Mia Ballard 'Shy girl' rejection prompts writers to alter prose

Technology Nov 02, 2026

Writers are now tweaking how they write just to avoid being mistaken for AI by detection software.

Mia Ballard's book Shy Girl was flagged as mostly AI-generated and got rejected, just because of the way it was written.

Now, authors are cutting out things like em dashes and certain words to dodge these false alarms.

Writers lose jobs over AI accusations

It's not just authors feeling the pressure: journalists have even lost jobs over accusations of using AI.

Some writers, like Jerry Falade, have missed out on big deals because of these tools.

All this is pushing people toward a weird mix of human and AI-influenced language, making everyone wonder what "real" writing even means anymore.