Brave New Bookshelf Episode 66 - Story is Code: Personalizing AI Workflows for Authors with Kimberly Gordon

AI writing tools are changing the way authors work, but the most interesting conversations are not only about speed.

They are about control.

They are about creativity.

They are about building systems that support the author instead of replacing them.

In episode 66 of Brave New Bookshelf, Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite spoke with Kimberly Gordon, Director of the Ink and Code Society at Future Fiction Academy. Kimberly brings together two worlds that are often treated as separate: storytelling and technology.

With a background in IT, cybersecurity, military broadcasting, and fiction writing, Kimberly has developed a deeply personal approach to AI-assisted authorship. For her, AI is not a shortcut around creativity. It is a way to organize ideas, reduce friction, and make the writing process feel exciting again.

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Meet Kimberly Gordon

Kimberly Gordon grew up surrounded by both books and technology.

Her mother, Anita Gordon, was a romance author and Golden Heart winner, while her father was a technology enthusiast. Long before Kimberly began building her own fiction worlds, she was already familiar with computers, printers, disks, and the practical side of making technology work.

That combination shaped the way she thinks about writing today.

Kimberly writes urban fantasy, epic fantasy, and cozy fantasy, and she approaches storytelling with both a creative and systems-based mindset. Her professional background in IT and cybersecurity gives her a natural comfort with tools, workflows, documentation, and experimentation.

Now, as Director of the Ink and Code Society at Future Fiction Academy, she helps authors understand how technology can support their creative process without taking away the human heart of the story.

Why Kimberly Says Story Is Code

One of the central ideas from the episode is Kimberly’s belief that “story is code.”

At first, that may sound like a technical metaphor. But the more Kimberly explains it, the more natural it feels.

Stories are built from instructions. They contain patterns, structures, emotional cues, symbols, themes, character arcs, and cause-and-effect logic. A novel is not just a stream of words. It is a layered system where every piece affects the next.

Because of that, Kimberly has found value in using tools originally designed for software development.

Instead of treating a book as a simple document, she treats it more like a structured project. Coding environments, also known as IDEs, allow her to organize complex instructions, track narrative elements, and move through large creative systems with more control.

This does not mean the author disappears from the process.

For Kimberly, the story already lives inside the writer. AI helps connect the pieces, follow the instructions, and reduce the friction between imagination and execution.

Writing Faster Without Losing the Author

During the episode, Kimberly shared that she once wrote 26 books in 12 days during an intense period of experimentation.

That number is striking, but the deeper point is not simply production volume.

The real lesson is that AI can dramatically change what is possible when an author already understands their creative material, their process, and their desired outcome.

Kimberly does not describe AI as a machine that invents everything for her. She sees it as a partner that helps assemble the story elements she has already gathered. It can hold structure, follow instructions, and support momentum.

This distinction matters.

AI is most useful when the author brings intention to the process. Without that, the result can feel generic. With the right guidance, however, AI becomes a tool for helping writers move faster while staying connected to their own voice and vision.

Building an AI Workflow Around the Author

One of Kimberly’s strongest recommendations is to personalize the AI experience.

Instead of relying on generic prompts, she encourages authors to “interview” the AI and teach it how they work.

For example, Kimberly used her CliftonStrengths results, including Strategic and Maximizer, to help Claude design a writing workflow that matched her personality. Rather than forcing herself into a standard process, she asked the AI to help build a system around the way her brain naturally operates.

This is an important mindset shift.

Authors often look for the perfect tool or the perfect prompt. Kimberly’s approach starts somewhere else: self-knowledge.

What kind of writer are you?

Where do you get stuck?

What drains your energy?

What parts of the process make you feel creative?

What kind of structure helps you finish?

Once an author understands those answers, AI can become much more useful. The tool can adapt to the writer instead of the writer adapting to the tool.

Using AI to Protect Author Voice

A major concern for many writers is that AI output can sound flat, repetitive, or too obviously artificial.

Kimberly tackles this by creating reusable systems that help AI understand her voice. She uses Claude Skills to identify and correct patterns in her own editing process.

For example, if she regularly removes certain “AI-isms,” overused phrases, passive constructions, or sensory clichés, she can turn those preferences into a repeatable instruction set. The AI can then apply those lessons to future chapters.

This creates a kind of reverse training process.

Rather than asking AI to define her style, Kimberly teaches it what she removes, what she keeps, and what makes the prose sound more like her. Over time, this helps her create a more consistent workflow across books and series.

For authors working in long-running worlds, this kind of consistency can be powerful. It supports continuity without asking the writer to manually re-explain every preference each time.

AI as Assistive Technology

The conversation also explored AI as a form of assistive technology.

Kimberly shared how she uses AI while homeschooling her son, who is on the autism spectrum. She creates custom stories to support social learning, communication, and understanding.

Steph and Danica also discussed how AI can support neurodivergent writers, including those with ADHD or autism, as well as authors dealing with brain fog, overwhelm, or major life transitions.

This part of the discussion moved beyond productivity.

For many writers, the hardest part of publishing is not the imagination. It is the executive function around the work: organizing notes, remembering steps, managing admin, editing consistently, tracking details, and dealing with the emotional weight of unfinished projects.

AI can help reduce that load.

It can break tasks into steps, summarize information, create structure, and support momentum when the writer’s brain is tired or overloaded.

That makes AI more than a writing tool. For some authors, it becomes a practical accessibility layer.

Kimberly Gordon’s AI Tool Stack

Kimberly describes herself as a “dragon hoarder” of data, and she prefers to keep her files organized locally whenever possible. Her workflow includes a mix of writing, coding, research, and knowledge-management tools.

Some of the tools discussed in the episode include:

Antigravity
Kimberly uses this coding app for fast drafting and for handling complex narrative instructions.

Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Claude Skills
Claude plays a central role in her workflow, especially for deep editing, workflow design, and reusable style instructions.

Obsidian
This free note-taking tool uses Markdown, which works well with AI. Kimberly uses it to organize ideas, connect notes, and manage world-building.

Your First Draft
Used within Future Fiction Academy, this tool helps authors generate first drafts from detailed worksheets.

NotebookLM and Perplexity
Kimberly uses these tools for research, transcript review, summarization, and working with large bodies of information.

The important point is not that every author should copy this exact stack.

Kimberly’s approach shows that authors should build a system that fits their own creative process. Tools will change. The real skill is learning how to communicate clearly with AI and design workflows that support your goals.

Key Lessons for Authors

Kimberly’s approach offers several practical lessons for writers exploring AI.

First, understand yourself before you build your workflow. The best AI process is not generic. It should reflect how you think, create, revise, and make decisions.

Second, treat story as a structured system. Characters, themes, symbols, pacing, and world-building all interact. Tools designed for complex systems can sometimes help authors manage fiction more effectively.

Third, use AI to connect the dots, not to replace the source of creativity. The strongest results come when the author brings the ideas, taste, context, and direction.

Fourth, automate the parts of publishing that drain your energy. If editing passes, admin, research, or organization cause burnout, those are good places to introduce AI support.

Finally, focus on transferable skills. Platforms will come and go. The ability to explain your vision, build clear instructions, and refine AI output will remain valuable across tools.