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Homo Scriptor

A potential Wikipedia entry:

Homo Scriptor

The writing human (Homo scriptor) is a subspecies of Homo sapiens, differing from H. sapiens only in its highly developed skill in writing. Though most humans write to some extent, Homo scriptor writes as an obsession, often to the exclusion of other activities.

Etymology

The genus Homo refers to human and the subspecies designation of scriptor (from Latin) refers to a person who writes.

Taxonomy and Phylogeny

Homo scriptor is a subspecies of Homo sapiens, member of the tribe Homanini, the family Hominidae, the order of primates, in the class Mammalia. H. scriptor has not yet split off from H. sapiens, and mating between the two can occur, but scientists believe sympatric speciation (the splitting apart into separate species) may be underway.

Description and Characteristics

In appearance, H. scriptor is indistinguishable from H. sapiens. Specimens of H. scriptor are present in the same genders and races as H. sapiens, in approximately the same proportions. Behavior is the only distinguishing indicator between the two.

Distribution and Habitat

Scientists estimate the world population of H. scriptor at around 400,000, perhaps 1 in every 20,000 humans. Homo scriptor has accompanied H. sapiens to every continent. They cluster in cities, as does H. sapiens. They occupy the same types of dwellings, though H. scriptor insists on one quiet space within the abode for solitude, writing, and the storage of books.

Behavior

Diet

H. scriptor eats the same foods as H. sapiens, but prefers to spend less time in obtaining, preparing, and consuming the food, to leave more time for writing.

Locomotion

H. scriptor walks in the same bipedal manner as H. sapiens, but less often, since writing is a sedentary activity.

Reproduction and Parenting

H. scriptor mates in the same manner as H. sapiens. However, for H. scriptor, the sexual act provides an additional benefit—research for a future book.

Any combination of H. sapiens and H. scriptor parents may result in either H. sapiens or H. scriptor offspring. Scientists have not yet identified the genetic markers for H. scriptor.

Social Structures

The main and subspecies share a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. H. sapiens seeks and pays for the product (books) of H. scriptor’s work. H. scriptor writes books for H. sapiens’ enjoyment and receives payment in return. With both symbionts achieving benefits, this relationship seems likely to continue. The two freely associate in complex social structures, though H. scriptor may seem aloof and isolated.

Communication

Since the advent of written language in the late 4^th millennium BCE, H. scriptor has exceeded H. sapiens in this activity, both in quality and quantity. On the other hand, H. sapiens surpasses H. scriptor in nearly all other human activities. The written language prowess of H. scriptor does not typically extend to other forms of communication. For example, H. scriptor may not speak any better than H. sapiens, and when the writer subspecies does speak, the topic is often about writing.

Cultural Significance

With the exception of non-written language arts, such as music, sculpture, and painting, Homo scriptor provides culture for Homo sapiens. All novels, short stories, plays, song lyrics, newspapers, motion picture scripts, television scripts, and Wikipedia entries were written by members of H. scriptor for the enjoyment of H. sapiens. Due to the symbiotic relationship, the writer subspecies rarely writes about itself, but more often about the main species.

What Type of Writer are You?

After seeing a tweet by author Morgan Wright, I had to blog about this clever infographic by author Alexei Maxim Russell.

The Graphic

In humorous form, it depicts six types of writers. The graphic describes each, including a ‘plus side’ and ‘ugly side’ and provides famous examples of all but one.

Russell depicts, using amusing exaggeration, six motivations for writing—creativity, money, solitude, anger, success, and bitterness.

If you’re a writer, you’ll see yourself in at least one of those caricatures, and probably several. You may even detect an evolution of your writing efforts from one motivation to another.

My Self-Assessment

Based on those six, I’ve self-assessed the percentages of each at the beginning of my writing career, now, and where I hope to be.

When I started writing, I fit into the Space Cadet category, with a bit of Weird Recluse and Ray of Sunshine in the mix. Now, I’m more Ray of Sunshine, and starting to adopt Greasy Palm tendencies, but losing my Space Cadet and Weird Recluse attributes. In the future, I hope to be mostly Ray of Sunshine, a higher proportion of Greasy Palm, with a little Space Cadet left over.

I’ve never identified with the Angry Man or Bitter Failure types, and hope I don’t become them.

Other Types?

Did Russell leave some other types off his list? Possibly. I thought of two more:

The Evangelist. Writes to inspire others, always envisioning a better world. Plus side: positive and uplifting. Ugly side: can be seen as pollyannish and preachy. Possible Famous Evangelists: Stephen R. Covey, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen
The Jester. Writes for laughs. Every line’s a joke. Plus side: there’s always a ready market for humor. Ugly side: eventually the jokes go stale and the well runs dry. Possible Famous Jesters: Mark Twain, Dave Barry, Bill Bryson

Your Self-Assessment

If we set aside the exaggerations of the infographic for a moment, you might find a benefit in identifying the motivations for your writing. As long as you avoid the Bitter Failure character, you can achieve a measure of success with any of the other categories.

Regarding the question in the title of this blogpost, what type of writer are you? Perhaps more important, what type do you aspire to be? Go ahead, you can tell—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 21, 2024Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Dying Writers, Dying Readers

Author Annie Dillard once wrote, “Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients.” The quote intrigued me. What did she mean?

Source

It’s from a 1989 essay in The New York Times titled “Write Till You Drop.” The paragraph continues, “That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What would you say to a dying patient that would not enrage by its triviality?”

Picture the situation. You are near death and so are your readers. The pen and pad (or computer) sit before you. How would you write differently than you do now?

Answers?

As morbid as the thought experiment may seem, some answers to that question occur to me:

Don’t waste time. You haven’t much time for writing, nor do your readers for reading.
Don’t ‘enrage by triviality.’ Write about what’s important, vital to being human. Write the thing you’d regret not having written, the thing readers would regret not having read.
Don’t save your best for some later time. Don’t keep that masterpiece in reserve. There will be no later time.

Wonderful Concentration

English author Samuel Johnson said, “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Dillard admonishes us to write that way all the time, with a wonderfully concentrated mind.

Socrates

Consider the last words of Socrates. At his trial he received a sentence of death. Imagine the ‘wonderful concentration’ of his mind as he drank hemlock and felt his limbs going numb. Some have reported his final words as, “Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Don’t forget to pay the debt.”

How can that be? On his deathbed, one of history’s greatest philosophers prattled about not having paid for a rooster? Is that not enraging by triviality?

Newer interpretations of those last words paint a different picture. Greeks considered Asclepius a god of medicine and the rooster a symbol of rebirth or eternal life, for it crows every morning. Some now think Socrates’ words a metaphor, a way of saying, “Athens may kill me, but philosophy lives on.” If so, that satisfies Ms. Dillard’s advice to write as if you were dying.

Triviality

Regarding the part of her advice referring to triviality, that confused me at first. What is trivial and what is not?

After all, author and politician Bruce Barton said, “Sometimes, when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think that there are no little things.”

No little things? Aren’t they the trivial things?

Perhaps not. Mother Theresa said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

Ah, that might provide a clue regarding what Ms. Dillard meant by triviality. You may write about anything, large or small, but do so with great love. Use up every drop of your literary skill. It’s not the triviality of the subject, but the treatment of it by the writer.

In sports, we say a player ‘left if all on the field,’ meaning he gave it his utmost. I may be wrong, or I may be over-analyzing it, but that’s what I believe Annie Dillard meant in advising us to write as if we were dying, and as if our reading audience were dying as well.

If your next written sentence were your last, would readers say you ‘left it all on the field?’ Aim to write with a mind as wonderfully concentrated as that of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 14, 2024Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Get Ready for AI Bestsellers

Ask a chatbot to write a story and it will do so. You’ll find the result contains the correct story elements. However, if you do that today, the story won’t move you. You’d rate it at junior high school level, certainly not a classic.

That describes the state of artificial intelligence story-writing in mid-2024. From this, you might well conclude that AI will never write stories as well as the best human authors do.

Prediction

Indeed, author Fiona M. Jones is the latest to draw that conclusion. She asks “is there any realistic prospect of AI ‘improving’ to a point where it becomes indistinguishable from the work of creative writers? Maybe you can imagine it. I can’t.” She goes on to state “I am not afraid that AI bots will take my place as a writer.”

I intend no disrespect to Ms. Jones. Others share her opinion. I accept the possibility that her contention may prove correct.

Superiority Complex

However, it occurs to me that the history of our species includes several symptoms of a shared superiority complex. In each case, people erected a metaphorical pedestal for humanity, only to have science tear it down.

In cosmology, early depictions of the universe showed Earth at the center. Today, astronomers relegate our world to a backwater.
In zoology, humans have long regarded themselves as lords of the animal kingdom. We claimed to possess the largest brain, and to be the only creature that feels pain or happiness, that talks, that uses tools, that is self-aware. The march of science seems to be trampling this pedestal as well.

Story-writing Today

For now, humans stand, undisputed, atop the Best Story-writers pedestal, at least on this planet. We’ve stood there for thousands of years, so it seems natural to regard the honor as permanent.

At this moment, AI seems unlikely to unseat us from that perch. In that, I agree with Fiona M. Jones. We humans have written stories for thousands of years, and told them verbally far longer than that. AI chatbots have written stories for a much shorter time, a few years at best. Hardly a fair comparison.

AI chatbots learn fast. Very fast. They can memorize the entire internet. They do not die, and therefore don’t have to teach the next generation of chatbots to write. I expect them to write with more skill and originality soon. But could they surpass us?

Ms. Jones offers many good arguments, but they boil down to the fact that human authors write about the human condition, and chatbots can’t possibly understand the human condition as well as humans do.

Maybe. But consider that human fiction writers often convey the thoughts and emotions of non-human characters in their stories. These characters include gods, animals, plants, even inanimate objects. Given similar creativity and imagination, chatbots might become capable of conveying human thoughts and emotions in a convincing way, even though they’re not human.

Story-writing Tomorrow

You could measure a story’s quality by the intensity of emotion it produces in the reader. Once AI chatbots understand us better, what’s to prevent them from crafting stories evoking strong emotions?

When and if they do, what will that mean for human readers? For human writers? I’ve already explored some of these implications in a previous blogpost and won’t repeat them here.

I suggest we should not assume our present superiority will last. We may not remain forever at the center of the writing universe, at the pinnacle of writing prowess, standing atop the Best Story-writer pedestal.

It should not surprise us when the first AI-written novel tops the Best-Seller list. Even then, we should not dismiss that achievement as a novelty, a fluke, unlikely to repeat.

In the meantime, fellow human writers, I suggest we write and publish the best stories we can, while they still sell. That’s the course steered by—

Poseidon’s Scribe