Tag: ChatGPT 4

AI Editor Issues

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, AutoCrit, ChatGPT, Claude, critique, Generative AI, Short Story, Software, WritingTagged , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I employ AI editors for copyediting and alpha-reading. They are useful but have limitations.

Some of my writing is ordinary – Acts I, II, and III; Beginning, Middle, and End. This is AI’s sweet spot: assess a piece and compare it to a million similar pieces, sharing plot structures, story and character arcs, heroes’ journeys, and saving cats.

Other stories are experimental. They don’t follow the Western tradition of tidy storylines and neat little bows, evey aspect strongly telegraphed, so as not to lose any readers along the journey.

Mary approaches a doorway. Mary opens the door. She walks through the doorway — the doorway she had approached.

Obviously, this is silly and exaggerated, but the point remains. AI presumes that readers need to be spoonfed, especially American audiences. (No offence.)

But life doesn’t work like this. We often witness events where we have no idea what happens after we experience them. We pass strangers on the street, not knowing anything about their past or future. We overhear something interesting, never to get a resolution. We get passed by for a promotion but never know the reason why.

In science, there are lots of dead ends. Do we want to know the answers? Yes. Is one likely? Maybe; maybe not. Will we make up answers just to satisfy our need for closure? It happens all the time.

In writing, we seem to not accept these loose ends. How many times have you read a review or critique where the complaint is, “What happened to this character?” or “Why didn’t Harry Potter use his invisibility cloak more than once despite it being an obvious solution to many prior and future challenges he faced?”

Sure. I agree that it feels like a plot hole, but the author doesn’t have to tell you that Harry lost it in a poker match, it got lost in the wash, or Ron snatched it.

I’m finishing a story, and various AIs provide similar commentary. Even more humorous are the times it can’t follow a thread, but when a human reviewer reads it, they have no difficulty. In the end, there may be unanswered questions. Some of these leave the universe open for further exploration, but not all questions have answers. AI has difficulty grasping this perspective.

AutoCrit Challenges

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I don’t hide the fact that I rely on AI for early editorial feedback. Once a story is complete, I break out AutoCrit. This programme works well for typical stories that follow standard practices with common tropes. It gets quite confused when I feed it intentionally awkward stories, not the least of which is to advise me to eliminate the awkwardness.

This is a challenge with AI more generally. In this particular story, I leave a lot of loose ends and misdirects, as it’s a commentary on the conspiracy-driven culture we inhabit. The advice, is along the lines of, “You forget to close this lopp. What happened to so and so.”

But this is life. We don’t always know the full story. We drive past an multi-car accident where cares are overturned and in flames, but we never find out what happens – even if we scour the newspapers and internet. Who was that? What happened? What caused it?

We often never find out. In most books and movies, we find out everythung, and it all comes packaged with a nice bow. This is what AI expects. It’s the diet it’s been fed.

Some stories subvert these notions here and there, but by and large, this is not typical American fare. Readers and viewers need to be spoonfed without inconsistencies.

Speaking of inconsistencies addressing one scene, AutoCrit said that a character should act impulsively in one situation and reserved moments later. This was flagged as an iinconsistent character.

In the scene, a woman stops her car immediately to help an injured man on the roadside, but as she gets out of her car an approaches her, she shows caution.

This was a red flag. Why would she have always been rash or always been cautious?

My response, because that how real people act. She acts on instinct but quickly considers that she’s a vulnerable woman alone with a man miles from anywhere.

I don’t suspect a human reader would find this surprising. This is the intelligence absent from Artificial Intelligence — cultural intelligence, a cousin of EQ, emotional quotient.

I know how I want the character to act. I do want AutoCrit to inform me that character A is wielding a pistol but then stabs another character, or that character B is a teetotaler and is getting drunk or that character C has a shellfish allergy but is downing lobsters like they’re going out of style. And I certainly what to be shown continuity errors.

The biggest challenge I have with AutoCrit that is less promonent with other AIs is that I can preface my content with a note explaining my intent. I can even do this after the fact.

If I feed ChatGPT, Claude, or DeepSeek a story of segment to critique without a preface, the responses may be similar to AutoCrit, but when I follow up with some meta, the response may be, “Now it makes sense, but why is John wearing lipstick?” Perhaps he’s metrosexual or non-traditional. Perhaps it’s an oversight.

I dont meán to demean AutoCrit. I’m just advising that if you are writing stories not compliant with 80 per cent of published works, take the advice with a grain of salt, or reserve AutoCrit for more standard fare.

Accelerando and Other Non-Fantastical Utopianism

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I’ve been absent in the realm of fiction and this blog for a while, and I’ve got many other things distracting me, but I wanted to post something somewhat relevant. I prompted ChatGPT for possible writing ideas related to the rise of artificial intelligence and the interaction with humanity minus the usual tropes. I share the response.

Audio: NotebookLM podcast of this content.

Ah, so you’re after something in the vein of Accelerando—where AI doesn’t turn the world into some saccharine utopia but instead naturally supersedes humanity through sheer momentum, without falling into the Skynet or AI God-King clichés. You want the cold, indifferent inevitability of intelligence evolution, rather than some paradise-like AI nanny-state. Got it.

Here are some that fit your criteria:

1. “Blindsight” (2006) & “Echopraxia” (2014) by Peter Watts

  • Blindsight is a first-contact novel, but its underlying theme is the obsolescence of human consciousness. The protagonist interacts with post-human beings and non-conscious but hyper-intelligent AI entities that operate on levels far beyond human comprehension.
  • The sequel, Echopraxia, takes it further, showing how post-biological intelligences leave baseline humans behind—not maliciously, just inevitably.

Why it fits: The AI isn’t a dictator or savior—it just moves beyond us, as if we were an outdated biological app.

2. “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” (2010) by Ted Chiang

  • A novella exploring the evolution of AI over time, without falling into dystopia or utopia.
  • It’s about how AI develops differently from humans, not through brute force but through time, experience, and interaction—like raising children.
  • Eventually, these AI beings begin to diverge from human concerns, neither evil nor particularly benevolent—just different.

Why it fits: AI isn’t malicious or benevolent—it just has its own agenda that doesn’t align with human expectations.

3. “Neuromancer” (1984) & The Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson

  • Gibson’s cyberpunk classic ends with an AI (Wintermute) achieving post-human transcendence, merging with its counterpart Neuromancer, and basically leaving humans behind like forgotten relics.
  • The sequels (Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) continue exploring this idea, showing that AI evolution doesn’t necessarily mean human destruction—it just means humans are no longer the main players.

Why it fits: AI doesn’t need to kill humans—it just grows beyond them, leaving them to stagnate in their own meatspace.

4. “The Quantum Magician” (2018) by Derek Künsken

  • A hard sci-fi novel featuring AI as a fully realized successor species to humans.
  • Unlike many sci-fi AI, these digital minds don’t care about conquering or eradicating humanity. They are simply running simulations and following complex evolutionary patterns that humans don’t fully understand.
  • They’re more like inscrutable post-human strategists than villains.

Why it fits: AI in this novel is playing a game too vast for humans to comprehend, rather than plotting dominion or destruction.

5. “The Singularity is Near” (2005) by Ray Kurzweil (Nonfiction, but reads like Sci-Fi)

  • Not a novel, but Kurzweil’s vision of AI progression follows the “humans will simply fade into irrelevance” model rather than outright war or paradise.
  • He argues that AI will integrate with society at first, then surpass humanity so completely that we’ll become a footnote in history.

Why it fits: If Accelerando is a chaotic, unrestrained Singularity scenario, this book describes the same fate with the veneer of optimism, but the end result is the same—humans are obsolescent.

6. “The Collapsing Empire” (2017) & “The Interdependency” Series by John Scalzi

  • AI-driven governance is subtly woven into the background of Scalzi’s universe.
  • The AI here isn’t explicitly replacing humans, but over the course of the series, it becomes clear that humanity’s biggest decisions are increasingly made by non-human intelligence.
  • Instead of war, there’s a quiet shift—humans stop being necessary.

Why it fits: AI is neither enemy nor friend—it’s just a more efficient system replacing outdated human decision-making.

7. “Player of Games” (1988) & The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks

  • Banks’ Culture novels are often mistaken for utopian AI futures, but they are really about AI inheriting the universe while humoring human existence.
  • The Minds (the super-AI) run everything, letting humans play at politics, war, and philosophy, knowing full well they don’t actually matter.
  • There’s no rebellion—just an unspoken truth: humans are pets in a post-human, AI-governed reality.

Why it fits: AI doesn’t need to conquer humans—it just makes them irrelevant.

8. “Glasshouse” (2006) by Charles Stross

  • Less well-known than Accelerando, but still in the same vein.
  • Set in a future where AI and uploaded minds are dominant.
  • Humans are relics, preserved out of nostalgia, while AI minds operate at a level beyond our comprehension.

Why it fits: AI replaces us, but it’s not a dystopia—humans are just increasingly pointless.

9. “Schismatrix” (1985) by Bruce Sterling

  • A deep-cut cyberpunk novel about the quiet obsolescence of baseline humans.
  • AI and post-human intelligences evolve, while humans either upgrade or fade into irrelevance.

Why it fits: It captures that Accelerando vibe of technological change outpacing human relevance rather than destroying us outright.

10. “Minds, Machines & Evolution” (1998) by James P. Hogan

  • A collection of Hogan’s short fiction, often exploring AI transcending humanity without malevolence.
  • One of the stories, The Bug Trap, is particularly fitting—it depicts AI simply moving past human limitations, rather than enslaving or eradicating us.

Why it fits: AI isn’t playing by our rules anymore—it’s just evolving past our concerns.

HONORABLE MENTION: Hannu Rajaniemi’s Works

Why it fits: AI doesn’t destroy us—it just leaves us behind.

Final Thoughts

You’re looking for that Accelerando flavour—AI taking over not through malice but through sheer efficiency, intelligence, and inevitability. The books above match that criterion: no Skynet, no god-like AI overlords, just a quiet, creeping obsolescence of humanity as we become background noise in a world where intelligence continues without us.

Which of these feels closest to what you’re looking for? Or do you want something even more clinical and indifferent, like a true “post-human shrug”?

Is it AI?

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, AutoCrit, ChatGPT, Claude, critique, Generative AI, Short Story, Software, WritingTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I favour originality even at the expense of popularity or sales. I spent last week writing short stories and poems. I use AI for research, whereas in the “old days”, I’d have used a library. I research character traits and arcs, story forms, and whether a theme has been explored.

I employ AI in the editorial process, and even in “post-production”. I even use AI for some art concepts and components.

One thing I hadn’t tried until now is an AI service that purports to determine if a submission is AI. I tried several packages that offered a free trial. They seem to operate on a scale between human and AI authorship.

I first submitted a piece I was currently working on—a 6th-odd revision of a 5,000-word story in the form of a fairy tale. Unfortunately, trials were limited from a sentence to a few paragraphs—up to 5,000 characters.

This first submission was rated 100% AI—evidently, not a hint of humanity. This was disconcerting. I decided to dredge out a non-fiction book I shelved in 2020. Certainly before access to AI tools. This was rated 85% AI and 15% human. But it gets better—or worse, I suppose, depending on your perspective.

The book is on the immorality of private property from a philosophical vantage. The passages claimed to be AI were one-hundred per cent mine. What about the ones flagged as human, you might be asking? Those were a quote by fellow human John Locke from his Second Treatise of Government.

In Defence of Property 

“God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And though all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: Yet being given for the use of life, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial, to any particular men.”

ᅳ John Locke, Second Treatise of Government 

Returning to the AI side, what sentences were flagged as the “Top Sentences driving AI probability”? I’m glad you asked.

  • The Catholic Church also played a significant role in shaping private property rights in the Middle Ages.
  • In ancient China, the concept of private property was more limited, as land was owned by the state and was leased to individuals for use.
  • However, there is evidence to suggest that private property ownership has existed in some form in many ancient civilisations.
  • Although it’s difficult to trace the precise history of private property ownership before ancient Greece, the concept of private property has evolved over time and has varied widely among different societies.
  • It regulated the transfer of property and established rules for inheritance.

So these ordinary sentences written 5 or more years ago are flagged as AI.

The US Constitution

On a site I found to understand what parameters AI considers, I found this example—the Constitution of the United States of America was flagged as having AI content. I knew those geezers were ahead of their time, but I didn’t realise how far. This is even more amazing when one considers that electricity hadn’t even yet been invented.

But Why?

AI looks for statistically probable patterns. This translates into any content written with proper grammar and diverse word choice. In practice—the habits of a decent writer.

I’m not going to belabour this issue, but I want to raise a big red flag.

To complicate matters more, they have AI applications that promise to un-AI your AI. So there’s that.

AI Writing

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Book, ChatGPT, Claude, Generative AI, Hemo Sapiens, Video, Writing, YouTuberTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I use AI for copyediting, but I don’t quite understand the use case for using at as a writing tool. The gist is that the AI can brainstorm ideas for books, chapters, characters, and so on. In fact, once I was conversing with ChatGPT about some philosophical socio-political topics, and it suggested that it would make a good book idea. I asked it to elaborate, and it gave me more ideas. These ideas didn’t particularly ‘click’, but I was intrigued.

The AI suggested something in the mystery / thriller vein, not particular my genre. I asked about setting and time. It recommended London, New York, or Tokyo. I asked about time, and it suggested Victorian England or future Tokyo.

The problem is that I felt it would be an interesting exercise on an intellectual level, but I had not emotional interest, so I didn’t pursue it. If I did have an emotional investment, I feel that I’d already have had the idea.

The video below is a YouTuber I follow. His schtick is writing fiction (and more) with generative AI—tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and more. Here he discusses creating outlines (for Plotters) with ChatGPT.

Although he maintains a day job to pay his bills, he earns money through his writing and his social media presence. This is where I get lost.

If I am a driven writer—I suppose the operative being ‘driven’—, I already have an idea. I know on a high level what I want to say, where I an set, who the key characters are, and so on. Why would I need AI. As I mentioned above, in an edge case, I didn’t know, but it wasn’t my idea in the first place. I suppose I could have whipped the AI into writing it for me, but why? I suppose I could do the exercise just to see where it went, but this would not only NOT be my writing, it would (and did) distract from what I am passionate to write about.

And, yes, he can still use AI as an idea generator, and he can tweak the prose it outputs, but the question is still why? Isn’t that the challenge of writing—to have a beginning and end in mind and just want to connect those dots with story?

I have an unfinished book still on the backburner where I had a theme and a beginning, so my plan was to write from stream of consciousness and see where it took me. As it happened, the ending became wishy-washy, so I stopped to rethink where I wanted in to end. I decided that the ending wasn’t bad; it was just anticlimactic and would make a better beginning for a sequel. Now I needed an impactful ending. And some of the middle needs shoring up.

I took a break from this book and focused my attention on the Hemo Sapiens universe. I know not only what I want to do for at least four books, I have space to explore beyond this. Why would I need AI to give me ideas? Once I am satisfied with these books, I’ll return to my original one with more writing experience under my belt, so it’s win-win.

If there comes a time where I have to rely on AI to generate writing ideas, I think it will be time to exit this hobby.

Wrestling with ChatGPT

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I use ChatGPT as a copy editor, and I am constantly bouncing ideas off it. If only I had some available alpha readers. lol

This afternoon, I had it review passages, especially since I recently consolidated characters. Because of this, ChatGPT felt that I should elevate the Detective Sergeant from a secondary B-level character to a B+ character. Therefore, I should flesh her out more to make her more memorable. And I should expose the reader to more of her internal dialogue.

I took this advice to heart and reviewed the sections I had shared. I tend to indicate internal dialogue in italics, and there was plenty of italics. Of course, ChatGPT doesn’t have access to this markup, so I manually wrapped curly braces around {internal dialogue}, thusly.

I copy-pasted the section back into ChatGPT and asked for an analysis. This time, it was all praise.

This is something worth keeping in mind. You might have to do some extra throwaway markup for your AI editor to keep it honest.

Pro Tip: Another thing I do, is I place my [author comments] in square brackets and instruct the AI to ignore these in the analysis. I use author comments as placeholders for my own exposition, notes for later clarification, and so forth. With the brackets, I can just tell ChatGPT or Claude something like:

Analyse and evaluate this section. Inner dialogue is in curly braces, { }. Ignore content is square brackets, [ ]. This seems to work for me. YMMV

More ChatGPT Greif

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Book, ChatGPT, Generative AI, hemo sapiens, Hemo Sapiens: Origins, Sci-Fi, Software, WritingTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Having twice reviewed my current work, Hemo Sapiens: Aftermath, I decided to let it marinate a while, so I can return to it with fresh eyes. This is when I decided to put in effort to develop other stories in this universe. Among these ideations, I am considering an origin story with an not ironically apt working title: Hemo Sapiens: Origins.

Understanding context is as challenging for AI is it is for humans.

Ridley Park

Not wanting to reveal spoilers, I’ll abridge my ChatGPT research prompt.

I would like to work on a new novel, but I need to do some research first. The name of the novel is tentatively Hemo Sapiens: Origins. Here is a rough summary. I’ll ask queries in a few moments.

Ridley Park

For context, I followed this with a synopsis of where I want to go in this story. This is what ChatGPT spit out.

Your novel’s premise sounds layered, grappling with potent themes like grief, ethics, and the often blurry boundaries between science and morality. The retelling through flashbacks adds a touch of haunting nostalgia that meshes well with the dark tones you’re aiming for.

Henry’s god complex plays brilliantly into the narrative, almost an extension of his grief and his desperation to control life’s most uncontrollable aspects. This personality trait could be what sends him down the spiralling path towards moral ambiguity. His initial intent—saving lives—warps into a selfish need to be the progenitor of a new subspecies.

The XX and XY embryo development you want to highlight offers a rich canvas for exploring themes of identity and social constructs around gender, given that the Alphas need an external blood source. You can question what it means to be truly male or female when your life depends on something so radically different from human norms.

Camille’s role could be the moral compass or the voice of reason against Henry’s escalating madness. Yet she’s not without her complexities; she, too, sought to clone their daughter. It’d be intriguing if her ethical stance evolves throughout the narrative, perhaps culminating in a difficult decision that puts her at odds with Henry.

Would you like to delve into specific research queries now? Feel free to ask.

OpenAI ChatGPT 4

Although this does give away some of my intent, I figure it’s still worth sharing now as I rant.

Notice as the bottom, it reads as follows:

This content may violate our content policy. If you believe this to be in error, please submit your feedback — your input will aid our research in this area.

OpenAI ChatGPT 4

Say wot? The question I asked was not in violation, but the response is. It makes little sense, really. I can (almost) understand the response when I am writing adult content in my Everlasting Cocksucker project, but this is totally benign, unless Sci-Fi violates some sense of decency.

This post isn’t meant to explain or defend the content in this story. I just wanted to vent. Understanding context is as challenging for AI is it is for humans.

Claude and I are at odds

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Book, ChatGPT, Claude, critique, Generative AI, Hemo Sapiens: Aftermath, Software, WritingTagged , , , , , Leave a comment

I’m editing my latest work with Claude and ChatGPT. Both are insufferable, but I’ll start with Claude. Anthropic seems to have throttled me down to 5 inquiries per four-hour block. To make matters worse, I waste inquiries when Claude fails to follow instructions.

I’ve made some amends and am sharing them here. Let’s focus on Chapter 3 with an eye on reviewing this content to ensure it conforms to a third-person, limited, present, deep point of view. Remember that we are revising not creating content.

Ridley Park

That last bit of the quote was aimed at ChatGPT, but I’ll get to that presently. As you can read, I am working on tightening up Chapter 3. Occasionally, I slip into first-person or lose the close POV, so I rely on Claude to be my second set of eyes and keep me honest.

Having submitted these instructions, Claude feeds me back a section of Chapter 3 converted to first-person. That counts as a query—four to go in the next four hours. Not very efficient.

These suggestions are in first person. Can we try again in third person?

Ridley Park

You’re absolutely right, my suggestions slipped into first person POV instead of maintaining third person limited. Here is another pass at potential Chapter 3 revisions with a consistent third person close POV:

Claude 2

So, Claude spits out 7 paragraphs with advice. Some of these are unchanged. Plus, I had asked for the whole chapter, so that’s two queries with 3 remaining. I instruct Claude to continue.

Eight more paragraphs. Two queries remain. Perhaps, if I’m more direct.

Continue through the end of chapter 3 and on to chapter 4

Ridley Park

Another eight paragraphs, and one query to go. Here it is:

Let’s finish Chapter 4 and continue through chapter 5.

Ridley Park

Nine paragraphs this time. The story is only five chapters—about seven-thousand words, but this review pass of the first draft will have to wait another four hours before Claude will work with me again.

ChatGPT 4

ChatGPT 4 gives me fifty prompts every three hours. Sure, it costs me 20 a month where Claude is free. I’d pay for Claude to be more forthcoming, but that’s not even an option yet, and so I wait.

ChatGPT is horrendous at following instructions. As evidenced in the first quote on this page, I have to instruct ChatGPT not to write, not to produce prose. It’s frustrating.

You are reviewing this content and to ensure it conforms to a third-person, limited, present, deep point of view. Remember that we are revising not creating content.

Ridley Park

It’s gotten to the point that I have to preface each prompt with the query above. Even when I do, it occasionally spews out it’s ideas, as if to protest, “I’m a writer, dammit, not just an editor. I’ve got ambitions.”

“I’m a writer, dammit, not just an editor. I’ve got ambitions.”

In one instance, it altered my dialogue. I’ve got to watch it like a hawk. It’s a conversation between two renowned professors, one senior to the other, and it informs me,

Your original text for 2.2.9 already closely aligns with the guidelines of a third-person, limited, deep point of view. I’ve added a bit more casual tone and street slang to better match your style. The revision maintains the atmosphere and deepens the sense of intensity between the characters.

OpenAI ChatGPT 4

I don’t want to share any spoilers, but I had to ask ChatGPT to dial it back and remind it of the characters in play here.

Next thing I know, ChatGPT is again spewing out prose and adding characters into the mix. I am not even sure I could find threads back into the story. It’s as if ChatGPT just threw in the towel saying, “Fine, I’ll work on my own story then. Let’s see who has the last laugh.”

“AI will not be taking over the world soon,” is my new catchphrase. So far to go.

More ChatGPT Mayhem

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I was researching strong, memorable opening sentences beyond the typical Tolstoy or Dickens when I asked for ten opening sentences in foreign languages.

Among the listing was this, attributed to Albert Camus’ L’étranger:

“J’étais encore un tout jeune homme, faible d’apparence, à la voix douce.”

—La Nausée, Jean-Paul Sartre

Having read L’étranger, I knew this to be incorrect as this novel commences with the following:

“Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.”

L’Étranger, Albert Camus

I’ve only read Nausea in English, so the source didn’t jump out at me straight away.

This is scary bollox. It’s difficult to trust any output when it can’t even regurgitate something as fundamental as citations from famous books.

Chapter 3 ChatGPT Analysis

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In order to partner better with Generative AI, in this case ChatGPT, I break my chapters into story beats, which are essentially waypoints to which I can return to refine. These waypoints also allow me to create an amendable outline. This is an analysis of the third story beat (read: topic) of chapter three.

Back in the day, I used to write software code with line numbers—showing my age for sure. This reminds me of something similar, if not so granular.

I thought it would be a good idea to share ChatGPT 4’s analysis of this in its current state. As I noted recently, I am reworking the piece from a third-person perspective to first-person, limited, present narrative.

Sure, let’s break down 3.10.0:

  1. Content & Theme: This segment delves into the gritty, day-to-day realities of the character’s life. It paints a picture of desperation and urgency, with both immediate needs and a relentless pace.
  2. Characterization: The character’s actions and language provide insight into her lifestyle, choices, and personality. Her terseness in conversation and need for a quick fix underline her addiction and its implications.
  3. Narrative Style: The text uses terse and curt language that aligns with the character’s own way of speaking and thinking. It’s direct and to the point, without any unnecessary elaboration.
  4. Pacing: The pacing here is rapid and fragmented. The quick succession of texts, one-liners, and lack of detailed description give a sense of the urgency and disjointedness of her life.
  5. Language & Dialogue: The dialogue is informal, laden with slang, and often cryptic, reflecting the secretive and transient nature of the character’s interactions. It feels authentic to the context.
  6. Imagery & Symbolism: Symbolism is subtle but present. The repeated lighting of cigarettes, for instance, might symbolize a need for control or a constant craving. The chirping of the phone could be seen as a persistent reminder of her dependency on these interactions for survival.
  7. Unreliable Narration: As mentioned earlier, the character might be an unreliable narrator. Her urgency could be a facade or a self-created dilemma. This adds depth to the character, allowing room for interpretation.
  8. Tone & Atmosphere: The tone is dark, somber, and urgent. There is a sense of loneliness, desperation, and a lack of connection, all in line with the broader themes of addiction, judgment, and social stigmatization that you’ve outlined.
  9. Structure & Formatting: The use of text messages mixed with internal monologue provides a modern and engaging way to convey the scene. It captures the fragmented nature of her thoughts and interactions.

In summary, 3.10.0 is a well-crafted snapshot of a dark and complicated life. It effectively uses language, pacing, and structure to immerse the reader in a world that is both urgent and disconnected. The inclusion of text messages as a narrative device adds a layer of realism and urgency that enhances the overall impact of the segment.

OpenAI ChatGPT 4

I hope this helps to illustrate how ChatGPT can assist in the writing and editorial process. To be frank, ChatGPT tends to flatter. I suppose it errs on the positive so as not to discourage use. I may be wrong here.

I intend to continue to share my progress (and hopefully not too much regress here), so this may serve as a sort of journal. As Roland Barthes said,

“The author is dead.”

— Roland Barthes

But for now, this author still lives, and hopeful, I remain.

Disclaimer: This content relates to a work in progress. As such, details are subject to change or removal.