AI, authors and the business of telling stories—with Katherine Pathak
Could AI help a prolific novelist keep up with her own imagination? And how different is an AI continuing a successful series from a ghostwriter—or an author’s family—taking over?
This week I’m joined by crime writer Katherine Pathak, author of the best selling DCI Dani Bevan series, to talk about her new book, Red Red Rose, and what AI might mean for writers, readers and publishing.
We explore the possibilities for producing and abridging audiobooks, adapting novels for the screen, and keeping much-loved characters alive after their creators want to move on. Along the way, we discuss celebrity authors, the appeal of a recognisable human voice, and why fictional characters spend so much time drinking tea and dragging their hands through their hair.
Katherine and I don’t agree on everything—particularly whether readers will always want human authors. But we find plenty of interesting parallels between possible uses of AI and how publishing already works.
In this episode:
00:00 Introducing Katherine and Red Red Rose
01:40 Human authors in an age of AI
03:39 Audiobooks, abridgement and adaptations
10:50 When audiobook production becomes a bottleneck
12:14 Successful series, reluctant creators and literary successors
19:46 Can AI create the next big literary brand?
24:39 Do you want AI to copy your voice?
25:17 Crime fiction, motives and what AI might learn from our stories
31:22 Celebrity authors, ghostwriters and the value of a name
35:17 Cups of tea, sighing and the habits that give writers away
38:23 Why setting matters—and the appeal of British crime fiction
40:24 AI’s role in the work surrounding the writing
The DCI Dani Bevan series and the Alice Mann series, set in Scotland, and the Imogen Croft series, set in Essex, are all available on Amazon by Katherine Pathak and they are very readable. I always finish them in one sitting
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