First of all thank yout @Havenstone for making this month’s thread. And happy brithday to any July babies.
I did so well on my goal last month, so I’ll mostly be trying to keep up the momentum into this month. My goals for July:
I wrote this and then shortly later crashed for a 2.5 hour unplanned nap. So. Points for a correct deduction, I guess?
Belatedly, here’s another interesting recent article, framed around the question of how well the latest “literary” AIs can write and their characteristic stylistic tics:
I do like some of the phrases listed… “the words are whispering”, for example, brings to mind something Poe-esque, where the POV character is unraveling after reading a letter from someone they murdered. “Language of trees” is something that comes to my mind often when I’m standing silently in a forest. (Well, it’s more the trees are talking, but same difference.)
This is what I mean when I say I like AI for brainstorming! I love having random lists of weird phrases. They give me ideas. So many ideas!
this is so interesting, and feels very accurate. thank you for sharing!
Hey, everyone!
I have so many ideas roiling in my head for the month of July, though I have to live it up with some birthday celebrations my friends are dragging me too. (One year closer to thirty. Someone save me.)
For July, I have a few key goals with The Frontier:
If this goes smoothly, then I am on track for a September 2025 release of the WIP build, which would be somewhere between 100k-200k words likely with a decent bit of gameplay to boot.
In the last week of June, I pushed hard on story development, and introduced the mysterious SYNTH to The Frontier.
With a small spoiler below (Only open the image if you’re okay with it!) You’ll get a glimpse into her personality. (She’s quite fun!) She’s been a delight to develop and will end up becoming one of the core players of the major plotline powering The Frontier.
Anyways. I hope everyone has a fantastic month, and in spirit of Havenstone’s opening of this thread.
I hope Eiwynn is living it up somewhere where energy flies, because damn do I miss her.
I feel like you need to have human judgement on when to use more “literary” prose and when to be plainer. If you don’t have any imagery at all, then the writing becomes flat and plain, uninteresting to read. If you have too much of it, then it becomes dense and impenetrable. Even if you have the right amount, it will just feel excessively curated, lacking any spark, playing it safe. So you can’t win!
@dozendietcokesaday
Well said. This is why I feel it’s important that authors become great at the craft, and then just be themselves, and the writing will be great even if it’s not perfect or perfectly balanced
The TraceBear for the writing camp my friend and I are in this month: TrackBear
Something I’ve been improving at is showing the PC’s internal processing in unobtrusive ways. It feels like in IF, especially, this adds a lot of “texture” without requiring too much of the reader. Like the difference here:
Your defence quickly shuts down her attempts. Block and counter. Interrupt her with quick jabs. Your shots land clean, while none of hers find their mark.
“Okay,” she breathes, stepping back. “I can respect that.” No frustration, just recognition.
That’s kind of plain.
Your defence quickly shuts down her attempts. All systems firing, reflexes sharp. Block and counter. Interrupt her with quick jabs. Your shots land clean, while none of hers find their mark.
“Okay,” she breathes, stepping back. “I can respect that.” No frustration, just recognition.
Just adding a single unobtrusive sentence changes the texture considerably. Now the reader is more like “wow, all my systems are firing. My reflexes are sharp. I’m really right in the action!”
My goal for July is to finish with the first set of scenes for my hobby project. And maybe come up with an actual title this time!
Your snippet reads really well! The added sentence has a nice rhythm with the rest of it.
I feel like it’s tricky, especially as AI has improved.
For example. I am a purple-prose author and yes I am unfortunately aware of it. I’ve made efforts to tone that back, but some of the things that I’ve seen people say are guaranteed notions of AI are present in my writing, and have been going back to… when I first really began in 2014. I had to do a deep dive, as I myself am autistic (formerly a condition known as Asperger’s but since renamed time and time again).
What I’ve found is that my social processing generates at a pretty high vocabulary level, which then translates to my writing and causes me to be very purply in terms of how I write.
Despite my efforts to curb it, I still find that I often struggle with that balance of if I’ve written too much detail, or not enough. If I overly curb it, it looks off to me. If I let it go, it looks like I smattered everything in detail.
It’s… tricky. Still always learning all the time, but I think that AI has genuinely compromised some writing styles because they mimic them too well. Whether it’s with stylistic tics, or with purple prose. My biggest fear as an author is being accused of using it (which thanks to certain LLM advancements has only heightened as more are accused of it), and then having to try to defend it when I just want to focus on my career and my works.
All of this is just a longform way of saying, generative AI’s introduction has been terrifying as a writer, because due to the oversaturation of the market it’s bred toxic competition that’s led to accusations without basis.
super agree on this. i love prose that sounds and feels good in the brain. this is like good crunchy prose like a crisp vegetable in my brain
My goal this month is rather low: just remember you all exist. I will do it! I will…
We believe in you! You got this. (Keep us updated)
Randomtest found an edge case which requires me to write a whole new narrative branch - literally just before I was planning to submit.
So that’s how my evening’s going.
My computer can only handle “a few” thousand randomtest simulations at a time. Finding an error after what seems like hours of testing is a bit disheartening. Best of luck though, I have always been a fan of your Dragoon Saga!
My old computer literally could not handle the “standard” 10 000 permutation randomtest for Lords of Infinity.
Which is part of the reason I got a new one with the money from Lords of Infinity.
Thanks, @Havenstone, for starting off this month’s writing thread! Good news is, I’ve actually been writing a lot lately. Bad news? It’s mostly been my usual short mystery stories instead of the superhero project I say I want to focus on. Also, turns out the new laptop I got is about as dependable as a Rolls Royce after the apocalypse.
Still, I’ve been writing consistently since last month, and honestly, I’m just happy to be keeping the habit going and not letting those writing muscles go soft.
Also, note to future me: keep the worldbuilding light. You’re not Tolkien. Less dreaming, more writing.
Good luck, brother. Message me if you need any support: I’m a depressed philosophy nerd.
