I think sometimes, writing fiction can fall into the same trap as writing code.
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I think sometimes, writing fiction can fall into the same trap as writing code.
"I wrote 200 lines of code!"
No one cares. What does it do?
Especially in this era, where if you just want to lay down bland paragraphs, if you want to just generate "content" you can have an LLM do it.
Suddenly quality, intention, elegance matter much more.
Because only a person can tell another person a story.
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@futurebird Yes, I can only agree, I have the hope that maybe in this day and age of GenAI people rediscover how to value authentic human communication in the Arts and writing. The mainstream may go down the drain, but there will always be people chasing after the real deal
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I recently had an experience where I read one of the best scifi books I've ever read in the past few years. It's the new "James S. A. Corey" series: The Mercy of Gods. In the first book I accidentally skipped about 60 pages. I thought the authors (James S. A. Corey is two people I think?) were deliberately pushing me forward into the future and asking the reader to fill in the horrific events of the past.
It worked really well. Which makes it seem like those chapters were "bad"
2/But they weren't bad. That's not really my point. Reading the chapters and experiencing the story in a linear way also made sense. That's part of the joy of a book, it's an experience that takes time to process. When I see that an audiobook is 13 hours long I'm pretty excited to spend all of those hours in that world.
But storytelling can also be more dense. And that interests me. How much could you take away and still have the same story? What might be improved by doing this?
3/3
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@futurebird Yes, I can only agree, I have the hope that maybe in this day and age of GenAI people rediscover how to value authentic human communication in the Arts and writing. The mainstream may go down the drain, but there will always be people chasing after the real deal
People need "the real deal" to be able to function and survive.
Well that's my theory.
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But they weren't bad. That's not really my point. Reading the chapters and experiencing the story in a linear way also made sense. That's part of the joy of a book, it's an experience that takes time to process. When I see that an audiobook is 13 hours long I'm pretty excited to spend all of those hours in that world.
But storytelling can also be more dense. And that interests me. How much could you take away and still have the same story? What might be improved by doing this?
3/3
@futurebird Something I've thought about a lot is how the writer of a book or piece of music lays the groundwork for a moment of catharsis. If you take out some of that groundwork, the magic may not happen. For example, the bridge in a song only works because of what came before it.
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I recently had an experience where I read one of the best scifi books I've ever read in the past few years. It's the new "James S. A. Corey" series: The Mercy of Gods. In the first book I accidentally skipped about 60 pages. I thought the authors (James S. A. Corey is two people I think?) were deliberately pushing me forward into the future and asking the reader to fill in the horrific events of the past.
It worked really well. Which makes it seem like those chapters were "bad"
2/@futurebird James S. A. Corey is, in fact, two people, neither of whom is called James or Corey.
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But they weren't bad. That's not really my point. Reading the chapters and experiencing the story in a linear way also made sense. That's part of the joy of a book, it's an experience that takes time to process. When I see that an audiobook is 13 hours long I'm pretty excited to spend all of those hours in that world.
But storytelling can also be more dense. And that interests me. How much could you take away and still have the same story? What might be improved by doing this?
3/3
@futurebird counter argument KINDA: the creation of art for whatever reason, by any quality, is its own reason.
By making something, anything, no matter how garbage it is, you are creating something - an act of living.You can call it "training to get better" or "emotional support art" - but what it is is deeply human. You are carving "Croatoan" in to the bark of your own tree.
Sure professionally perhaps its different - its just that art should be made with passion, skill is secondary.
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@futurebird Something I've thought about a lot is how the writer of a book or piece of music lays the groundwork for a moment of catharsis. If you take out some of that groundwork, the magic may not happen. For example, the bridge in a song only works because of what came before it.
Totally! Although I think it is not perhaps so good if your code is like that...
LMAO
Although... I guess, in a way when you spend a lot of time, making classes and functions for every little thing just so the final program can be something clear and intuitive, maybe this is the same thing.
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@futurebird counter argument KINDA: the creation of art for whatever reason, by any quality, is its own reason.
By making something, anything, no matter how garbage it is, you are creating something - an act of living.You can call it "training to get better" or "emotional support art" - but what it is is deeply human. You are carving "Croatoan" in to the bark of your own tree.
Sure professionally perhaps its different - its just that art should be made with passion, skill is secondary.
Learning to make better art is always part of the process, but increasingly I have certain stories that I want to tell and I'm just looking for the best way to do it.
When I was younger I'd just make stuff because it was amazing that I could.
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But they weren't bad. That's not really my point. Reading the chapters and experiencing the story in a linear way also made sense. That's part of the joy of a book, it's an experience that takes time to process. When I see that an audiobook is 13 hours long I'm pretty excited to spend all of those hours in that world.
But storytelling can also be more dense. And that interests me. How much could you take away and still have the same story? What might be improved by doing this?
3/3
@futurebird I think about this and play with it all the time because of doing microfiction. The character limit for my instance of Mastodon is quite low, so if I want to write a story in one toot, I'm often thinning out words ... but then sometimes I want to enrich and expand the story, maybe to submit it to a flash fiction market.
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I recently had an experience where I read one of the best scifi books I've ever read in the past few years. It's the new "James S. A. Corey" series: The Mercy of Gods. In the first book I accidentally skipped about 60 pages. I thought the authors (James S. A. Corey is two people I think?) were deliberately pushing me forward into the future and asking the reader to fill in the horrific events of the past.
It worked really well. Which makes it seem like those chapters were "bad"
2/@futurebird I agree with your point completely. and I find it really interesting that you're using mercy of the gods to make it. I came out of that book 100% feeling that it was a good story but that chapter after chapter was just pointless filler - written so that rather than one interesting book the author could have a series.
certainly enjoyable - but I didn't see the same intentionality you did in it.
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I recently had an experience where I read one of the best scifi books I've ever read in the past few years. It's the new "James S. A. Corey" series: The Mercy of Gods. In the first book I accidentally skipped about 60 pages. I thought the authors (James S. A. Corey is two people I think?) were deliberately pushing me forward into the future and asking the reader to fill in the horrific events of the past.
It worked really well. Which makes it seem like those chapters were "bad"
2/@futurebird you might find Hopscotch (Rayuela in the original Spanish) by Julio Cortázar interesting. There are multiple suggested ways to read it - linearly, jumping between chapters in one order or another. It's a cool experiment.
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@futurebird I agree with your point completely. and I find it really interesting that you're using mercy of the gods to make it. I came out of that book 100% feeling that it was a good story but that chapter after chapter was just pointless filler - written so that rather than one interesting book the author could have a series.
certainly enjoyable - but I didn't see the same intentionality you did in it.
It kind of shows thier hand a little. How making a book series is making and effective product.
"no one will publish a book that short"
"publishers want a popular series since it guarantees sales"Even as the book had some really important things to say. And I think it even was able to say many of them.
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@futurebird I think about this and play with it all the time because of doing microfiction. The character limit for my instance of Mastodon is quite low, so if I want to write a story in one toot, I'm often thinning out words ... but then sometimes I want to enrich and expand the story, maybe to submit it to a flash fiction market.
Telling a story online can be magical under the right circumstances. And maybe that's because no one has figured out how to monetize it effectively yet.
I love it when I'm reading a story online and people interact and ask questions, and it feels like you are sitting around a fire at night.
I think this is an overlooked reason why so many people enjoy fan-fiction. It's often just more alive in that way.
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Telling a story online can be magical under the right circumstances. And maybe that's because no one has figured out how to monetize it effectively yet.
I love it when I'm reading a story online and people interact and ask questions, and it feels like you are sitting around a fire at night.
I think this is an overlooked reason why so many people enjoy fan-fiction. It's often just more alive in that way.
@futurebird One hundred percent agree about every aspect of this: the non-monetized part, the sitting-around-the-fire part. How this is something really special about sharing stories online.
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@futurebird One hundred percent agree about every aspect of this: the non-monetized part, the sitting-around-the-fire part. How this is something really special about sharing stories online.
This also goes back to why people who think an LLM "generating content" are missing the point.
The LLM can't be another person who is telling me a story. When people tell stories they are trying to share something, to take us to a place, or show us something that won't fit in a few sentence. Something bigger.
Pages filled with text are one way to do that, but the pages aren't THE POINT. It's just how the author decided to share their story.
With the LLM there is no author.
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It kind of shows thier hand a little. How making a book series is making and effective product.
"no one will publish a book that short"
"publishers want a popular series since it guarantees sales"Even as the book had some really important things to say. And I think it even was able to say many of them.
@futurebird and realistically, I don't begrudge anybody making a living. if you were to tell me "hey, you can make $X writing a great book, or you turn that book into a series, which is slightly worse, but you make $5X for the sequel, $10X for the third book, maybe hey a movie or TV deal..." well I gotta tell you I wouldn't have to think very long about it
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This also goes back to why people who think an LLM "generating content" are missing the point.
The LLM can't be another person who is telling me a story. When people tell stories they are trying to share something, to take us to a place, or show us something that won't fit in a few sentence. Something bigger.
Pages filled with text are one way to do that, but the pages aren't THE POINT. It's just how the author decided to share their story.
With the LLM there is no author.
@futurebird Yeah: w/any story, it's so much more than just the words (even though the words are important).
I've been thinking of this about this 11-minute retelling of a traditional Tlingit story. It's beautiful. Elements are familiar to me because they exist in fairytales I know. But aspects of the story are mysterious to me, & I just keep sitting with it & thinking about it, & the storyteller's intention. SO RICH. AI can't do this. There's no point asking it to try.
https://vimeo.com/1116566985 -
I recently had an experience where I read one of the best scifi books I've ever read in the past few years. It's the new "James S. A. Corey" series: The Mercy of Gods. In the first book I accidentally skipped about 60 pages. I thought the authors (James S. A. Corey is two people I think?) were deliberately pushing me forward into the future and asking the reader to fill in the horrific events of the past.
It worked really well. Which makes it seem like those chapters were "bad"
2/@futurebird I had a very similar experience, reading Lavondyss as a standalone novel, not knowing it's a part of a cycle, and not the first one. So, I had a special experience of some earlier events and mechanisms of the world — by hearsay, blurred memories, mysteries not-to-be-talked-about, and it really worked well in a book about myths and common memory of land and people, just as if the book itself was a part of the same.
I've read Mythago Wood, the beginning of the series, a few years later, and… have found it too literal in comparison. Although a good story still.
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Telling a story online can be magical under the right circumstances. And maybe that's because no one has figured out how to monetize it effectively yet.
I love it when I'm reading a story online and people interact and ask questions, and it feels like you are sitting around a fire at night.
I think this is an overlooked reason why so many people enjoy fan-fiction. It's often just more alive in that way.
@futurebird @asakiyume I'd say livestreaming is what's monetised it- whether that's TikTok monetising kids group-calling their friends or the pros on YouTube and Twitch who manage it with Superchats and sponsorships, people are making money from exactly that.
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This also goes back to why people who think an LLM "generating content" are missing the point.
The LLM can't be another person who is telling me a story. When people tell stories they are trying to share something, to take us to a place, or show us something that won't fit in a few sentence. Something bigger.
Pages filled with text are one way to do that, but the pages aren't THE POINT. It's just how the author decided to share their story.
With the LLM there is no author.
@futurebird @asakiyume an LLM is basically the same technology as https://botnik.org/apps/writer/?source=cec3d8c22a80860692f7f1edcc163b83 (a story writer that allows you to pick between words that jerry seinfeld said) but with two major differences:
- the algorithm to figure out what the potential next words are is much more complicated (with gigabytes of numbers that are multiplied and added together in some opaque way), and
- instead of picking the words from a keyboard, the words are picked at random from the possibilities.
That's it.
Sometimes there's a separate piece of software that tries to detect when the randomly selected words are saying something like a math problem and it'll do the math and then inject the result back into the document that's being generated, but the actual LLM is only aware of probabilities of the next word in the document, and the only way it can act on those probabilities is to pick one of the possible next words at random.
There's no actual thinking going on.
