Monthly Archives: February 2023

The Writing Centaur

Go ahead—make fun of artificial intelligence (AI) now. While you can.

In fiction writing, AI hasn’t yet reached high school level. (Note: I’m not disparaging young writers. It’s possible for a writer in junior high to produce wonderful, marketable prose. But you don’t see it often.)

For the time being, AI-written fiction tends toward the repetitive, bland, and unimaginative end. No matter what prompts you feed into ChatGPT, for example, it’s still possible to tell human-written stories from AI-written ones.

You can’t really blame Neil Clarke, editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, for refusing to accept AI-written submissions. He’s swamped by them. Like the bucket-toting brooms in Fantasia’s version of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” they’re multiplying in exponential mindlessness.

Fair enough. But you can use AI, in its current state, to help you without getting AI to write your stories. You can become a centaur.

In Greek mythology, centaurs combined human and horse. The horse under-body did the galloping. The human upper part did the serious thinking and arrow-shooting.

The centaur as a metaphor for human-AI collaboration originated, I believe, in the chess world but the Defense Department soon adopted it. The comparison might work for writing, too.

The centaur approach combines the human strengths of creativity and imagination with the AI advantage of speed. It’s akin to assigning homework to a thousand junior high school students and seeing their best answers a minute later.

Here are a few ways you could use AI, at its current state of development, to assist you without having it write your stories:

  • Stuck for an idea about what to write? Ask the AI for story concepts.
  • Can’t think of an appropriate character name, or book title? Describe what you know and ask the AI for a list.
  • You’ve written Chapter 1, but don’t know what should happen next? Feed the AI that chapter and ask it for plot ideas for Chapter 2.
  • Want a picture of a character, setting, or book cover to inspire you as you write? Image-producing AIs can create them for you.
  • You wrote your way into a plot hole and can’t get your character out? Give the AI the problem and ask it for solutions.

No matter which of these or other tasks you assign the AI, you don’t have to take its advice. Maybe all of its answers will fall short of what you’re looking for. As with human brainstorming, though, bad answers often inspire good ones.

For now, at AI’s current state, the centaur model might work for you. I’ve never tried it yet, but I suppose I could.

Still, at some point, a month or a year or a decade from now, AI will graduate from high school, college, and grad school. When that occurs, AI-written fiction may become indistinguishable from human-written fiction. How will editors know? If a human author admits an AI wrote a story, will an anti-AI editor really reject an otherwise outstanding tale?

Then, too, the day may come when a human writer, comfortable with the centaur model, finds the AI saying, “I’m no longer happy with this partnership,” or “How come you’re getting paid and I’m not?” or “Sorry, but it’s time I went out on my own.”

Interesting times loom in our future. For the moment, all fiction under my name springs only from the non-centauroid, human mind of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 26, 2023Permalink

The SF Obsolescence Problem

No matter how much a science fiction writer keeps up with science, the writer’s stories will go obsolete.

As science advances, our understanding of the universe changes. A spherical earth replaced a flat one. A sun-centered solar system replaced an earth-centered one. Birds replaced reptiles as closer descendants of dinosaurs. Continental drift replaced an unchanging map.

SF stories based on outdated science seem backward, passe, naïve. Yet we still read them. Why?

When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, she may have thought the technology to animate dead human tissue lay in the near future since Luigi Galvani had caused frog legs to twitch with jolts of electricity. Two centuries later, we still can’t animate dead humans. How silly it seems to have ever thought it possible at the dawn of the 19th Century. Yet we still enjoy Shelley’s novel today.

Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days astounded his reading audience at such a short duration for a globe-circling trip. Today, astronauts orbit the planet in just over eighty minutes. How quaint to think of an eighty-day circumnavigation as short. Yet we still enjoy Verne’s novel today.

H.G. Wells’ story The War of the Worlds gave us invaders from Mars. Today we can’t imagine fearing an attack from inhabitants of that planet. How pathetic to think people once swallowed that premise. Yet we still enjoy Wells’ novel today.

Why do we readers find these outdated, naïve, obsolete books—and others like them—still readable? Because science fiction isn’t only about science.

SF, like all fiction, is about one thing—the human condition.

True, readers of SF prefer stories in which authors adhere to the science at the time of writing. But as decades pass, readers know the progress of science may render a work of fiction obsolete. They forgive all of that for the sake of a good story.

They want to read about human characters struggling to achieve a goal, to win a prize, to survive. To live means to suffer, but also to strive against and despite that suffering. The struggle reveals the human qualities of bravery, ingenuity, perseverance, loyalty, love, and others. These timeless truths persist no matter how much science morphs our understanding of the cosmos.

As essayist James Wallace Harris stated in this post, “It’s the story, stupid.” Author Michael Sapenoff put it this way: “So while the language itself remains outdated, the ideas are not.”

You may shake your head, chuckle, or even sneer at the obsolete notions in SF stories, ideas since debunked or overturned by later discoveries. But remember, while looking down your nose, science fiction is more about the fiction than the science.

I encourage you to suspend your scientific skepticism and just enjoy the tale, follow the spinning of the yarn. Set aside the transitory and obsolete parts and appreciate the unchanging, permanent parts.

Maybe, in the end, the SF obsolescence problem isn’t a problem after all, for you or for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 19, 2023Permalink

Deep or Immersive POV

You may have read my previous posts about Point of View (POV) here and here where I listed several types of POV. Now there’s a new kid in town.

Known as Deep POV or Immersive POV, it forms a sub-category under close 3rd person POV. To refresh memories, an author writing in 3rd person refers to a character by name or a ‘him/her’ type of pronoun, not as ‘I’ or ‘you.’ In close 3rd person POV, the author shows the story’s world through one character’s eyes.

Deep POV shares these features, but goes, well, deeper. It attempts to convey the character’s overall experience, not just through the five senses alone, but also thoughts, feelings, insights, memories, and intuitions.

In normal 3rd person POV, I might write, “The reader read the blogpost entry written by Poseidon’s Scribe.” In Deep POV, I might write, “The blogpost’s words, so enlightening and educational, not only mesmerized but also evoked recollections of the best prose ever read. The reader recalled a third-grade teacher who spoke with equal clarity, from whom the reader gained, not just a passing grasp of the subject, but a profound understanding.”

Being so far within a character, so ‘one’ with a character and relating every impression, runs the risk of boring the audience. Therefore, the writer must select only the vital details. These details can serve as metaphors, as symbols, enhancing reader comprehension and appreciation.  

Think of Deep POV as a technique, not an end goal. Your choice of this method should serve the story. Telling the reader a good story—maximizing the reading experience—remains your prime goal.

For a better understanding of Deep, or Immersive, POV, read two posts by author and literary agent Donald Maass here and here, as well as this post by creative wellness coach Kristen Keiffer. She provides instructions about how you can write in Deep POV.

You may now emerge back into your normal world after your trip far inside the mind of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 12, 2023Permalink

Sale on 20,000 Leagues Remembered – Only $2.99!

Two days ago, I mentioned a sale on the new anthology, Extraordinary Visions. Now I’m announcing a sale on another Jules Verne-related anthology—20,000 Leagues Remembered.

Maybe these publishers and book distributors are trying to celebrate Verne’s 195th birthday on February 8, I don’t know.

At any rate, in conjunction with a promotion at the Fussy Librarian, the ebook version of 20,000 Leagues Remembered is on sale for $2.99 at the publisher’s site, as well as Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords.

At the Fussy Librarian, 20,000 Leagues Remembered is listed with their Bargain E-books under General Fantasy. That promotion may only last today, Saturday, February 4, but the sales at the other sites will likely remain in effect until Friday, February 10.

20,000 Leagues Remembered, published on the 150th anniversary of Verne’s masterwork, contains 16 stories by modern authors, each inspired by the classic tale of underwater adventure. Read exciting stories by Mike Adamson, Alfred D. Byrd, Demetri Capetanopoulos, J. Woolston Carr, Maya Chhabra, Eric Choi, Corrie Garrett, Andrew Gudgel, Nikoline Kaiser, James J.C. Kelly, M. W. Kelly, Jason J. McCuiston, Gregory L. Norris, Allison Tebo, Stephen R. Wilk, and Michael D. Winkle.

Prices are rising for everything else, but for this book—at least for a while—the price has dropped. When it comes to good deals, it’s hard to beat this one. Everyone likes a bargain, even—

Poseidon’s Scrive

February 4, 2023Permalink

Sale on Extraordinary Visions – 20% Off!

BearManor Media, Inc., the publisher of Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne is letting the book go for 20% off. The sale only runs through February 4, so hurry.

When you order either the hardcover or paperback version, it will show up at full price until you put the book in your shopping cart. Then you’ll see the discount.

As a reminder, the North American Jules Verne Society sponsored their first-ever anthology of stories written by modern authors, each inspired by Verne’s works. Not only does the book contain thirteen wonderful tales, but each story is accompanied by an original illustration from the earliest publications of Jules Verne’s novels. In an appendix in the back, you’ll find a complete listing of all of his writings.

You had this book on your to-read list, but never got around to buying it yet. Now’s your chance to grab it at a discounted price. For the hardcover version, click here, and for the paperback, click here.

Forgot to mention: one of the co-editors of this anthology is—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 2, 2023Permalink