I'm currently posting here a 10-chapter Novella called "Project Mnemosyne," written with the assistance of Chat GPT, but with extensive, long, detailed prompts and post-edits. It seems to be getting good reviews, even from people I consider some of the best posting on BC or anywhere.
I've done another story, very different in tone from the Novella but also rather different from anything I have written previously. Still, this has more input from me to begin with and more editing by me, too.
It's a short story called "Another Round". I'm probably going to post it later today. I'm trying to make sure everyone knows what it is because I don't want anyone to think I am forcing my experimental assisted fiction on them. Just read the tags and you will be forewarned.
Thank you,
Suzan
Comments
Tools
I like to think that there's a world of difference between using a tool and being idiotic with it. You use the tool, and it helps you do your job, that's fine.
-- Daphne Xu
My technique
My method is to spend time describing what I want to do with the story to the AI, like setting, characters, certain incidents and plot points. Then I write an extensive prompt for a scene. I examine the scene produced and perhaps suggest changes or corrections, get those then perhaps more discussion before writing an extensive prompt (200-300 words usually) for another scene.
Once I have all the scenes for a story or a chapter, I stitch them together and do at least two editing passes. If there are chapters, I stitch the chapters together and do at least another editing pass on the whole thing. When I edit, I'm correcting minor things, deleting some passages that don't work and writing new passages. Edited sequences typically end up 10-50% longer.
Even with all that work, using the AI allows me to produce 2000 finished words a day, compared to my normal 500-1000 (on good days).
Suzan
AI...
That is "fine", I feel like an AI...
That barely computes...
Gwen, the AI
Heh!
I know whereof you speak.
Suzan
I have used AI for one
I have used AI for one concept (multiple stories, same universe) and have found that ChatGTP does a better job than AuthorAI. That being said…I am against using the tool to actually write out a story and just running with the output it gives.
(I am not sure if that’s what is being done on Amazon) I feel the tool cannot write out a story in my voice (without heavily editing) but kudos to you if you are able to make the balance work.
Tools
I have two finished AI assisted projects. The first completed was Project Mnemosyne which is being posted, all ten chapters, one every other day, here on BCTS.
Mnemosyne was an idea I had had for years but had not tried to write because it seemed so dark and unlike the stuff I normally write which can be light and even silly. The AI tool allowed me to write prompts which put the problem of darkness on the AI instead of me. So I could concentrate on making sure the story flowed and made sense and communicated the theme and ideas behind the story. Also, Project Mnemosyne was at least a novelette and kind of exhausting to even think about.
The second complete story I have done with AI is Another Round, a slice-of-life sort of thing set in a bar, featuring a meeting between two women. I don't go to bars, and I warned the AI of that as we discussed the story, who the women were, what they might discuss, what the action might be and the result. Then I wrote a 200-word prompt, and the AI produced a 500-word scene. We did that six times and ended up with a 3000-word short story, which I edited strenuously, both as scenes piecemeal and as a complete story. I'll probably post it tomorrow or later in the week.
Suzan
I used AI once. I had to edit
I used AI once. I had to edit it heavily and still wasn't happy, The last chapter of seven years as a wife was AI and edited. It doesn't write like YOU do. I think if someone knows how you write, they can tell. But doing what you are doing is way better than purely AI stories.
Leeanna
Editing is certainly necessary
I wouldn't expect otherwise.
Suzan
Fiction is an appropriate use for AI
Legal briefs, judicial opinions, government funding decisions, health policy . . . Nope.
It’s not a question of what it can do, but what it should do. MIT Professor Joseph Weizenbaum’s Computer Power and Human Reason made this point well, 50 years ago.
Exactly
The Nope list is of things that require the kind of precision LLMs cannot provide.
Suzan
AI and store-bought pie
Your blog post evoked a strange but familiar feeling in me.
Several years ago, I decided to cook a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving. It came out well. It tasted good and was consumed almost instantly.
The next year, someone decided that *they* would like to provide the pumpkin cheesecake, to "spare me the effort" and they bought one ready-made, from Trader Joe's.
It's a nice cheesecake. I ate a piece. It was fine. But I felt a little strange, not sure whether there was any message other than enthusiasm on the other person's part.
The next year, I made an apple pie. I was naturally nervous about the crust, but in the end -- certainly due to luck and everything going well -- it turned out to be a perfect apple pie, with a flaky crust.
Which in turn was the cue to the other person to pre-emptively buy an apple pie for the next year's Thanksgiving dinner.
I accepted the event; didn't make any fuss. I'm quite sure no slight was intended. The pie was good, anyway, and I do hold to one of the bedrock principles that built this country of ours, that
Store-bought pie is better than no pie at all.
In the years that followed, the next generation entered their teenage years, and they took over the pie production, which was interesting and fun and good. Although the pies were sometimes what you could call highly experimental, they tasted good and everyone appreciated the effort.
Of course, [to turn from the baking metaphor and back to the writing] there is nothing with using an AI, although I would say that an author is helping the AI to write, not the other way around. When we use an AI, we're training it. This trend will continue, I'm sure, and soon the prompts will be less complex and the corrections and tweaks will be fewer, until finally an author can simply say, "Write my next novel," and boom! it will be done.
It's legitimate. It's a tool available to everyone. Certainly a creative person, a person who already writes well, will get better results than a person with no skill in storytelling.
And I'm certain that a person with writing/storytelling/editing skills can take whatever the AI produces and turn it into something superior. No doubt. And I'm sure that I can be fooled; that it won't always be obvious when a piece is the product of AI. It does show now, at least sometimes. I recently cancelled my subscription to a tech magazine because it seemed an inescapable conclusion that some of their headline stories were the product by a not-very-skillful AI.
Anyway, "brave new world" and all that. Good luck to all who use AI. Make sure you're the sole copyright holder.
- iolanthe
No pie at all
A good metaphor for the story I am posting now. While I had had the idea for Mnemosyne years ago, I would never have been able to write such a story. The concept is too cruel, the narrative too labyrinthine. I would lose interest and never finish. Finished, this story is almost 20,000 words, probably 3000 of which are directly attributable to me editing at the keyboard, and another 3000 I supplied in the form of prompts.
It's been interesting. I have another, shorter AI gen story which I will probably post sometime this week.
Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. I'm not going to suggest anyone else try this.
Suzan