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Writing in the time of ChatGPT: Dubai-based journalist and author on the importance of human storytelling in the age of AI

Sara Hamdan, who bagged a two-book deal with the American publishing giant Holt that has published literary greats like Toni Morrison and Hilary Mantel, talks about the long road to getting published and why good writing still has a place in our fast-paced lives

We are often told attention is the highest form of respect. And yet, it is a truth universally acknowledged that our attention spans are on a free fall, thanks in part to doomscrolling on social media and other technologies that have sought to make our life easier. But what does it even mean to be human when your ability to absorb has dwindled considerably? What does it mean to be an author when ChatGPT promises to turn everyone into a writer? A professional writer may write in order to pay bills. But a career writer writes in order to be read, understood, challenged and deconstructed. Which is why, it is heartening to hear stories of those resilient professionals who moved mountains to have their stories being told. Dubai-based journalist-turned-author Sara Hamdan is one of them.

Last week, a piece of news that turned our gaze (and attention) to writing centred on a Dubai-based writer bagging a two-book deal with the American publisher, Holt, that has published the likes of Hilary Mantel and Toni Morrison. If this was a reason for celebration, it was because the writer in the middle of this media frenzy had waited almost a decade for the story to be told. And finally, when it did, she had three publishing houses bidding for the rights, who’d all “come in six figures”. All those years of yearning to be a writer, the half-an-hour break in the mornings to write the novel, to let the characters flesh out as she thought of them while picking her two children up from their school, the pain of rejection and the resilience of not giving up had paid off. That moment when Sara was informed of this feat also answered the title of her book at the centre of the media frenzy — What Will People Think? People were proud.

The novel, which will be published in early 2025, revolves around Mia, a Palestinian-American girl whose day job sees her working as a fact-checker in a publishing house. By evening, however, she begins to don the hat of a stand-up comedian, but in secret. Add to it, the crush she has on her boss and chancing upon a diary detailing an illicit love affair in Palestine of 1947, and you already have a novel with many layers of inquiry and ambiguity. The main themes of the book, says Sara, are self-discovery and reserving the right to love whoever you want. But as is evident from her protagonist, What Will People Think? deep dives into the idea of dissecting third culture identity. For Sara, who was born in Kuwait, raised in Greece and has an American passport, this question is important. “I grew up without stories where there were strong Arab female leads,” says Sara. “And while I watched every single J Lo and Jennifer Aniston film, I never saw myself being reflected in these stories. It means so much to be able to see yourself in stories to realise that the problems you have are not singular, that others share them.”

Putting a Palestinian-American protagonist at the heart of her story is an attempt to open that dialogue on the importance of representation, even though as an avid traveller, she hopes to write various kinds of stories centred on various kinds of people. “Representation is becoming very important. Publishers will tell you that there even is a push for diversity. I also think it’s moved from being a niche or regional focus to something that’s bigger. My novel isn’t coming out from the Middle East and other people around the world are now reading it. It’s going straight into the biggest market in the biggest way. I was, in fact, worried about being pigeonholed, but one thing that my editor told me when we met that also meant a lot to me was — ‘You’re an excellent writer and we want any story you can tell. And that’s why I got a two-book deal, not one.’”

The stand-up comedy part in the novel, however, comes from a personal anecdote where Sara’s husband, while helping her address the fear of public speaking, enrolled her for stand-up comedy classes. “I used to be absolutely terrified of public speaking and as a journalist, you get opportunities to moderate conferences, and it helps take your career to the next level. I would always turn them down because the idea of getting up and have all these people stare at me would set my heart racing. So, my husband suggested I enroll myself in a standup comedy course and every Saturday for six weeks, three hours each, I would get up and practise these jokes and how to stand,” recalls Sara, adding that tackling her fear helped her in that she consciously seeks public speaking opportunities now. “I have given a creative writing workshop at Harvard university and also moderated women in leadership forum in Dubai.”

Nine years ago, before she was pregnant with her first child, Sara came up with the idea that has taken the shape of What Will People Think? The novel was written in phases — 30 minutes put aside every morning to continue writing it, two pregnancies that led her to halt the project for a while, and hustling in a fulltime job to have the safety net that allows one to fulfill their passion. “I see why many people quit this,” she says. “It takes a lot of work — to reach out to other editors to make sure there is an objective eye glancing through your work and to keep coming back to the same work again and again to edit and give it a shape.”

Often, it only takes a small feat for a desire to turn into a calling. For Sara, it was winning the Netflix Short Story competition. “There was a Twitter competition run by the Netflix handle. They wanted people to submit a one-page story with a main character that had the same background as the writer.” The year was 2020 and the pandemic had robbed us of all the certainties we thought we could fall back on. Reaching out to her drawer that housed something Sara had penned a decade ago, she began making small tweaks. More than a story, it was a scene from two Palestinian-American girls’ lives in New York, who are at home and praying. Soon after, they prepare to leave to meet friends and the conversation veers towards a boy they seem to like. “That idea too examined third culture identity — how you behave a certain way with your family, isn’t how you will behave with a friend. And how people are forced to find a halfway house of identity.”

Sara turned out to be the first runner-up and she had to head to London to accept the award, dressed in a resplendent Rami Al Ali outfit. That moment also cemented her resolve to finish the novel that had seen a few rejections by then. It also helped that Sara went on to win the First Chapter ELF Seddiqi Writer’s Fellowship. “A writer’s job can be very solitary. Before the fellowship, I had written another novel that I’d submitted and got over 12 rejections. I had reached a low point where I thought this was never going to happen for me. The fellowship gave me a much-needed nudge. I had a dedicated mentor, an Icelandic crime thriller novelist who helped me structure the novel. Having someone who wrote murder mysteries helped me bring so much newness to my book, which deals with stand-up comedy and culture. Then, there were bestselling authors who would conduct regular workshops with us. For the first time, I began to believe I am a writer.”

The importance of that belief cannot be emphasised on enough, because being a writer comes with so many caveats. Before you claim to be one, you have to secure a safety net just in case things do not go as planned. After spending years in journalism, that safety net came in the form of a job with an American tech company where she currently holds the post of a managing editor. Now that she is on the other side, Sara says she witnesses first-hand how fast tech is changing and defining our lives — even storytelling. “You know that question they ask during job interviews — where do you see yourself in the next five years? Well, I have no idea what the next six months are going to look like because tech is moving so quickly. When I first started out in journalism, my dream was to be the editor-in-chief of a travel magazine. And nowadays you have influencers taking over that market because audiences crave a very personal storytelling.”

While technologies that have pervaded into traditional media are dictating a change of process, Sara is hopeful that the literary space will remain untainted. “Nobody can predict how things will shape in the future. But for now, ChatGPT cannot write books,” she laughs. “When it comes to elements like humour and emotion, humans still have the edge. Speaking with my author hat, I would say I am in a lucky position to have a job in an industry that is changing so quickly and that serves as a safety net to my creative work.”

Technology, however, will reign supreme in her next novel, tentatively titled Disconnected. “It’s about a woman who is addicted to the tech world. She stays in her room and is connected with the world through tech. But then suddenly, she is offered a promotion and in order to accept it, she has to prove she can still have normal human relationships. So, she is sent to a Greek island with no WiFi at all. It’s a funny look at how technology has influenced us.”

This novel, written during the pandemic, has faced 12 rejections. But Sara being a resilient learner has chosen to take these rejections in her stride. In fact, she maintains that the mental clarity rejection offers lays down the path for the road ahead. “I remember those rejections got me crying-in-the-shower down, but you have to go through that to realise you cannot write something that everyone will love. If you write your truth, the right person will recognise it. With each rejection, you have to reckon with yourself how much you want it,” she says. “Just write, and magic will happen.”

anamika@khaleejtimes.com