What he saw was a crack in the earth, a gorge that plummeted hundreds of feet into unfathomable darkness. There was water down there somewhere. He couldnât be sure, but it was probably a sea cave, with another opening far below. Up above, where he was clinging, was the Academyâs training room. On his right and left there were guard rails, preventing students from falling into the pit. But he was on the wrong side of the rails. The other students leaned over them, watching his progress intently. He could swear they were snickering.
âDonât look down,â said Major Piner from the sidelines. âKeep moving.â
Danielâs palms were slick with sweat, and he struggled to keep his grip. Maybe I should go back, he thought. Iâm not brave enough for this. How had it even come to this? Only an hour ago, heâd been safe in his bed, in the Academyâs dormitory, trying to hack into a bank account.
His fingers, slick with sweat, slipped another millimeter. The wallâs cold composite panels pressed against his chest as he tried to flatten himself, desperate to redistribute his weight. It didnât help. His arms trembled violently. He wasnât supposed to be hereâthis high, this exposed, this close to failing the first of the Academyâs entrance exams.
He tried to breathe, but the pit below seemed to inhale with him, pulling at his lungs. If he fell, would he break something? Would he be disqualified? Would he even survive?
For a heartbeat, he hung by three fingers.
Iâm not going to make it.
AI's Character Introduction
In the human authored sample the worldbuilding takes enough of a priority that other characters, the outside world, and the appearance of the room are carefully introduced. In my own writing I give thought to how Daniel is relating to other characters in the room and the logic of things like a guard rail etc that come from actually visualizing an environment. Daniel's internal monologue is a call forward to his character arc in future.
In the AI sample the most formulaic elements are the main focus. Exposition from the prompt ("the first of the Academy's entrance exams") is prioritized and pushed toward the beginning of the chapter. The writing focuses heavily on internal sensations and close-up visuals because these are presumably the least context dependent aspects of any book. The closest we have to scene description is somehow getting "cold composite panels" - unclear to me what this means in terms of a climbing wall, but okay. Can you climb on a cold composite panel? How?
Hours earlier, Daniel sat crossâlegged on his dorm bed, staring at the digital clock projected on the wall. The numbers pulsed in a soft blue glow: 07:12. He had been awake since five. His stomach had been awake since four, twisting itself into knots.
The Dralinian National Aeronautics AcademyâDNA², as the cadets called itâwas everything heâd ever wanted. Science Division was the crown jewel, the place where the brightest minds built starship engines, terraforming arrays, and the kind of tech that made the rest of the world gasp. Daniel wanted to be one of them. He should be one of them. He could hack half the Academyâs training simulations blindfolded. He could solve orbital mechanics problems in his sleep.
But none of that mattered if he failed the Combat Test.
He pulled on his cadet jacket, smoothing the fabric even though it never stayed smooth. His hands shook. He hated that. He wasnât scared of testsâhe was scared of this test. The rumors had been circulating for weeks: cadets passing out, cadets breaking bones, cadets being carried out on stretchers. The Academy insisted everything was safe and supervised, but rumors didnât care about official statements.
Daniel grabbed his datapad and headed downstairs.
My Character Introduction
It is unclear to me what the AI means "his stomach had been awake since four", but it feels like something a bad writer would write, so hey. How does Daniel know his stomach has been awake since an hour longer than he has? Don't ask.
DNA2 came fully formed from the engine. Don't look at me.
The Academy looked like the shell of a green beetle, burrowed into the edge of a cliff over the sea. Or like a tin can standing on a hill, when Daniel was feeling less poetic. It had only two proper floors, but there was also a turret on top with a pivoting cannon that hadnât seen use in decades. The second floor of the Academy was ringed by a circle of dorm windows.
          Daniel had tapped his window twice, shading the glass to an opaque white and hiding the sunlight that glared down on the Academyâs metallic exterior. Inside, it was dim and quiet, perfect for concentrating.
The dorm had two beds nestled into the wall space, and some inset shelves, which Daniel had filled with books like Science and Magic: The Connection by Stelmer, and Understanding Psychology, because one had to make up for their weak points somehow. The others were books on coding. Heâd brought the ones he knew were most likely to be assigned as class reading when he got into Science Division.
He couldnât wait to crack into them in classes with Amala Forscythe, head of Science Division, and the other teachers heâd heard about from former students. Not âfriendsâ, since he didnât really have friends, but they were⌠people he had looked up to when he was in secondary school.
Daniel had been one of those bright and exceptional children that had turned into a somewhat fraught adolescent. His parents were beyond excited for him to have a lucrative career doing something safe in both the market sense and the physical sense, like being a lawyer or an accountant.
The Dralinian National Aeronautics Academy was the place you went if you wanted to go to space.
It wasnât space itself that excited him, but the idea of other planets. Landing on other planets, exploring other planets, seeing things nobody had ever seen beforeâthat was the general concept. They had the tech to do it now. And yet, humanity (and elves, though they were sort of an afterthought) had only landed on a couple of uninhabited worlds so far. The habited worlds hadnât quite been reached. Theyâd been contacted, (long-distance) and had mostly left Valerian alone. Mostly.
He wasnât sure he would actually make it to space, but it was better than being worked to the bone for something he didnât even care about. So he had struggled to stay ahead in his studies. And now he was almost there. Doing something he wanted to do. For once.
Danielâs tablet was propped up on his pillow, projecting blue light into his faintly aching eyes. His cursor blinked in the command line.
His concept of excitement at the moment was breaching a bankâs firewalls. A bank was no easy targetâhacking into a bank account was like breaking into a fortress. There were guards everywhere.
Hacking is a risky business, he thought. And though it was perhaps a little self-congratulatory, he couldnât help feeling that he was quite brave. If he was caught doing what he was about to do, heâd probably be thrown out of the Academy.
Thatâs why he wasnât doing it for real. At least, not yet. Instead, he was testing his code on some pirated softwareâa simulated version of the bankâs account system that they used internally to train new employees. Perfect testing grounds to find out how everything worked.
And the danger wasnât really all that heart-stopping. Heâd been here for hours, shifting words and letters around and pressing the same buttons over and over again. Still, he was feeling a prick of excitement now that it seemed like everything was working properly. Maybe it was time to do the deed for real. He switched tabs.
Mr. and Mrs. Graceâs account balance lay bare before him.
At any moment, he could enter the commands that would transfer the money from their account to his ownâa sum of 3,000 quills, enough to pay for the first quarter of his tuition.
If he did, he would cross the line. Only one more move would put him afoul of the law. Yes, heâd gone undetected so far, but once the transfer was complete, it wouldnât take the bank too long to find the discrepancy. And from there, nothing could stop them from tracing the source of the hack. While he was tempted to actually pull the stunt, he had no real desire to be arrested. For the moment, it would have to be enough to know that he could do it if he wanted to. Which he did. But also didnât.
Daniel backed out of his parentsâ account.
          He returned to the main page with a sigh, closed the program, and clicked a large yellow-orange button to accept the 3,000 quill money transfer which they were going to give him anyway.
He totally could have done it.
Daniel put aside the tiny, detachable keyboard and threw his sock across the room to the growing laundry pile on the empty bed. To be perfectly honest, his dorm room was a bit of a mess. He didnât share it with anyone, thank Inaden, and so there was no one to complain about the dirty laundry strewn about the floor. People were a hassle to live with; machines made less troublesome company.
          The lamp on his table glowed softly. Now here was a machine that definitely made better company than a human. His father had gifted it to him for his last birthday (an expensive present, given the current magic shortage), and it was undeniably cool. It had the shape of a miniature sun, hovering over a flat base. Tiny solar flares and spurts arced from its surface, swirling in shimmering patterns. He knew it worked on both science and magic. Any apparatus which utilized both disciplines at once intrigued himâthough it was frowned upon in certain circles. However, if he had to pick one of the two, it would definitely be science.
          His eye strayed to the clock. He leaped up, burying the tablet in the bed covers. Heâd completely forgotten. His appointment for the combat test started in fifteen minutes.
          He rammed a comb through his dark hair, checking his pale face in the tiny round mirror over the bathroom counter. Then he dropped the comb and started rummaging through the piles of laundry for his blue initiate jacket.
          There were three entrance exams at the DNAA. Regardless of their academic intent, all students were required to take all three. The first was the flight test, which he had taken yesterday. The other two tests were today: the combat test, and the Science exam. Heâd been prepping for the Science exam for months. Now he was almost there, a few hours away. Only one obstacle remained: the combat test.
His mind stole back to a lunch in the dining hall last week. He had already made a habit of sitting by himself, not unlike in Secondary. This time, however, an unusually talkative group had parked itself next to him. As he contemplated moving away from them, a boy who looked about sixteen had asked him what division he was entering. Before he could escape, he was trapped into a conversation.
          âEven if youâre in Science,â the kid had said, leaning over. He had round glasses and an enormous backpack. âYouâll want to train for the combat test.â
          âReally?â Daniel had asked. âThey told us that almost all initiates pass it and end up eligible for the division.â
          âEven so, itâs wild. You should probably be training for it. Iâm not allowed to tell you whatâs in it. Just a hint⌠work on upper body.â
At the time, Daniel had not really been listening, as he was too busy wondering how a sixteen-year-old had gotten into the DNAA. It was hard enough for him at twenty. Now the words seemed ominous. He had not worked on upper body.
          Daniel finally fished for his tablet, caught his jacket by the sleeve, and burst out into the hall, slamming the door behind him.
Relax, he told himself. Remember your strategies for test anxiety? Theyâve always worked before. This is no different. You breathe, you keep your head, youâll be fine. Emotions never helped anyone think. Besides, anything that âmostâ initiates can do, you can do. One of the perks of being above average.
          The speech was intentionally overconfident; it made him feel better.
          Halfway down the stairs, he remembered that he had no idea where he was going. He checked his tablet again. The map of the building showed a circle, divided into wedge-shaped rooms like the spokes of a wheel. His destination was a corner of the training room, a large slice taking up about a third of the bottom floor.
Holy length batman. Okay, so the AI skews short. We could already kind of see that.
Similarities: "brightest minds" and "tablet/datapad" and "jacket interaction" are the top ones that surprised me.
Differences: Worldbuilding. It's not as much that the worldbuilding is different as the fact the AI one has no worldbuilding. Add to that: specificity. What the AI sums up as expositional rumors, the human-authored sample turns into a concrete interaction. Obviously I could have written this into the prompt, but I think the point stands. Concrete specificity is the mark of a human writer. Without praising myself too much I can't say much else, but I do personally feel that the human-authored sample just feels somehow more alive.
I could go on pasting the rest of the chapter, but I'm afraid of boring y'all. Go read my book.
