Mimi the Sapphic Nerd

Aquarius | Bi and ready to cry | She/Her | I mainly love idol anime and JRPGS, but I have other interests too :D f.y.i, this blog is mostly inactive. I may come back every once in a while tho ^^

[sonocomics]

Can't believe Jude's special skill is just TELEPORTS BEHIND YOU

Click HERE for a masterpost of Tales of comics!

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[fixyourwritinghabits]

I think the thing that's been bothering me about the "is it okay to use ChatGPT to plot/make characters/etc" is that at the end of the day, these are not tools that are helping your writing, they are shortcuts that are undercutting it.

These things are supposed to be hard, because you need to learn how to do them.

And listen, I know this sucks. I've got to knock off 4k of words from my current novel to make it more sellable, which seems like a completely arbitrary thing to do, but things like printing costs absolutely do factor into traditional publishing. It took me five drafts to figure out a completely obvious in hindsight plot point that explains why a character does what he does. It takes a few tries to pull together a detailed outline into a workable story, and it always will.

I would have loved to figure this all out way earlier, but I had to learn how to spot the gaps in my writing before I could fix them. Generative AI isn't ever going to bridge the gap between sitting down and learning how to work things out, because if you don't do that, you never will become a more competent writer. If that wasn't part of the point, none of us would be doing this in the first place.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Also not to harp on the obvious, but even if you are okay with using the Plagiarism Machine That Lies And Also Uses Enough Energy To Burn A Small Forest Down as a tool, it's just not... a good one. I've seen the argument that they're like calculators or synthesizers, but both exist to help you become better at something, not replace a skill or talent altogether.

There are loads of free resources that people put out there to help you right. Name/character/plot generators! Plot structures and bulleted outlines! Loads of fantastic advice that is given out openly by people who like writing for people who like writing. As much as we writers whine about doing it, you are genuinely missing out on a self-rewarding and satisfactory journey of creating something that you're proud of doing, even if no one will ever read it. It is worth the effort.

You can do better than the Grift Machine trying to convince you art isn't worth it. Both art - and you - deserve more.

[elumish]

To add on to this point, the act of figuring out your writing makes you a better writer.

The process of building your story builds you a better story. Literally writing the words, whether you type them or speak them or write them by hand, will help you build a better story. Two different sentences will give you two different thoughts--and making the decision of which sentence to write is what building a story looks like.

With GenAI, the intentionality isn't there. It doesn't know why one sentence means something different from a different sentence. It doesn't know which direction you're trying to go in. It doesn't know that you will evoke a different feeling by saying skin than by saying flesh, and so it won't choose one of them versus the other.

It won't choose anything. It's just a very energy-intensive autofill.

The same is true for building characters, for building settings, for building plot. GenAI doesn't know why something is the right answer for your story, to tell the story you want to tell in the way you want to tell it, because it doesn't know anything. It just picks the expected outcome based on what other people have done.

GenAI is just a machine filling in letters in an order that they have been filled in before. It's just averages. It's just likelihood.

If you want to write a good story, you have to sit down and write the story. You have to write the sentences. You have to know why you're writing the words you're writing. You have to make decisions.

And if you don't do it this time, you won't be any better at doing it next time.

[ashkaztra]

"But I just need a ...."

I get it. Sometimes, you're on a roll, your writing is flowing, and you don't want to break it too much just to name a thing or create a random thing for your world.

There are better options than AI, though!

Need to name something?

Fantasy Name Generator has you covered. Need a more contemporary/real world name? Fake Name Generator.

Need to generate some details?

Roll for Fantasy or RanGen

Now, just using these alone won't make your writing better! You still have to fit things into your world and make them your own! But it's a way to get inspiration without using the plagiarism environmental destroyer machine. There are so many tools out there that are much better than AI and just as convenient if you just know where to turn.

[maryellencarter]

Square brackets.

This is an old tip from Nanowrimo -- when you're on a roll and you need a character name or a detail you don't know, put a placeholder in square brackets [like this]. My first Nano's two main characters' last names were [Lastname1] and [Lastname2] for the entire first draft. Then when you go to edit, you can search for square brackets throughout your draft and find everything you skipped to maintain momentum, and *then* you go down a rabbit hole of Armenian surname databases or whatever.

[clockworkcuttlefish]

LITERALLY JUST USE SQUARE BRACKETS. I do it all the time to keep moving along, and it works perfectly. Way more perfectly than the Water-Eating Plagiarism Machine.

[sonocomics]

Got Xillia recently and it consumed a good chunk of free time for like a week

Consensus the party is great, Jude's my fave :>

[qyza8kcq4x6udjq]

Aikatsu x Precure x PriPara - Crossover

[anxietyproblem]

[beardedmrbean]

[screechingfartdinosaur]

[simicseathief]

Hello, I would like to order a “reliving my repressed trauma” with a side of unspeakable horrors.

[angelnumber27]

my mind hand touched a hot memory stove

[gzeidraws]

combat outfits 💥

bonus:

[acedadtorney]

[cynam1nt]

[abyssalchronicles]

New “Tales of Destiny” trademark filed by Bandai Namco in Japan

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[tiffany-chan123]

So Summer Games Fest has been pretty good so far…

[medusadyke]

tumblr discourse after 13 years on this fucking website

[princessnijireiki]

[itzchrissydoesstuff]

THIS IS NOW CANON!!!

[maladaptive-eren]

Finding a fresh new daydreaming plot is honestly the best feeling.

[inversionimpulse]

immensely funny to have a Sonic story about the effectiveness of strong institutions of unexceptional people working together with robust bureaucratic oversight being generally more effective in disaster management than disorganised exceptional individuals

like, remarkably relevant and valuable message, but...

In a Sonic the Hedgehog comic!?