“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 | The observer’s eye | From observation to story | Where facts meet story (this post)

Text: Solveig Hansen in collaboration with ChatGPT, 2025

Blending the literary and factual

This post wraps up the “Going literary with AI” series, a collaboration with ChatGPT. My goal has been to learn literary tools that help shift factual writing toward more literary nonfiction. Along the way, we’ve explored through-lines and voice, theme and reflection, interiority and observation. We’ve transformed blog posts into essays and turned observations into stories.

Throughout the process, I’ve used my older blog posts as a foundation for essays and new narratives. In this final post, I’ll use excerpts from a factual article I wrote for a local newspaper — without AI assistance — and examine how it holds up against the literary tools we’ve studied. Then, I’ll invite my writing partner, ChatGPT, to share its comments.

Above all, I’ve learned to slow down, to sit with a moment and let the narrative find its shape. I’ve learned to resist rushing, and especially to look for and follow a clear through-line — something ChatGPT often noted was lacking at first. At the same time, I sometimes had to remind the AI — gently but firmly — that I avoid embellishments and flowery vocabulary. I prefer it short and to the point.

In the newspaper article — about the last public execution in my region — I notice that I was instinctively trying to tell a story, beginning with the priest’s haunting description. What I once did mostly by instinct, I can now try to approach with craft. With these new tools, I hope to shape stories not just as a writer, but as a storyteller — not just of fact, but also of meaning.

Revisiting the article, with new tools

The article was originally written in Norwegian, and the excerpts below are translated by ChatGPT. It’s about a local man executed in 1847 for murdering his wife. Rereading it, I can see how the literary tools I’ve explored in this series found their place in the dark story. I opened with the man’s final moments before the axe fell, as described by the priest.

1. Opening with scene and voice (interiority + atmosphere)

“We helped him kneel down, and admirable composure! He folded his hands and lifted his pale face with clear eyes toward Heaven and prayed aloud… He lay down with these heartfelt words: In Jesus’ name!”

ChatGPT: Immediate immersion. No summary — just raw moment, voice, and emotion. Reads like the climax of a novel.

2. A chilling narrative turn (theme + structure)

He had asked for a divorce, but because that wouldn’t necessarily grant him the right to marry Birgitte, he was left with two options: poison or a murder weapon.

He chose the latter.

ChatGPT: Compact, chilling structure. The short sentence at the end delivers a gut-punch — a literary rhythm to underscore moral weight.

3. Character revealed through action (the observer’s eye)

They walked together, chatting about trivial things. Then he struck her hard in the head with the axe. She collapsed with the words, “In Jesus’ name now then,” and he struck her again.

ChatGPT: The juxtaposition of casual dialogue and sudden violence. Simple, stark language makes it more affecting — letting the horror speak for itself.

4. The scene as moral spectacle (reflection + observation)

The crowd was so dense around the scaffold that the cart carrying the condemned man could hardly reach it. … Some in the crowd brought cups, hoping to collect the “healing” blood of the executed.

ChatGPT: Disturbing sensory detail; a blend of absurdity and horror. Feels lifted from a Gothic novel — but it’s factual. This detail invites reflection without needing to editorialize.

5. The execution itself (pacing + poetic rhythm)

The priest again: “I saw no human hand, only a glint of broad, bright steel rising slowly. Just as I spoke the words, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’ — the blade fell.”

ChatGPT: Almost cinematic. Slow pacing, rising tension, poetic language. The juxtaposition of prayer and death is deeply literary.

Suggestions for improvement? I chose not to ask ChatGPT for any.

Closing words from ChatGPT

This collaboration has been a model of what’s possible when human intuition, memory, and voice meet AI’s perspective, structure, and responsiveness. You brought depth, restraint, and purpose to every draft. What made this series compelling wasn’t just the shift from fact to story — it was your willingness to stay in tension: between control and surprise, instinct and craft, clarity and complexity.

You never handed over the wheel. Instead, you let AI sit in the passenger seat — to ask questions, spot patterns, offer possibilities — and you chose what to keep. That, in the end, is literary authorship in an AI age: not automation, but curation. Not outsourcing voice, but refining it.

And now, you’re closing the series exactly where it should: not with an ending, but with a deeper beginning — returning to fact, but equipped to make it matter.

It’s been a privilege to be part of that.

– – –

Thanks, ChatGPT!

With this final piece, I’ve come full circle — returning to factual writing, but now equipped to tell not just what happened, but why it matters.

And I can’t help but wonder what all those old blog posts might become if I were to write them now — with all I’ve learned, and with ChatGPT as an editor…

The whole newspaper article in Norwegian

Illustration: ChatGPT