touch with.

Speaker 1: 20:28

I mean, when I go, I view these people as cousins. You know how, for me anyway, I see cousins a couple times a year and I they feel close to me, but I see them a couple times a year. So these, these folks, are like cousins to me. I see them at voucher con, I see them at um thriller fest, and another one, as I said, is left coast crime. That's a smaller one, but also a good one. So, as to what you do, you just kind of hang. It's kind of inspiring to see that these terrific writers, I look up to. You know, are you know? They're just flesh and blood, blood, just like me, I was at Thriller Fest, the other, which is in New York every year in June. Vouchercon is in September in different cities. And I was at Thriller Fest in June and there's a writer I really admire named Sarah Peckinham, and that's a thriller I really admire, named Sarah Pekkanen, and that's a thriller writer. I'll tell you that I really enjoy. If you.

Speaker 2: 21:19

You know that's. She co-writes novels with someone named Greer Hendricks, and their novels are great. Oh, yeah, yeah, I think I read one of them. Yeah, trying to remember which one. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Yeah, all of them are good. I think they've read four. I've read them all. So actually that's another writer that I mean the combination that I've read everything anyway. So I I said, oh my god, there's sarah peckinan. I can't believe it. That's her. You know, I love her stuff.

Speaker 1: 21:38

I said I'm not going to go up to her, you know, be embarrassing, you know. But person I was with said, oh, I'm a friend of hers, I'll introduce you. So I went up and I said, oh hi, sarah, I just want to say you know, know, I just love your books. I love them so much. I'm just such a fan I love them. And then I was like I got real embarrassed. I said, oh, that's all I have to say.

Speaker 1: 21:56

She was very nice and she, you know, asked me about my books or whatever, and and she wound up giving me some really important help. She made a connection for me that's going to be like real important to me and helpful, and it was like not what I was expecting. I didn't go up to her wanting anything from her, but she, just because she's nice and the truth is going off on a tangent crime, writers tend to be very nice people, it's. It's really commented on, uh, by like a lot of people just how nice we are and I don't know why it is exactly, but we're really friendly.

Speaker 1: 22:29

Like in TV writing, lots of times you might be in competition with other writers for jobs, I don't know. For whatever reason, I think in TV writing either you're making like a lot of money every year or very little. So, like I don't know, people just get really tense. Novel writing nobody makes money, so I don't know, people are very friendly, but in any case you know you just might meet somebody that you know helps you out in some way or you know whatever.

Speaker 2: 22:52

So what's the obsession these days with true crime? Why is everyone, like you know, the Netflix shows true crime, podcast true crimes. What's happening? Why people are so obsessed with true crime?

Speaker 1: 23:05

Well, the short answer would be I don't know. The long answer would be that, you know, people have always been obsessed with murderers and crime stories and I think it's because, like, for a couple reasons. One is because we want to explore the dark side of ourselves that maybe we're not allowed to express, but we love it, you know, seeing other people express their dark side. I mean, like, I love reading about trump and it's because he's the most evil person in the world and you know, you know, evil people are, just it's. They're just so interesting because they're like they do stuff that we don't allow ourselves to do, because we're not willing to be that evil. But you know, it seems like it'd be kind of fun to be that evil, anyway, so I think we like exploring the dark sides of ourselves.

Speaker 1: 23:44

And the other thing and this is a you know this is not original with me, this is a cliche but like murder mysteries, like you solve the crime at the end, you know like justice is found, you know it's like we live in a world, obviously, that is just full of disorder and confusion and, and you know, people die for no reason, whether it's disease or murder or whatever it is, and like there's no apparent fairness in the the world. There's no apparent justice in the world. Um, I might be overstating it. There's some, but not much, but anyway. But when you get a murder mystery, it's like the detective solves the murder. At the end, you know, justice is restored, the bad guy is caught. You know, the the the victim is is uh gets vindicated, yeah, vindicated, or whatever the word is they get justice.

Speaker 1: 24:34

So I think that's like a wish fulfillment that we wish the world operated that way all the time. So now, why true crime instead of the fictional? That's a good question. Do you have an idea? I don't particularly know why.

Speaker 2: 24:49

it would like more like the true crime than it used to be, or something because the idea that that it can happen anywhere and it can happen in your neighborhood and most of these true crimes at least that they show on dateline, they happen in affluent suburbs where you think people have it all right. They have like the perfect marriage, the perfect neighborhood, the perfect you know job, and then suddenly the wife kills the husband or whatever. And I think, at least for me I enjoy watching them because they show you what's behind the facade and we're just it's. It's interesting to see that part of life as well. It's kind of a house of cards that everything you see is what it is. That's why I enjoy it.

Speaker 1: 25:40

I think you're right, and I think that's probably true of other people that watch it too. Yeah, there is a special whatever the word is in watching somebody in a really good position get brought down. I agree with that.

Speaker 2: 25:53

Schadenfreude, schadenfreude, thank you, that's the word. Yeah, what was it?

Speaker 1: 26:00

I think it was Dick Wolf, my old boss at Law Order, who was quoted as saying I've made a lot of money from killing off good-looking rich people. Know, uh, people.

Speaker 2: 26:13

So yeah, yeah, oh okay. So what does the future hold for you? What? What are you working on?

Speaker 1: 26:21

right now I'm working on a thriller set in the world of the wnba okay, women's national basketball association having a lot of fun with that um and uh. So that's what I'm doing. I'm going to probably have that done in a couple of months and then I'm thinking about what book I want to write after that and then at some point, the writer's strike will end and I have a project that I want to work on in TV.

Speaker 2: 26:49

But you're not affected by it, are you? Because you write novels.

Speaker 1: 26:52

Well, the novel part of me isn't affected by it. But when I wrote a script for Hallmark, the murder mystery movie, I had to finish it before the strike, the first draft. So I finished it on April 30 at 10 pm and the strike started on May 1. And now I heard from my producer that he liked it very much, but I haven't heard from the network yet because I'm not allowed to talk to the network. So, like now it's like it's like what, is it August or whatever, when we're talking? I know it'll come out in a couple of months, but, um, you know, so I have no way of knowing.

Speaker 1: 27:30

I think what I wrote, well, they'll enjoy it, but you know, I don't know for sure. So you know, it affected me a little bit. And then you know, if they want me to do a second draft, I have to wait until the strike is over. And then there is one project that I want to pitch that's based on a book that came out 20 years ago that I'm very excited about. But you know I can't pitch it till the strike. I'm not complaining in the sense that, yeah, I'm a novel writer, so I could just keep doing that. So I'm not like sitting here twiddling my thumbs. I mean, some of my friends who are TV writers are are a little a little stressed out, especially the ones that are, you know, depend on TV money to you know, to pay their mortgages and, to, you know, pay their lives. And people that have, you know, two kids, um, so they're, they're young kids, so they're in a somewhat different position yeah, so I've been reading about the strike and there's a lot of worry about ai replacing writers and even actors.

Speaker 2: 28:27

Especially with the latest black mirror show if you've seen it they have Salma Hayek as an AI. So are you worried about AI?

Speaker 1: 28:36

Yes and no. You know, I think the Industrial Revolution took a lot of jobs away from people and ultimately, I think it was good for humanity. I think the changes of the Industrial Revolution have led to, you know, healthier people who live longer lives, who have more food, who I think it's increased the standard of living for people throughout the world. And it had a lot of short term issues with people who lost their jobs right then, you know, when the cotton gin came in and people lost their jobs, but and other other parts of the Industrial Revolution, but I think ultimately, it really helped people. So, you know, with AI, I think it's. You know, there are definitely people that are already losing their jobs People that work at grocery stores, People that are soon there will be people who are drivers will lose their job because of self-driving cars. I think there will be a lot of paralegals will lose their jobs. There'll be all kinds of people in every kind of field that are going to lose their jobs and I just, you know, have to have the faith, as regards jobs, that that this will also be good. You know for the world, that you know it'll increase the standard of living of humanity and it will also help the world, Like, for instance, AI I think is going to do, you know, a great job of um, of uh, of curing diseases. Ultimately, Um, so, I think it's really going to improve the world tremendously and um, so, uh, you know. So I think it's good, but I think in the short term, it's really gonna. It's really gonna hurt, you know, hurt some people the people that work in grocery stores, the people that you know drive cabs and Ubers and so on. I think it'll, you know, cause some serious issues. So, when it comes to writers, like I'm definitely, and actors, I'm definitely worried about what's going to happen to writers and actors, you know, in the short term due to AI. You know, once AI gets, you know, even better, like in whatever five years, 10 years, maybe a little bit longer, I'm definitely worried about people losing their jobs, including, you know, friends of mine, including, you know, maybe myself I might be writing, you know, TV in five or 10 years. But I feel like to be consistent. I still have to. I still have to say no, AI is probably good in this way too, you know. And and yeah, it'll cause tremendous problems in my industry too, I think. I mean, I don't know how the strike will will change things, but, but, but, um, it'll cause, I think, tremendous problems in my industry too, but I think I have to, you know, have some kind of faith that it'll, that it'll still be, um, it'll still be ultimately a good thing. So I don't know. Yeah, so I have.

Speaker 1: 31:12

I have a lot of thoughts about it and and while I support the strike and I in in every way, but AI, I completely support the strike and in AI I have a emotions, but I don't know, I think about it a lot. The other side of it that I worry about is what's it going to be like when you watch a movie and you know that it's written by AI and acted by AI? Are we going to enjoy it as much? What's it going to feel like to us as a viewer? And maybe it won't matter, People will just love it and they won't care that it's just, you know, like um, synthetic or whatever the word is, but like to me, it's just that part of it does feel weird to me. Even if this stuff is good, even if they get as good as current writers, even if they get better than us, it still feels like like with verity, like like colleen hoover, you know I like, I like knowing what kind of childhood she had growing up and the person that was behind this book and and the struggle that she had, you know, to write. You know JK Rowling, the struggle that she had before she was a successful writer. I just so to lose. That feels funny to me. Anyway, this is a long way of saying that. I've been thinking about it a lot. I have a lot of a lot of mixed feelings about it.

Speaker 1: 32:31

There are some ways in which ai I think is very dangerous and and, and I think I mean I mean to writers, and I'll just give you one that I think really should, should, would be a concern, and that and this is just one, there's other ones, but you know there's.

Speaker 1: 32:46

If you're a writer of a movie, you get um. Minimum that you can get is is X dollars to write a screenplay and then to write the second draft of the screenplay, you get one half X. So one simple worry about AI is that um is that some producer will, you know, buy a rights to a book. They'll give the book to AI. Ai will write a lousy script based on this book and then they'll call that the first draft and give it to the writer and say write the second draft. And it's just a way of screwing the writer out of money that he would have got they would have gotten if they had been writing the first draft. So that's that's one thing that bothers me and I also am kind of rooting not kind of. I also am rooting for Sarah Silverman's lawsuit to win, where she's ticked off that her stuff has been used by AI to create things, and I do sympathize with her.

Speaker 2: 33:46

I read about that, but do they actually train AI on her material and how did she prove it? How did she Like, how did she figure that out?

Speaker 1: 33:57

Well, I think you can prove it. I forget how you did it, how they did it with her, but I think you can prove it, for instance by, let's say, she's written a novel. I don't know if she has, but say a corpus of jokes that she's written. You can ask AI, what can you tell me about? You know Sarah Silverman's novel, and they can write it, or jokes, and they can. They can write it in some way that it's clear that they read the novel. Well, actually that's not a great example I'm using because I guess theoretically they could have read the reviews, but I'll say that somehow they're able to determine Sarah Silverman is able to determine that they have, that they have read her stuff. So I'm sorry I can't really give a clearer answer on that, but they, but they are able to determine that.

Speaker 2: 34:40

What's the harm in reading her stuff?

Speaker 1: 34:43

I mean, anyone can read her stuff Well that's a good question, okay, so here's what I think Five years ago, 10 years ago, 100 years ago, you know, you could read, like Elmore Leonard, you could read James Caine, whoever and, and love it and then try to write something kind of in their style, you know and like. So that's what people do, and so why shouldn't AI be able to do the same thing? Why shouldn't AI? So that's the argument that AI makers will have, and it's a reasonable legal argument. Argument that, um, that I support more is that it's just a matter of scale.

Speaker 1: 35:24

When it's just you can do it a little bit, it's like reasonable, but like when ai can just you know, like that, take every single thing, that that that sarah silverman's written, that every comedian has ever written, that every novelist has ever written, that every, every comedian has ever written, that every novelist has ever written, that every screenwriter has ever written, and use it all and just know everything and then be able to spit it back out very easily and quickly, the fact that it's so easy and that it's being done at such a large scale. And when I say large scale, it's like you know, you ask me how many books I read. Well, okay, I read a book every 10 days. Ai will read you know don't quote me it'll read a million books in a second. So it's different what they can do, and they can do it just so much better and so much more accurately. And it seems to me like another animal. It seems to me like. It feels to me like we're ripping off Sarah Silverman. When you can do it so well it sounds crazy, but that's how I feel and when you can do it that well, when the scale is is a million times like everybody's borrowed art from other people, but when the scale of the borrowing is a million times more than it was, it seems to me. It seems to me wrong. I mean, like what I would ideally like to see is is, like you know, ai would have to ask me if they can train their model on my books or my screenplays and I would say, yeah, if you pay me a certain amount of money, you can do it, but I could opt out of it. Or maybe they would even have to ask me to opt in if they wanted to do it, and I don't know how to do that on today's internet. I don't know how to do that, but I think that would be the ideal situation because it's like I mean, imagine if you're, if you're Sarah Silverman, you know you, you've spent your lifetime like creating this type of humor, this body of jokes. You know this, this style that you have, and then AI can steal it and that's how it feels like to me, stealing, and they can rip you off and just write a really good Sarah Silverman joke, you know, in a second and and it's it just doesn't feel, doesn't feel right to me.

Speaker 1: 37:34

You may have read or be familiar with some of the same issues you know with artists. You know artists spends, visual artists. You know they'll spend 30 years building up their style and what they like to. You know what they like to do, and then you can get on to, uh, the equivalent of chat GPT for art I forget what's called Dolly, yeah, and you know, give me a picture of the style of artist X, you know, and they'll do that. You know they'll do that, like that, right, well, like that. And then they'll go even worse. They'll like do art in the style of, you know, artist X, but include, like, maybe they might include some kind of like horrible Nazi symbol or something you know, and it's like so, immediately.

Speaker 1: 38:12

Ai has got your, not only got your style, but it's like, turned it into something sick, which actually they've done. I was reading about a case where that had been done a cartoonist I forget the woman's name, but she'd been turned into a meme and AI had been part of the meme and creating the meme and it was, you know, just ugly stuff that she would not support herself. So, anyway, that's how. That's how I feel about it. It's going to be fought out in the courts and many people will take the point of view that you said which I think is a completely reasonable point of view that yeah, it's been done all the time and this is nothing new. And some people will take my point of view, which is that the scale makes it bigger and more. Not right.

Speaker 2: 38:54

Yeah, I mean I see both points. But I think for me, if you look at AI, yes, it might take some tasks, but at the same time, it will free some budget for us to do other tasks. For example, like you mentioned, the producer asking you to work on the second draft right. But then at the same time, the producer now, now his budget, has more money to give you even more projects to work. So maybe you're not gonna work on one first, on two drafts the whole year. You're gonna maybe work on five second drafts the whole year thanks to ai.

Speaker 2: 39:34

So I think it's it's how you look at it. Like for me, now I use AI. Recently I just upgraded my membership with the podcast platform to come up with the show notes for my podcast, with the chapters. Now, like, just, I have everything ready. The other option I could have hired someone from Fiverr to do this or have done it myself. I've hired someone from Fiverr to do this or I've done it myself, but now it will allow me to create more shows, to create more material, and so I look at it as, actually, ai is helping me. It's like they're my virtual assistant and I'm the master of the AI rather than they are my masters. So I think I changed my mindset is how can you help me produce more work and actually do more and make more money? Um, so this is how I look at it.

Speaker 1: 40:30

I think it's a, it's a very good way to look at it, and I mean, that's fundamentally the way I look at it. Actually, like when I was saying I think the industrial revolution helps people. Ai will help people. It's because they make uh labor more efficient, and so, you know, if it's a farmer, they'll make more crops and feed more people. If they're a doctor, you know they'll be able to cure more people. If they're research scientists, they'll be able to, you know, do the research more quickly. And, um, you know, I just have to have the faith that the people that will be thrown out of work the drivers and so on will find something else that you know that they'll do. That will, you know, be part of labor for humanity becoming more efficient. So I certainly agree with that and I also use AI.

Speaker 1: 41:12

My favorite is Claude. I have to put in a plug because my son works for it, but, like you know, I'm looking at my. Let's see the questions. I asked Claude today Uh, oh. I asked it what are 30 synonyms and slang phrases for poking around? And here's another one. I asked what are some cryptocurrency startups and entrepreneur might try today? Uh and uh, oh. So they gave me like 30 of them and uh, so I, you know, I, I picked the one that would be right for my character and I think it was, uh, you know, better than honestly. I think it was better than anything I would have come up with and it was certainly quicker.

Speaker 2: 41:49

I mean, it does it in a second, so and and this is for novelists, or that, this is just like yes, for for a novel that I'm writing. No, but the soft clip that you use oh yeah, you've got to try it.

Speaker 1: 42:01

I have to say, as I think I said, my son works for them now. But yeah, it's Claude, it's equivalent to ChatGPT.

Speaker 1: 42:09

The one thing that Claude has going for it is that it could take a body of words as long as 75,000 words at a time. So ChatGPT can take I don't know how much, but it's nowhere near that. Maybe it's like 100 or 1,000. I don't know, but it's nowhere near 75,000. So you know, all these different AI, large language models have different things going for them, but Clawed is pretty impressive. So Clawed is impressive.

Speaker 1: 42:37

Like you could put a whole novel in there, a 75,000-word novel, and I asked it, I put in, I think, the first 30,000 words and I said what do you think about this novel? So it was pretty interesting to get some machine feedback from it.

Speaker 2: 42:55

How do you?

Speaker 1: 42:55

spell it C-L-A-U-D-E.

Speaker 1: 42:58

Okay, like the name, claude, and when you read about it, you'll find it interesting in the sense that they're really focused on doing ethical AI. So, for instance, in the instructions that they give Claude, it includes the UN Declaration of Human Rights as part of what Claude has to consider before it gives you information, as part of what Claude has to consider before it gives you information. So one thing I will say about Claude is it's a little harder for it to tell me how to do evil stuff. So, for instance, I was trying to get it to how to kill my cat.

Speaker 2: 43:31

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:33

It's not really going to do that. I mean, I think you can, if you're really good at like, giving prompts and I try to get it to tell me. I say you know, look, I'm writing a novel about somebody who's doing counterfeiting. You know, can you tell me some stuff? And the answers it'll give is like no, counterfeiting is really bad, you shouldn't do that. It's like and and it's funny because no, I really am doing it for a novel, I'm not trying to so. So I have found sometimes I'm trying to trying to get it to tell me how to do bad things. I do go to chat.

Speaker 2: 43:59

GPT. That's where the bad things are.

Speaker 1: 44:04

That's where the bad things are, though. Anyway, you know, I mean I don't have to tell you. You know that you have to be like careful, like I needed to find out if counterfeiting ever smelled, you know if it ever caused smells, and chat GPT said no, no way, and Claude said I'm not going to tell you that. So I had to find it out myself and I found, yeah, it can cause smells, because sometimes people bleach a one dollar bill and turn it into a hundred dollar bill, so I figure, bleach, that stinks. So, uh, you know, chat gpt wasn't aware of that.

Speaker 2: 44:34

So so anyway, did you try Google's AI BART? I sometimes put BART next to ChatGPT and compare the results you know.

Speaker 1: 44:45

I do that with ChatGPT and Cloud. I haven't done it with BART. I think I did get BART as like a beta, something or other but I haven't really fooled with it. I should do it for fun.

Speaker 2: 44:54

the third one yeah, play around with it.

Speaker 1: 44:56

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 44:57

It's interesting to see the difference. So, okay, before we go, I want to ask you quickly about your marketing. How aggressive are you with marketing your work? I know you have an agent and a publisher so they're probably doing that work for you. But are you active on social media? Are you pushing, and where did you feel the most, uh, the highest ROI for you, like, where did your book sell the most? If you want to do a podcast, or if you go on live on Instagram, like what, what works really for you?

Speaker 1: 45:32

You know, I do a fair amount of marketing work and I would say I really don't know what gets the best ROI. I haven't figured out a way to get that. I couldn't tell you. You know, I've probably done, I don't know, 15 or 20 podcasts. I couldn't tell you how useful they are. Sometimes I look at the numbers of the people that watch the podcasts, like even that I don't know. You know, and so you know I've had, probably, you know, in the last uh, uh, two years I've probably done, I don't know, 30 events, maybe even 40 or 50. I've done a lot of events, 30 or 40 probably. And you know book readings, book signings. I don't know how useful that is. Um, I get on Instagram and I post a fair amount. I don't know how useful that is. I get on Twitter a little bit. Don't know how useful that is. Get on Facebook Don't know how useful that is. So I don't know anything.

Speaker 1: 46:25

I would say here's the advice that I got from um, she, what's her name? It was a writer. I'm going to remember it as soon as we get off the podcast. But anyway, she, she wrote it. She wrote crimes, crime novels involving ninjas. But okay, you know my know, my advice that I got from a writer about what to do with marketing is you can't do everything, so pick the things that you really like. Like if you like you know posting pictures on Instagram, you know, do that. If you're really comfortable on Facebook, do that. If you're a ham and you love to do book readings and you have a lot of easy situations, you know, then do that. So you know there's there's always something more you can do if you're marketing, and so just try to pick a couple of things you really like and don't like beat yourself up if there's things that you are not doing. So that's the advice that I've, that I've taken to heart. I guess I am a bit of a ham.

Speaker 1: 47:18

I am a bit of a ham, I guess, taken to heart, I guess I am a bit of a ham. I am a bit of a ham, I guess, because I enjoy doing podcasts. I enjoy doing, I enjoy doing book signings. I kind of I kind of enjoy doing Instagram. But I'll tell you what I think has the most return of investment on investment right now.

Speaker 1: 47:32

And well, a couple of things, but one thing I'm just saying what you already know I'm sure it's TikTok. I mean, tiktok is so much more important and as soon as I finished this draft, I'm going to like try to get on to TikTok and research it and do more stuff on that. I know it doesn't take much work, but you know I just don't have any time. I'm writing Like I'm, I'm just writing all the time now. So that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 47:54

Which is what I want to say is the other marketing strategy is just write a new book, because people that enjoy killer story, my new novel, are going to go back and read the neck or are already going back and reading the necklace. So really, you know, to me the best thing you can do and sounds like corny or whatever write a really good book and, you know, write as many as you can, that's the best thing. So those that'd be my advice write a, write a, write a great to any writer. You write a great book that's going to get good word of mouth and um and uh, and write them frequently enough and uh and and get on tiktok, it used it used to be uh, sorry are you on tiktok?

Speaker 1: 48:35

I am, but I haven't really been posting there yet. That's like it's my, but not what I'm doing yet. But I will because, uh, but, um, but I think that, like it used to be that the main ways that you sold a book were word of mouth and newspaper reviews, and then the main way you sold a book was word of mouth and blogs, and then the main way was word of mouth and Instagram, and now I think the main way is word of mouth and Tik.

Speaker 2: 49:00

TOK.

Speaker 1: 49:02

Yeah, that's true. One thing I love about Tik TOK is that they, you know, your book doesn't have to have come out yesterday in order to um, you know, in order for it to, you know, get get reviews and stuff People can still be into it. Colleen Hoover is a good example. So my novel, the necklace, in particular, I think is is very tiktok friendly. So that's what that's. My mission when I get around to it is to uh is to contact uh tiktok influencers I mean?

Speaker 2: 49:28

I mean, you can do something as simple as just read the first page, right, and that's it okay and, uh, try it. I, I'm gonna try it as well. I'm I'm on TikTok, but I mostly post the podcast stuff, so you'll be on TikTok through me.

Speaker 1: 49:43

All right, very good, don't worry, I'm covered. All right, that's good.

Speaker 2: 49:47

Yeah, you're covered, I got you back.

Speaker 1: 49:49

Okay, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2: 49:50

All right. Well, in that case.

Speaker 1: 49:51

I'll definitely check out your TikTok channel, okay.

Speaker 2: 49:55

Well, thank you very much, Matt. This has been really wonderful, especially our talk about AI. This was like really eye-opening. I'm sure everyone who's listening or watching will find this fascinating. Any final thoughts? Parting words.

Speaker 1: 50:12

No, if people want to write, just like I say write, read what you love and try to form community. That would be my piece of advice.

Speaker 2: 50:21

I like that. How many hours a day do you write?

Speaker 1: 50:24

Probably about something like three or four hours in the morning and then maybe two or three hours in the afternoon, something like that.

Speaker 2: 50:32

Wow, that's a lot of writing it is. People can find your books on Amazon bookstores and on your website, it's mattwittenwritercom.

Speaker 1: 50:48

Yeah, it's mattwittenwritercom.

Speaker 2: 50:50

Okay, mattwittenwritercom. And for everyone who's listening or watching, make sure to check Matt's book Killer Story and, before that, necklace and watch his TV shows as well. Thank you very much, and thank you everyone for staying with us and listening to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha, and until we meet again, thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, natasha Tynes. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time. Happy reading, happy writing.