“Going literary with AI” is a series documenting my shift from factual writing to more literary nonfiction — with creative help from ChatGPT.
Posts in this series: Going literary with AI: Intro | Through-line, theme, voice | Reflection and expansion | Interiority | From blog post to essay (this post) | The observer’s eye | From observation to story | Where facts meet story
Text: Solveig Hansen in collaboration with ChatGPT, 2025
In this post:
From idea to essay — a behind-the-scenes look at how one post took a literary turn
So far in the “Going Literary with AI” series, I’ve focused on the basics — through-lines, voice, reflection, interiority. Now it’s time to take you behind the scenes.
In this post, I’ll show how one of my observational-style blog entries evolved into a more literary essay, step by step, in conversation with my writing partner and coach: ChatGPT.
It’s part craft exercise, part collaboration diary — and, by the way, a great way to repurpose a blog post.
Before: The blog post
Dickens, a literary salon, or Montmartre?
Text: Solveig Hansen
A time traveler’s dilemma: Great Expectations, a literary Saturday soirée, or a glass of absinthe?
WRITING PROMPT: If you had a time machine that let you spend one hour in a different time period, where would you go?
“Coming back in time, changing history — that’s cheating,” says Kirk to future Spock in Star Trek, as they prepare for trans-warp beaming. Of course, at the time, Kirk didn’t know he and his crew would do exactly that (at least in the original timeline), when they travel back to 1986 San Francisco in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home — to find humpback whales, invent transparent aluminum in the process, and ultimately save the Earth.
Time travel captures the imagination more than almost any other concept. We often forget that we are already time travelers — moving steadily into the future, second by second. Still, the idea of stepping outside of our timeline, even for an hour, is incredibly tempting. Would you glimpse the future? Relive a personal memory? Witness a historic event?
If I could visit the future, I’d choose an Earth colony in space — without question. But what excites me more is the idea of traveling into the past, simply to observe. Like watching a movie unfold in real time. There’s so much to choose from:
- The fall of the Berlin Wall
- Woodstock
- Apollo 11 descending toward the lunar surface
- The shores of Normandy on D-Day
- Titanic in her final hour
- The first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with the deaf master himself on the stage
- Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel
- The Great Library of Alexandria
And the list goes on…
You could go back to 33 AD to see what really happened, or be a fly on the wall at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, witnessing the forging of religious dogma. Or even further back — to the invention of the first alphabet. Or why not go all the way and watch the first rays of sunlight touch the newborn Earth?
But I wouldn’t choose any of those.
Instead, I’d take a quieter route — snooping around for inspiration to bring back to the present. No transparent aluminum, no whales, no tampering with the timeline. Just one hour of pure creative input.
I’m torn between three possibilities:
One: Visiting Charles Dickens in his study at Gad’s Hill Place as he works on Great Expectations.
“Good day to you, sir,” I’d say.
Perhaps he’d reply, “Would you like a cup of tea, dear?”
I’d ask about his characters — does he create full biographies before writing them? Does he know how the story ends, or does it unfold as he goes? I’d ask him whether he sees himself more as a voice of society or an entertainer. Things like that. And if I told him I was from the future, would he ask, “Am I still remembered? Do people still read my books?”
Two: Swinging by a Saturday soirée at 27 Rue de Fleurus, Paris, in the 1920s. Gertrude Stein’s legendary salon.
Maybe Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, and F. Scott Fitzgerald are there. I imagine Stein seated in her chair with poodle Basket on her lap, while her companion Alice Toklas entertains the wives of the artists.
Three: Wandering the streets of Montmartre at the turn of the 20th century.
This is what I choose.
Writers. Painters. Dreamers.
Yes, we romanticize them — but every era needs its rebels. There was destruction, yes, but also creation. I’ll raise my glass of absinthe to that.
Where would you go?
Conversations with ChatGPT
Here’s a glimpse into our collaboration, highlighting how the piece evolved. The conversation has been slightly edited for clarity and flow.
On finding the through-line
Me: “I think the through-line is creation, right? Should we start with Kirk slingshotting around the sun to show time travel as more than sci-fi — maybe as a metaphor?”
ChatGPT: “Yes! Time travel can be a rescue mission, a way to listen to what’s vanishing — not to rewrite history. That metaphor can open the essay beautifully.”
On setting the tone
Me: “I want the first sentence to ask the time travel question more lyrically — something like: ‘If given the chance for one hour to step outside time and watch history breathe, where would I go?’“
ChatGPT: “That’s a lovely, poetic way to start — it sets a reflective, immersive tone right away.”
On Dickens
Me: “Can we use this scene: Dickens writing late at Gad’s Hill, Miss Havisham behind his eyes? I might speak or maybe not, or I might ask, ‘Do you know how it ends?’“
ChatGPT: “Perfect. Adding that question invites intimacy and suspense, and makes Dickens a character you truly meet, not just a historical figure.”
Me: “He should ask, ‘Do people still read my books?’“
ChatGPT: “Got it! That adds a tender vulnerability to Dickens.”
On Stein‘s salon
Me: “Hemingway has to be there. Who’s the heaviest drinker? Talker?”
ChatGPT: “That’s up for interpretation — Hemingway certainly drank, Stein certainly talked, and Fitzgerald, if he’s there, might be slurring poetry into his wine glass.”
Me: “Basket the poodle also has to be there.”
ChatGPT: “Of course — Basket must be there. That one small detail grounds the scene and adds just the right touch of the domestic to all that creative combustion.”
Before Montmartre
Me: “Before Montmartre, can we reflect a little on some of the places from my list?”
ChatGPT: “We can thread in a few of those iconic moments you listed — Beethoven, Apollo 11, the Library of Alexandria — not in full detail, but as glimmers. It reinforces your choice by showing what you’re not choosing.”
On Montmartre and the ending
Me: “Let’s bring the reader back to the initial question. Or should we just ask, ‘Where would you go?’ And let’s not forget the glass of absinthe….”
ChatGPT: “Closing with a quiet toast to creation, then asking ‘Where would you go?’ ties the essay together beautifully.”
After: The essay
This is the result of a couple of hours’ back-and-forth — from observational blog post to something closer to a finished literary essay. Still a draft. And with both me and ChatGPT in the byline.
Dickens, a literary salon, or Montmartre?
Text: Solveig Hansen / ChatGPT
A time traveler’s dilemma: Great Expectations, a literary Saturday soirée, or a glass of absinthe?
If given the chance for one hour to step outside time and watch history breathe, where would I go? Not to change anything. Not to save the world. Just to witness.
Captain Kirk once slingshotted a spaceship around the sun to travel back in time to find a pair of humpback whales and ultimately save the Earth. That’s the plot of Star Trek IV, and yes, it’s entertaining — but also oddly beautiful. A band of spacefarers, breaking every law of physics not to conquer or correct the past, but to listen to vanishing whale songs. To save a voice the future had forgotten how to hear.
Time travel, for them, wasn’t a weapon. It was a rescue mission.
That’s the version I love.
I think many of us carry that longing — not to rewrite history, but to reach across it. Not to interfere, just to witness. Especially as writers, as artists, as humans drawn to the pulse of creation.
If I had an hour in any time period, I wouldn’t choose to witness a war or a miracle or a crown placed on a royal head.
I’d go somewhere quieter.
I’d go to where the art was still messy. Where the story was still unfolding. Where someone was just beginning to become what history would later call “great.”
📚 I might start with Charles Dickens, in his study at Gad’s Hill Place.
A lamp glows beside the manuscript. The hour is late. The room smells of ink and smoke and something faintly sweet — perhaps tea gone cold.
He’s writing Great Expectations. Miss Havisham lives behind his eyes. Pip is still finding his shape. The ending hasn’t settled yet.
I wouldn’t speak. Or maybe I would. Maybe I’d ask, “Do you know how it ends?”
And if I told him I was from the future, would he ask, “Do people still read my books?”
🍷 I’d slip quietly into a Saturday soirée at 27 Rue de Fleurus in 1920s Paris. Gertrude Stein’s place.
The room glows amber with lamplight and cigarette smoke. Ideas swirl. Conversations layer and clash — art, politics, desire, syntax — as if the air itself might catch fire from the friction.
Gertrude Stein presides from her armchair like a general of genius, Basket the poodle in her lap, a quiet command behind her stillness. Her companion Alice Toklas moves through the room with practiced calm, keeping the energy just shy of chaos.
Hemingway leans against the fireplace, young and sharp-edged, already on his third drink. He talks loudly, maybe too loudly — determined to be heard, to be taken seriously. Picasso lounges on a divan, eyes half-lidded, amused. Matisse bristles. Fitzgerald is in the corner, half-golden and half-lost, slurring poetry into his wine glass.
It’s not just a gathering — it’s a combustion. A collision of egos and ideas. No one knows which fragment of conversation might become literature. Which sketch might hang in a museum. Which sentence will last a hundred years.
But for now, it’s only noise and brilliance and night.
🌟 There are bigger moments, of course. Louder ones.
I could stand in the crowd as the Berlin Wall cracks open, or follow the astronauts of Apollo 11 as they descend toward the lunar surface. I could sit quietly in a corner and watch Beethoven carving sound out of silence — before the Ninth becomes the Ninth — or wander the aisles of the Great Library of Alexandria while it still breathes with knowledge.
History is full of thunder.
But what draws me isn’t thunder.
It’s the quiet, unruly hour before something beautiful exists.
Before the painter names the first stroke. Before the sentence settles on the page. Before anyone knows what it will become.
🎨 And that’s why, if given one hour, I’d walk the hills of Montmartre at the turn of the 20th century.
Before the postcards. Before the legend calcified. When the streets still smelled of turpentine and wine, and the cafés buzzed with too many ideas and not enough money. Painters argued over light. Poets borrowed each other’s coats. The wind carried both music and laundry.
Picasso sketches on a napkin. Modigliani falls in love. A woman with dark eyes hums a melody no one will ever record. Posters peel from the walls, advertising performances that changed no one’s life — except maybe the performer’s.
No one was famous yet.
They were just trying — and failing — and trying again. Dreaming out loud. Building something that might outlast them, or might not.
That’s the hour I want.
Not the masterpiece. Not the myth.
The moment before it all coheres — when the future is still wide open, and everyone’s reaching toward it with stained hands.
I’d sit at a café table with a glass of absinthe and say nothing at all.
Just watch. Just listen.
🥂 And raise a quiet toast to creation, still in progress.
Where would you go?
Image: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay
Z for short. 
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