All actual or imaginary characters are treated as fiction. Any resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental. The author’s imagination and hard work brought this work of fiction to life. At no point in this body of work has Artificial Intelligence (AI) been employed to write it. Use of this work to train Artificial Intelligence is a violation of copyright and is expressly prohibited. Errors are the author’s own. He humbly apologizes in advance for any inconvenience or discomfort this may cause.
Readers will find this statement on the Copyright page at the front of my books and stories. Sad to say, but this is not the original injunction that graced the pages of The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey in 2016. However, changes in the digital world necessitated changes to the printed work.
Technology is a wonderful thing: mostly. Unlike Jane Austen in 1815, Austenesque authors today need not sharpen quills, live with an ink-stained hand, and cross out words and lines to craft the right story. We do not need to rush down to the stationer to purchase another pack of paper. Our research horizons are limitless, whereas Miss Austen’s were constrained by the speed of the post and her father’s library. Our work exists in a digital universe much in the same manner that the Lady’s stories lived in the little writing desk at Chawton Cottage.
That is the “good” of the computer age. My writing career has spanned from those early days at the Glendale News Press and Pasadena Star in 1982, where the computer was housed in a room chilled to near-subarctic temperatures, to the modern age, where worn laptops are stacked on the floor of my closet. My observations on the current debate over the use of artificial intelligence (AI) software arise from a context spanning the forty-odd years of personal computing.
Okay: what follows are my observations and not an indictment of any author.
My friend, Carol Manson, penned the following post in the Jane Austen Fan Fiction Authors of the Jane Austen Fan Club Facebook site:
“This is a bit off topic, but it might be interesting to those of you who like JAFF, as I do. I was “testing” the free version ChatGPT, and because I am currently editing something for a JAFF author, I chose to use a JAFF-themed prompt: “Write a paragraph in the style of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as if the protagonist Elizabeth was not a Bennet but a Fitzwilliam.” The response was SCARY–scary because it is “not bad.”
Carol’s experiment appears next. This is what the AI generated. As she noted, it is “not bad.” Truthfully, I have read much worse (including many of my drafts) that is put out for sale. You can be the judge.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Fitzwilliam of good fortune must be in want of a wife. And so it was with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a proud and reserved gentlemen of considerable wealth and standing. When he met Miss Elizabeth Fitzwilliam at a ball in Meryton, he was immediately struck by her intelligence, with, and independent spirit. But as the daughter of a distant relative, Elizabeth was not considered a suitable match for a man of Darcy’s social rank. Despite their mutual attraction, they were each determined to maintain their distance, for fear of causing scandal or bringing shame upon their families. But as they continued to cross paths, they found themselves drawn inexorably to one another, even as they struggled to overcome their own pride and prejudices. In a world where class and reputation were everything, could love truly conquer all?”
Word Count: 144
The purpose of this column is not to analyze the above paragraph, but to ask about the reason any author would use AI to write a story. I can only repeat what I have “heard” on the feeds. I apologize if it comes across like flabby info-tainment “journalism” that utilizes the “some people are saying” model of innuendo.
There seems to be only one reason to use AI if we listen to the inside voice hiding behind a lot of public virtue.
I need to produce three, four, or five books every year.
Why?
Austen published six books over an eight-year stretch (ignore the “burp” with Northanger). Harper Lee published one book in her lifetime. J.D. Salinger’s reclusive behavior defied publishers’ efforts to get more books from him. Hemingway published two novellas and seven novels (two posthumous) from the 1920s until his suicide in 1961.
One of my writing friends, Scott Blade, produces four best-selling novels a year. I sit across from him at Starbucks as he writes: no AI for Scott! Scott has a friend, Bob, who writes a western novella/novel every month. His business is incredibly healthy, all without AI assistance.
Back in the day, there were authors who would pay ghostwriters to help crank out multiple stories a year. Then again, that often was driven by publishers seeking to feed the beast. They wanted to sell hundreds of thousands of copies at $1.99 and needed to punch out dozens every year to keep the investors grinning.
Then there was Erle Stanley Gardner, who published eighty-three books in forty years, 1933-73. These were 40,000 to 60,000-word quick reads, analogous to today’s short novels or long novellas. Gardner rarely published more than three a year. But I wonder how many he might have produced if he had not had to stop every 250 words to turn a fresh sheet of paper.
So what is the need for generative AI? Why would authors completely abdicate their roles as creators? And stop right there before you suggest that going over and editing AI-produced copy is asserting authorial rather than editorial control. That is assistive AI and has been around since spell-checking software was invented in the early 1970s.
Please do not argue that using a grammar/spelling software like Grammarly “is the same thing as generative AI.” I use Grammarly. It will suggest a sentence rewrite, but it does not alter much except phrase/word placement. Some of the changes it offers ruin the flow and render the work nonsensical.
And Grammarly does not insert its own copy into a blank space, unlike the 144 words above.
So, why would an author abdicate their creative role?
Simple…and it is the same one I mentioned a few paragraphs above: sales—both in the form of actual e-books delivered as well as page reads. If someone can produce for Amazon consumption 1,200 pages every year (see, for example, my P&P/Persuasion variation—The Sailor’s Rest—which clocks in at about 430 Kindle pages), they stand to earn a lot.
Here’s the math of how self-published authors are compensated by Amazon:
Sales: 70% of cover price (so, a $6.00 book sold will send $4.20 to the author)
or
Page Reads: $.004 per page read.
If only 1,000 people read 1,000 pages, the author would see $4,000.00. Yet we all know that the Austenesque reading community is much larger than 1,000 people worldwide.
I do not care if Scott Blade makes six figures a year publishing four books. Those in the Austenesque community know that I could not care less if Melanie Rachel or Nicole Clarkston sell piles of books and get a zillion (bazillion) page reads.
Would I like my books to sell a lot? Sure! But what I publish is my work, written with my full understanding of what I have laid down. You may not like it. You may savage the book in a review. But, whatever you think about the book, you never have to doubt that you are thinking it about MY work, not that of some machine trained by sampling all sorts of Austen Romance fiction from the forums.
Maybe folks who use AI should credit their books as “By Jane Smith, as told by Univac.”
I do see a time when ironic and satirical books will be released, with the machine writing them and humans editing, and the machine getting the “by HAL9000” authorial credit. Until then, “By Don Jacobson” will mean just that.
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Some news: my 2025 novel Ghost Flight: A World War II Pride and Prejudice Variation has been named a semifinalist in the 2025 CIBA Hemingway Awards for 20th/21st-Century Wartime Fiction. This a huge honor and a rare one in our genre.
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Please enjoy the following excerpt from a Work-In-Progress, The Ambassador’s Wife, that is 100% written by Don Jacobson. © 2026 by Donald P. Jacobson. All rights reserved. Reproduction is prohibited.
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This story is set in 1819 at the Constantinople British Embassy and Residence. General Lord Richard Fitzwilliam, the “M” of British intelligence, his wife Lady Kate Fitzwilliam, her friend Anne Wilson and her husband Regimental Sergeant Major Henry Wilson, and the former Longbourn footman have come to the Ottoman Empire’s capital. The baron carries a draft treaty to be presented to the sultan’s vizier. Other nations—Russia and France—need to know the terms London is offering.
Smythe’s bedchamber, 5:15 am
As catacombs went, a bedchamber in the British Residence was not the stuff of Gothic musings, filled with rodents scurrying, dripping moss, disturbed coffins, and crumbling stone. This struck as a high medieval painting—wan pigments portraying rich trappings that highlighted Death’s leveling poverty. Dawn’s strengthening rays pushed shadows into wood-paneled corners and drew a bright circle around the mortal remains of Major Edward Wallingsham-Smythe. All that was lacking were the requisite angels and demons hovering over the poor man, preparing to struggle for his soul.
Struggle served, for to all in the room, Smythe’s end had neither been sudden nor peaceful, although how fraught would demand closer study.
Once the hallway had been cleared of onlookers, the Five moved into the room, each assignment defined by their peculiar talents. Foote and the sergeant played the hounds, sniffing in corners, flipping wall hangings, dropping low to look beneath the armchair and the fireplace table, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The general and Mrs. Wilson cataloged the corpse. The baroness was the beachmaster watching her forces move from the boats toward their first positions, scanning the tableau to assemble the victim’s last moments.
Kate’s discerning eye found ample thread stock to weave her tapestry.
Smythe’s end was, as young Miss Baird had told Anne, anything but peaceful. Kate could not know how long ago his last moment had been…
“Dead under four hours since rigor has not set in,” Fitzwilliam intoned.
Anne refined his conclusion; her hand slid beneath Smythe’s nightshirt’s hem, probing his abdomen. “I would offer, sir, that he has been gone for only about two hours, given how his skin remains warmed by his viscera.
“And lividity is apparent in his face, throat, and,” she flipped open his collar, its drawstrings snapped, “chest, but not as pronounced as if he had died shortly after you had dismissed your guests to bed. When was that? Just after midnight?”
Fitzwilliam grimaced as he settled back on his haunches, years of war stiffening his knees. “So, somewhere around three in the morning, eh? They say that death’s minions approach on slippered feet, ready to whisk you off without disturbing you.
“That’s an end granted to very few, to slide under the quilt, your head full of tomorrow’s plans, only to have Atropos’s shears snip your thread whilst you are floating in Morpheus’s arms.
“Smythe must have spent his last moments with Hades cavalry stampeding in his ears.”
Already solemn as he viewed Smythe’s final pose, the baron tamped down any attempt by his habitual sardonic humor to lift its head. Instead, he waxed somber as he recreated the major’s ending. “He knew something was wrong. If, as the maid told us, Smythe regularly drank himself to sleep, whatever brought his demise was intense enough to cut through the haze.
“The broken draw string at his neck is suggestive, although I am surprised he had the dexterity to tie a bow when in his cups. The scratches around his neck seal it. He inflicted those himself, not another trying to choke him. See the blood under his nails?
“No, Smythe had sobered enough so that when his breath shortened, he awakened to fight for his life against an invisible hand, one that slowly squeezed every last breath from paralyzed lungs.”
Anne softly added, “Cantarella or maybe belladonna, although that’s slow acting.”
Fitzwilliam cocked his head to one side. She satisfied his query. “Cantarella was Lucrezia Borgia’s special seasoning for her family’s rivals. Natural philosophers have spent centuries trying to recreate it. They’ve guessed that the main ingredient was an arsenic salt.[i]
“The major was poisoned. See the white crust on his lips? One of a body’s final acts is to try to expel the toxin by vomiting, although that is sadly too late with vital forces fading because of the damage already done.”
Foote and Wilson had completed their first circuit and awaited instructions. The baroness pointed at the gauzy undercurtain and made a sweeping motion. As the room brightened, Kate looked past the sprawled cadaver and focused on the furnishings near the head of the bed. A lone wineglass on the end table caught her attention. Stepping behind Anne and over Smythe’s right hand—which also attracted her with something she filed away for later consideration—Kate bent over the glass, sniffing the dregs. She had to inhale deeply to counteract the miasma rising from the soiled bedclothes. But, she prevailed and discerned a scent, faint but sweet.
Her foot brushed against something next to a table leg: a wine bottle. Rescuing it from the room’s deep, she again put her nose to work. The wine’s scent tweaked her nostrils with its tannic trace, preserved by the sediment thrown by a good claret from the Gironde Estuary. Even though the flagon had been open for hours, the characteristic plummy minerality stood out. In the baroness’s experience, such wine rarely impressed as sugary.
One more comparison with the goblet firmed her conviction. “Poison, you say, Anne? I agree.” Pointing at the glass and holding up the bottle, she continued. “The wine in this glass is adulterated and smells nothing like what remains in the bottle. Since I have plans for the rest of my life, including plaguing my husband with unreasonable demands, I refuse to play food taster to compare.”
Kate twisted her lips in thought. “We can agree that Major Smythe was not the type to take the Roman way out of his misery. Our good Edward was no Cicero. In fact, I doubt if he paused to think about much except his next meal or, sadly for him, his next bottle. The idea of ending it all would never have occurred to him. He was too selfish.
“His regiment would have a rude awakening if they had left a loaded pistol in his rooms with the inference being he would do the right thing to spare the mess dishonor. Smythe would probably come out with the weapon, asking, ‘I say, chaps, which is the business end of this thing? One needs to be careful lest one has an unfortunate accident whilst cleaning it.’”
Returning the bottle to the floor, Lady St. Jean peered at the occasional table. “Foote: Please bring that candle closer.” Her china-blue eye scrutinized the glimmering surface.
One minute passed, then another half. Finally, Kate straightened and knuckled her lower back with a sigh. “Observation leads to confirmation. The major did not drink alone, but the other party took their chalice when they departed. Its foot left the slightest ring in the polish. I imagine Mrs. MacIntyre insists that her people buff the furniture every day or two to keep a good coat of wax lest visitors think the house lax.”
“No, someone helped him on his way, someone he trusted.”
[i] A legendary form of arsenic, pleasant tasting, a form of arsenic allegedly used by the Borgias to poison rivals. Death occurs in two to twenty-four hours after ingestion.
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