Howdy all! It’s been a slower month for writing, but I thought I’d share what’s been going on behind the scenes.
Works in Progress
I’ve been working on several short stories and flash fiction pieces, and I’ve already submitted a few to magazines/websites/anthologies/contests. I’d love to get more stories accepted with publications, but I know competition is tight, so I’m not too hurt if it doesn’t happen.
Even if these are rejected, I’m still pleased with them, so I’ll be releasing them through this newsletter or on Kindle, depending on length. Either way, keep an eye out in the coming months!
Upcoming short stories:
The Island of Morenu: A flash fiction about a sailor who joins a pirate crew to save his lady love from a floating island
Currently Untitled: A flash fiction starring Gilgamesh, Noah, and the quest for immortality
Blood of Darkness: Part of The Kineru Chronicles, a short Christian fantasy story about Sepiron, a swordfighter determined to save kidnapped children from a den of vampires
Thundersnow Inn: Another entry in The Kineru Chronicles, but more of a cozy fantasy story, starring a wounded Sepiron and a mysterious sorceress who runs a lonesome inn high in a mountain cave
Other Works
Storing up Treasures: My flash fiction contribution to the upcoming Havok anthology, available April 29! Havok is a fun website that posts free flash fiction every weekday, and they also periodically sell collected anthologies of some of their favorite works. Be sure to keep an eye out for my little story about a thief breaking into a royal treasury!
Taciturn Steps: This novel has been on the back burner for years, but I’ve been pretty excited to dive back into it these last couple months! It’s an epic Christian fantasy novel, and I’ve likely bit off more than I can chew, but I’m having fun plugging away at it! It’s still in the very early stages of a full rewrite, so I likely won’t be releasing this one for quite some time
More Kineru Chronicles: I’ve been mulling over the plot of a novella to end the Kineru Chronicles, and although it’s still incomplete, it gives me a good goal for what to work towards. My plan is to finish the Kineru Chronicles short stories, perhaps bundle them as a collection, and then write this longer novella to wrap the entire series up. But time will tell!
Facing the Beast of AI
The writing hot topic of 2023 has been AI and Chat GPT. I’ve seen plenty of doom and gloom about AI putting writers out of work, but also a lot of sneering that “AI can never write anything creative!” I’ll admit, part of me was worried that it would be amazing at storytelling, and I’d have to sit in ashes and sackcloth when it effortlessly generated an amazing fantasy tale that blew my stories out of the water. Was I arrogant to think I was better at writing than a predictive text machine? Was this a fool’s errand? I had to know. So, I fired up Chat GPT to see if it was more creative than me.
It was not.
I gave it several different prompts, using the overall plot from Wayfaring Stranger (my favorite story I’ve published, by the way!) The gist of my prompt was:
“Write me the beginning of a fantasy story about Kuro the farmer, who must travel to distant lands, facing cruel thugs and vicious wizards in his quest to save a young girl sold into slavery.”
And while the AI gave me some decent fantasy-sounding sentences, it was all very vague, bland, and generic. It’s ok filler, but it also rushes through the story, telling big picture summaries in just a paragraph or two. Here are a couple paragraphs it generated:
Without a second thought, Kuro resolved to save the girl. He knew that it would be a difficult and dangerous journey, but he was determined to do whatever it took to rescue her. He gathered his few possessions and set out on the road, leaving his village and the only life he had ever known behind.
The journey was long and perilous. Kuro encountered bandits and monsters, treacherous terrain and foul weather. He had no weapons, no magic, no experience in fighting or adventuring. But he had his determination and his wits, and he was not afraid to use them.
ChatGPT generated response, accessed 4/18/23
Meh. I’m not too worried. If people want generic, bland stories that feel like the average of other stories we’ve all read, then I guess AI can write stuff for them. But as arrogant as it sounds, I know I can craft more interesting tales than this! I know I’m not a perfect writer, but I love storytelling and crafting unique worlds, and that’s not something this AI can do. Sure, it’s all grammatically correct, but it has no heart!
Writers, if you can sling a mean sentence, hide a plot twist that nobody sees coming, or create living characters that linger in the imagination for days, you’ll be just fine. Keep writing, keep creating, and don’t let the looming specter of “predictive text” keep you from the craft you love.
And if you’re interested, feel free to check out Wayfaring Stranger for only 99 cents on Kindle to find out the real story of Kuro the farmer! Thanks for reading!
It amazes me that some people think they can submit AI generated stories to publications when they are so unbearably bland. It's not at all arrogant to say that you can do far, far better than that!
By the way, "The Island of Morenu" as a title sounds a bit too similar to the H. G. Wells story "The Island of Doctor Moreau", although the content is entirely different. You might want to tweak the title slightly so it doesn't get mixed up.
I'm really looking forward to reading these stories!
I've poked around with AI and it has a LONG way to go before it can replace or even match an authors input. What it is useful for is grammar.