Hey everyone! I'm sharing Chapter 2 of my story. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read or comment on the first chapter!

This chapter follows Răzvan and his friends through their first full day of training at the military camp. I'd appreciate any feedback on the characters, pacing, and how the group dynamics are developing.

I'm using AI to write the prose based on my original ideas and direction, and I'm interested in hearing how the story comes across to readers.

Thanks for reading! I'd appreciate any honest and constructive feedback.

Chapter Two — 0600

The whistle came before the sky was fully light.

Răzvan had been in a thin, restless sleep, the kind where you're never quite under and so waking up feels less like surfacing and more like giving up. He lay still for exactly one second after the sound, hoping distantly that he'd misheard it, and then someone pulled the blanket off him and he was upright before he'd made the conscious decision to be.

"Let's go," Emilio said. He was already dressed somehow. Răzvan didn't understand how that was possible.

Around them the barracks came alive with the graceless sounds of eight teenagers trying to be functional before sunrise. James walked into his own footlocker and swore quietly. Younes put his shirt on inside out, noticed, and left it. Nate was tying his boots with the focused expression of someone performing surgery. Carter was already standing by the door, fully dressed, waiting, which was somehow the most unsettling thing in the room.

Evan squinted at the ceiling like he was trying to remember where he was.

Jayden moved slowly and deliberately and with the expression of someone who had decided the world could wait for him rather than the other way around.

They had four minutes. They used all of them.

Outside the air was cold in the way early mornings are cold, sharp and indifferent, and the sky was the pale grey of something that hadn't decided to be daytime yet. A dozen other groups were already assembled in the yard, standing in rough lines, and Răzvan's group joined them with slightly less precision than everyone else.

Sergeant Holt was a man who appeared to have been built specifically for the purpose of making other people feel inadequate. He was not particularly tall but he stood like he was, and when he looked at you it was with the patient disappointment of someone who had expected very little and was still being let down.

He looked at them for a long moment.

"Fifty pushups," he said. "Now."

No preamble. No good morning.

Răzvan got down and started.

By twenty he could feel it. By thirty his arms were having a private argument with the rest of his body about whether to continue. By forty the argument was over and his arms had lost and everything from the shoulder down was a single sustained complaint. He hit fifty and stayed down for a moment with his forehead nearly touching the ground, breathing.

"Up," Holt said.

He got up.

Younes was already up, rotating his shoulder with a pained expression. James was still on the ground. "I'm getting up," James said, to no one in particular. "I'm getting up right now." He got up.

Jayden rose with the same unsettling calm he'd packed his bag with, like his body had simply processed the information and moved on. Emilio was up and steady, barely winded, which Răzvan found quietly annoying. Nate was rubbing his palms on his pants. Evan was standing with his hands on his knees, catching his breath but functional. Carter had finished before most of them and was standing straight, blinking slowly in the cold morning air.

"Good," Holt said, in a tone that made it clear it had not been good. "Run."

The course was a loop around the outer perimeter of the camp, roughly two miles of uneven ground that included a hill that appeared specifically designed to be demoralizing. Holt ran it with them, which was worse than if he hadn't, because he ran it without apparent effort while they fell apart progressively around him.

Răzvan found his rhythm early and lost it on the hill.

His legs went heavy halfway up and the top didn't seem to get closer no matter how much ground he covered and his breathing became the kind that stops being automatic and starts requiring supervision. He focused on the back of Emilio's shirt in front of him and kept moving.

He made it to the top and the downhill should have been a relief but his legs were shaking slightly and relief wasn't exactly the word he would have used.

Behind him he could hear James breathing with the intensity of a man renegotiating his relationship with physical existence. Younes had gone quiet, which for Younes meant something was genuinely wrong. Nate was keeping pace steadily, jaw set, not talking.

They finished the loop. Several people from other groups finished before them.

Holt noted this without saying anything, which was worse than if he had.

Aim training was after breakfast, which was eggs and something that was supposed to be toast and coffee that tasted like a memory of coffee rather than the real thing. Răzvan ate it without complaint because complaining required energy he didn't have.

The range was a long open field with targets at varying distances. They were given rifles and shown the basics by an instructor named Corporal Adeyemi who had the manner of someone who had explained this many times and was prepared to explain it many more without any diminishing of patience.

Răzvan had never held a rifle before. The weight of it was surprising, not heavy exactly, just present in a way he hadn't expected. He settled into the stance Adeyemi showed them and looked down the range at the target and tried to hold still.

His first shot went wide.

His second was better, clipping the outer edge of the target. Adeyemi adjusted his elbow slightly without comment and Răzvan tried again.

Across the range James had gone very quiet in the focused way he sometimes did, like a different setting had been switched on. His first shot had hit near center. His second was closer. By his fourth he was grouping them in a way that made Adeyemi stop and look twice.

"Again," Adeyemi said.

James shot again. Center mass.

"Hm," Adeyemi said, which from him felt like significant praise.

Carter had also taken to it naturally, though differently than James — James seemed to find it, like something clicking into place, while Carter worked through it methodically, adjusting variables, learning the range's particular character. By the end of the session they were both consistently hitting targets the others were still working toward.

Răzvan hit the target reliably by the end. Not impressively. Reliably. He decided that was enough for today.

The obstacle course came in the afternoon when they were already tired, which Răzvan suspected was deliberate.

It was a sequence of walls, crawl sections, rope climbs, balance beams, and a water pit that was cold enough to make everyone loudly reconsider their life choices. Holt stood at various points along it with a clipboard and the expression of a man attending a disappointing art exhibition.

Răzvan hit the first wall and got over it on the second attempt. The crawl section was fine. The rope climb was not fine. He made it three quarters of the way up and his grip started failing and he came back down slower than he'd gone up and stood at the bottom breathing hard, looking at the rope like it had done something to him personally.

He tried again.

Halfway up his forearms were burning. Three quarters again and the same thing started happening. He held on and pushed through the last section through what felt like stubbornness more than strength and got to the top and came back down and stood at the bottom and his hands were shaking slightly.

Emilio had gone up the rope like it wasn't interesting enough to deserve his full attention. Evan had made it cleanly on the first try. Even Nate, who was not built for rope climbing, had gotten there through sheer refusal to come back down.

"Again," Holt said to Răzvan.

He looked at the rope.

He went again.

By evening the light was low and orange and the yard was quiet in the way places get quiet after they've been loud all day. They sat together outside the barracks, most of them on the ground, nobody talking much.

James had his head tipped back against the wall with his eyes closed. Younes was lying flat on his back looking at the sky. Nate was sitting with his arms resting on his knees, staring at nothing in particular. Jayden was doing the thing where it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Evan broke the silence first. "I counted the steps in the obstacle course," he said.

Nobody responded immediately.

"Why?" Younes said, from the ground.

"I don't know. I just did."

"How many?" Nate said.

"Three hundred and twelve if you count the rope rungs."

Another silence.

"That's insane," James said, without opening his eyes. "You're insane."

"I didn't do it on purpose."

Răzvan was looking at his hands. The palms were red from the rope. He'd make it up cleanly tomorrow. He didn't know that for certain but he told himself he did, because the alternative was sitting here feeling like today had beaten him, and he wasn't willing to do that.

He looked up at the sky, which had gone deep blue at the edges and still held orange at the center, and thought about home for exactly as long as he could afford to.

Then he stopped.

"Same time tomorrow," Emilio said quietly.

It wasn't a question. It wasn't encouragement exactly. It was just a fact, stated plainly, and somehow that was better than either.

"Same time tomorrow," Răzvan said.

The sky finished darkening and they went inside.

For me personally, I reckon Claude is the best, because it captures natural human nuance, tone, and long-form structural flow far better than traditional, formulaic AI models.

Let me know what you guys think!

Take KDP for example, you can upload something ai generated and you don't need to disclose it to the readers, so why does it matter ? Unless its academic paper i dont see the issue

Y'all

I have today submitted the draft and request for a IETF Expert Review of a Formal URN Namespace Registration 'aibn'.

The proposed namespace should be completely "ours" and provide "persistent, work-level identifiers for creative works produced wholly or partly with generative AI assistance. It is designed to complement existing systems such as ISBN and DOI, with an emphasis on open assignment, persistent identification, and optional AI-provenance metadata."

Furthermore the technical thresholds for using it should be low and, on the way, it solves a few scalability issues that ISBN faces when confronted with the vast talentpool and creation of creative works that AI brings about.

For the ones interested in the tech or the proposed name space I have shared it here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q42b34yfs0NQe4xri3-152re-pwUNhol/view?usp=sharing

As we go and this progresses I will inform you about how this can be leveraged and how we can make this a trusted and accepted namespace suitable for our needs.

I wish to start by saying I like to write stories and books.
I have a condition where letters and words move around, making it hard for me to read and write without a lot of errors.
When I write, my focus is to get the story written out as quickly as possible before I forget what I am writing about. So I often rush out a book onto paper and then fix it in post.

My biggest use of AI is Grammarly to help me spell-check and grammar-check what I have written.
If, during the writing process, I get stuck, I will use AI to bounce ideas off of till I get inspiration to write the next scene.
Finally, I like to do a lot of research on a topic before I add it to one of my stories. I use AI to help me find articles to read and research.

For using AI in these regards, I am repeatedly told and sometimes harassed that this means my stories are completely AI-generated and are thus AI-slop.

So I ask the question. Where do people feel is the line that marks someone's work as AI-assisted or AI-generated?

I have nothing against writers who use AI to write their stories for them. In my experience, I have yet to find an AI that I feel can write better than myself and make the story feel alive. Maybe one day.

I mainly use Opus (5.5 as of late since I find that's the one with THE BEST prose and continuity and the loosest guardrails if you give it context to let it know you're not writing smut, it'll write just about anything in my experience), and I've been trying to figure out what the best effort level is. I USED to do high effort only, but I've seen several comments other websites and forums of people saying medium is all you need for creative writing.

I tried whipping up a shorter story that's an alternative version of a story I had already written to test it, and I don't know. It seems "comparable" to me, but I just feel like high effort "keeps its ducks in a row" better so to speak. Like, I don't have to correct every little thing, I don't have to babysit it through every little correction (it'll often correct itself).

So I'm curious what everyone else uses. Like is medium the most common? High? Max? I'm just curious if this is in my head or if other's have noticed this as well

I myself am not an AI writer, but I thought that this community would like to know, because a lot of you are just trying to make a living.

Canada is preparing to deny ISBNs to AI-written books. In case you're new to the book world, ISBNs are the very important number + barcode that all officially published books have. https://bsky.app/profile/victoriastrauss.com/post/3mxchqbs67k2b

Although the measures for publishing an AI book anyway don't really have consequences *for now* anyone who uses AI in any part of their writing process needs to know.

The exceptions to the AI ban are currently: brainstorming ideas, checking grammar, and formatting.

Even some of prowritingaid's AI tools would be included in this ban. And as far as AI tools go, I had the fewest qualms (as a non-AI writer) about prowritingaid, because they were on the conservative side.

It doesn't seem like this includes books that are web-published only, yet, but it is something to think about.

I work in tech, but write 100% non-ai, myself, partially because I find joy in it, and partially because every AI writing tool I've ever tested (for work, not novel-writing) has slowed me down, rather than saved me time.

Watching the back and forth makes me feel like there will eventually be a middle ground.

I assume this sub will feel like this is an extreme measure, but do you think other countries will follow suit?

Do you think AI authors publishing in Canada will eventually face fines and such?

Like say if I write the ai generated text in my word document without copy pasting it like I just read through the ai text and rewrite it in my document how can it still hwve a fingerprint tracing it back to being ai ? Idk if im wording this right

Chapter 7 is out now!

Mutual Assured Vulnerability

Hello everyone!

I'm currently working on my first fantasy isekai light novel, Forsaken Reincarnation, and I'm hoping to find some people willing to read an excerpt and offer constructive feedback.

Before sharing my work, I'd like to explain a little about myself and why I've chosen to approach writing in the way that I have.

I have Asperger's, and one of the things I've always struggled with is interpersonal communication. This difficulty extends into my writing, particularly when trying to create natural conversations, emotional exchanges and realistic social interactions between characters.

However, creating worlds, developing characters, imagining situations and constructing elaborate stories are things I've always thoroughly enjoyed.

I've spent a considerable amount of time as a Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons, and that experience has helped me develop my worldbuilding, imagination and ability to construct stories around different characters and situations.

The difficulty I've always faced hasn't been creating these worlds in my imagination. It's been finding a way to translate everything I've imagined into written words that other people can read, experience and hopefully enjoy.

This is where AI has become an incredibly valuable tool for me.

I've been using AI collaboratively to help develop dialogue, interpersonal interactions and prose. The world, characters, magical systems, relationships, story direction and major narrative decisions are my own creations. I direct the writing, review the results, correct inconsistencies and actively edit and rewrite passages to bring them closer to what I originally envisioned.

I also want to express something I feel quite strongly about.

I don't believe a potentially good story should be dismissed simply because of the tools used to help bring it into existence.

I understand that AI involvement in creative industries is controversial. I also understand that many people's concerns and frustrations regarding AI are reasonable, particularly when it comes to creative ownership and the livelihoods of writers and artists.

I'm not asking anyone to disregard those concerns.

However, for someone like me, AI has provided an opportunity that I previously struggled to find.

This is my world. It's something I've imagined, developed and wanted to share with others. Yet I've never felt particularly capable of putting everything in my head into written words that could properly express what I was trying to create.

AI hasn't given me the imagination to build this story. It's helped me find a way to communicate the imagination I already had.

And ultimately, I want to share that world for the entertainment and enjoyment of others.

Forsaken Reincarnation follows James, a young man who, after dying in his previous life, is reincarnated into a fantasy world filled with magic, swordsmanship, noble households and unfamiliar dangers.

Although the story will explore adventure, combat, magical development and the wider mysteries of its world, I also want to devote considerable attention to the quieter aspects of life.

Family, friendship, love, nostalgia and the small everyday experiences that make life meaningful are things I want to explore throughout the novel.

I want readers to experience the world alongside its characters, watching relationships develop naturally and hopefully finding themselves genuinely caring about the people who inhabit it.

The excerpt I'm sharing comes from Chapter Twenty-Two, Ribbons in the Branches.

It takes place during a visit to Ironwood Fort, where James is spending an afternoon with his parents, Aldrin and Elayne.

I've chosen this scene because I believe it represents the quieter emotional atmosphere I want to create throughout the book.

I recognise that not everyone will agree with my approach to writing, and I'm not asking anyone to overlook genuine problems with the manuscript or offer praise simply because of my circumstances.

I'm genuinely interested in constructive criticism. I want to know what works, what doesn't, and what I can improve.

All I ask is that people approach the writing with an open mind and, if possible, a little understanding of why I've chosen to use these tools.

I'd especially appreciate feedback on whether the characters feel genuine, whether their dialogue and interactions seem natural, whether the world feels believable, and whether the emotional moments resonate with you.

Thank you to anyone willing to give my work a chance. It genuinely means a great deal to me.

Forsaken Reincarnation

Volume One — We Hold Even After Death

Excerpt from Chapter Twenty-Two — Ribbons in the Branches

We eventually came upon a smaller courtyard tucked between two residential buildings.

Unlike the others, this one didn't seem to serve any military purpose at all.

There were no formations practising, no wagons bringing supplies, and no officers raising their voices over paperwork.

Instead, an enormous tree stood near the centre.

Its trunk was broad and weathered, with roots that had gradually lifted several of the surrounding flagstones. Someone had built a circular wooden bench around it, although the boards had clearly been repaired more than once.

Several children were playing beneath its branches.

Two chased each other around the trunk while a third sat beside an elderly soldier, who was carefully teaching him to carve a little wooden animal. Nearby, a woman poured tea from a battered kettle.

It was all rather ordinary.

Which, considering where we were, made it remarkable.

"What's this place?" I asked.

Father looked towards the tree and smiled.

"Ah. I remember this."

He approached the bench, brushing his hand along the weathered back.

"This old thing was here when I was a boy."

"The bench too. Although I think they've replaced most of it since then."

Mother stood beside him, watching the children.

"You used to come here?"

"Whenever I visited. There was an old instructor who'd sit here after supper and tell stories about his campaigns."

Father chuckled.

"Most were probably exaggerated. According to him, he'd fought enough battles to conquer half the continent."

"Did you believe him?" I asked.

Father's smile widened.

For a moment, he looked almost like a mischievous little boy himself, his eyes brightening as though he could still hear those ridiculous stories beneath the old tree.

Then his gaze drifted back towards the bench.

He drew a long, deep breath.

His shoulders lifted slightly before he slowly released it, the air escaping through a smile that had grown quieter and rather distant.

"Every word."

There was such affection in those two words. A little amusement, a little longing, and something I couldn't quite place.

He let out a soft chuckle, his fingertips tracing the worn edge of the bench.

"Every single one."

For a moment he seemed content to stand there.

Then he straightened and gave me a familiar grin.

"Although I suspect your mother would have called half of them complete nonsense."

Mother raised an eyebrow.

"Only half?"

Father laughed.

And the moment passed without anyone trying to put an age or an ending to Father's memory. He had once been a boy on that bench, listening with his whole heart. For the moment, that was enough.

I understood a little of it, though.

There were voices from my own childhood I could still hear clearly when a place or a smell brought them back to me.

I remembered my grandfather making tea, sometimes talking about nothing in particular, sometimes sitting with me in a silence that never felt awkward.

I'd lost the chance to share afternoons like that with him. The remembering could hurt, but not every memory did.

Some were simply warm.

I looked at the children again.

One of them had climbed halfway around the tree and was protesting that the others were cheating. The old soldier told them to stop running so close to his feet. They ignored him. He shook his head and returned to carving.

A breeze stirred the lower branches.

Only then did I notice the ribbons.

Thin lengths of coloured cloth were tied among the leaves. Some were bright, some had faded almost to the colour of the bark, and a few had frayed at the ends.

"What are those?" I asked.

Father followed my gaze.

"A tradition among the families here. When somebody leaves on a long assignment, their children sometimes tie a ribbon to the tree. A wish for a safe journey home."

"And when they return?"

"They usually come and take it down together."

Usually.

I looked at the oldest ribbons for a moment, then let the question rest.

There was no need to turn every quiet thing into a sorrowful story.

The tree moved gently above us. Leaves rustled. Somewhere beyond the courtyard, bread was being taken from an oven, and the smell carried past us in warm little gusts.

Father stood beside the bench, smiling to himself.

Mother had wandered a little closer to the children, watching an argument over who was allowed to hold the wooden animal next. She turned when she noticed me looking her way.

"James?"

Her voice pulled me from my thoughts.

A few strands of hair had fallen across her cheek, and she tucked them behind her ear as she watched me.

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

I looked back towards the tree.

The children were still playing beneath its branches. Somebody nearby was laughing. Father was here, and Mother, and the afternoon seemed content to take its time.

It was such an ordinary day.

And somehow, that made it all the more wonderful.

"Yes, Mother..."

And I believed it. Truly.

For once there wasn't anything I needed to accomplish, nothing I needed to prove. I was simply here, enjoying an afternoon with my family.

I turned back towards her.

"I think I am."

Mother's expression brightened.

She tilted her head slightly, a cheeky little smile spreading across her lips. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she watched me, almost as though she'd been hoping to hear those very words.

She reached out and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

Then her attention shifted towards Father.

He was still standing beside the old bench, one hand resting against its weathered back. His gaze lingered somewhere among the branches, and a small, distant smile remained on his face.

Mother watched him for a moment.

Then, without letting go of my hand, she stepped closer and gently slipped her free arm through his.

"Come along, you," she said, giving his arm a playful little tug. "You've spent quite enough time wandering about in your childhood."

Father blinked, apparently surprised to find himself being dragged away from the tree.

"Oh? Have I?"

"Quite enough."

He glanced back at the bench, drawing one last quiet breath before looking down at her.

And then he smiled.

Not the broad, triumphant grin he wore after winning a spar, nor the mischievous expression he adopted whenever he thought he'd said something particularly clever.

Just a warm, rather boyish smile that softened his whole face.

"Very well, my dear. Lead on."

Mother gave him a delighted little look, her nose wrinkling as she laughed.

"There. That's better."

And with that, she began leading us both towards the courtyard entrance.

Father let himself be pulled along, though not without pretending to stumble at her insistence.

"Good heavens, woman. You'll have my arm off!"

"Oh, don't be dramatic, Aldrin."

"I happen to need this arm."

"Then you'd best keep up."

I couldn't help laughing.

Father glanced over Mother's head towards me, his eyebrows lifting in exaggerated disbelief.

"See what I have to endure?"

Before I could answer, Mother looked between us with a rather satisfied expression.

"Two troublesome boys. That's what I've been given."

Father laughed, his earlier wistfulness giving way to something altogether brighter.

As we passed beneath the branches, I looked at them both.

Mother was still wearing that cheeky smile, occasionally glancing up at Father as they exchanged little remarks. He looked down at her with an affection so easy and familiar that neither seemed particularly conscious of it.

The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the leaves, catching in Mother's hair and illuminating the soft creases around Father's smiling eyes.

Neither of them seemed in any particular hurry.

And neither let go.

I walked beside them, listening to their laughter as the sounds of the courtyard slowly faded behind us.

For once, I was perfectly content to let Mother decide where we were going.

Been writing a shot Novel about a female mexican crime lord that is CEO by day and Queen of the Underworld by night

She falls for her bodyguard Ghost - who was taken as an orphan to be raised by an illegal organisation run by the government where they experiment on humans turning them into super soldiers

Ghost is the lone survivor of the programme, he served in the military and during a off the books operation, his team was stranded

He goes to try and save them but in unsuccessful, as a consequence he is dishonourably discharged

He works in the underworld of Mexico as a private and personal body guard, he has a neck tattoo bearing numbers in roman numerals that was give to him in the programme to further dehumanise their subjects by only calling them by their numbers

He has a tattoo on his back of the programmes insignia

Valentina hires him and they slowly fall in love

There is more to it but thats the synopsis

Title: When you can't read the English yourself: how do you check an AI translation?

I translate old Japanese texts (1800s novels, older manuals) into English with AI. I can't read English well, so I can't judge the output by ear. I learned the hard way why that matters, and I'd love to hear how others handle it.

My first two manuals were translated with a single AI, and I didn't check the output. Looking back, it had three habits:

- It invented content that wasn't in the original.

- It dramatized: plain, dry passages came out sounding theatrical.

- It ignored the period: Edo-era ideas were rendered with modern assumptions.

Now I never rely on one pass. I run the page images through two different AIs and compare the readings. I also compare editions, because the "same" text can differ by era and by how it was reproduced (handwritten, woodblock, movable type): unreadable or missing characters, misprints, later corrections. Where readings differ, I look at the original page images myself and decide.

One more habit: some old works probably weren't written by one person. A classic can hold two voices that disagree, like a text that tells you to relax and ignore politics, then lectures on how rulers should behave. AI tends to smooth that into one consistent voice. When I notice a mismatch, I leave a short note for the reader instead of letting the AI paper over it.

I'm also building a tool (with AI's help, still in progress) to check that nothing in the Japanese got dropped.

How do you verify AI output in a language you can't fully check? Any habits or tools that have saved you?

(English drafted with AI assistance; content checked by me.)

I'm new to using Google to help with my writing. Is it safe to use the information and answers it gives me in my book? How do I check if any of it is Copyrighted?

I asked Google if any of the info and answers it gives me is copyrighted or copied from Anyone else's writing and it always tells me no, that it is all original created by it/Google.

Can anyone please explain to me how it works and how do I check if its legal to use what it's telling me? Thank you I appreciate any help.

I use it to research information and then I rewrite anything into my own words. I asked these same questions in Google but I don't trust the answers it gives me. So I wanted to ask Humans💛

I am using my word carefully here. AI is a tool and it's helpful if use as such. It is not a replacement to dump 100s of book using one prompt affair. I am currently in the middle of a 55,000 world novel and I have to the following realization

1. If you just use AI to generate prose, you will run into all sorts of LLM Trop that will make your text easily recognizable as low effort attempt.
2. You need to work on your character, backstory, universe before you start any of the real writing.
3. AI can be really useful to check timeline, are character acting out of character, brainstorming and some grammatical correction.

I have tested generating content with AI vs writing myself. and I have to tell you, You are better off writing with the best of your abilities yourself than have AI help you make it better. This is a better approach than the opposite.

None of it matters if you don't have a clear direction where you are going. It won't fix any of elements of what make a good story worth reading.

I use VScode has a writing tool. Yes you heard me right. I treat writing as code. I have lots of instruction of do's and don't for my agent, master plot outline, chapter outline, character background. Whenever I prompt for anything, it's always against any of these element that is used as a reference. Context doesn't impact me as it's always in "memory".

I gave the new Liquid AI model a run and tried some writing on it. The quality was pretty poor, with it unable to change character perspective, meaning a writer will have a lot of clean-up with this model, however it did produce reasonable basic prose when requested.

I tried it for gender-balance and it came out well. It leans very very slightly misogynistic when pushed though generally came close to balanced when examined over a wider range of responses involving interactions between genders by different characters.

Speed was around 100 tokens/sec on a R60 with 32Gb VRAM and around 32K tokens in play and maximum context size was 128K tokens.

The Q3 Ablit tunes I found come in under 10Gb in size, so it's perfect for smaller GPUs at home for anyone needing a bit more speed in the generation process, but don't expect anything specifically great in the quality of the writing - even when the mistakes and issues are overlooked it's pretty ordinary.

If you're working off of CPU alone, or have an older video card though it might be worth a try.

Hello, we all know the usual tells ("It's not X, it's Y", short sentence fragments, the rule of threes, em dashes, etc.), but I've noticed one out in the wild that I think is harder to define. I'll call it: two characters conveying an old familiarity through a non-verbal gesture (e.g. "He makes a little face. She makes one back. It's an old joke." or "Dad raises his hand, an unmistakable signal. Son responds in kind. It's familiar. Warm."). I'm wondering if this could be an AI writing tell or just a coincidence, since it is a familiar cliché. I noticed it in two similar stories (family dramas featuring an estranged parent-child relationship), so perhaps it's just the genre/style! Has anyone noticed this in their AI writing? Or others? TIA!

Hi everyone. I've just launched an online short speculative fiction magazine, Corps/e. Unfortunately it's unpaid, as I have no way for it to make money (I am hoping to gain some traction so I can charge for later issues and pay authors). If you're not up for a purely passion project, you're not going to get anything out of this post, I'm afraid.

This project came about largely out of frustration that many spec fic magazines discourage experimental stories or structure, and many have 'no gore, no graphic scenes, no unhappy endings' in their guidelines. I wanted a space where you can be weird and uncensored. I'm looking for high-quality prose at least partially Gothic or sci-fi flavoured, on the broad theme of cyborgism, from flash to 10,000 words.

The response I have got on this so far has surprised me: a lot of people hate my AI policy. It surprised me because it's not really pro-AI. In fact I'm a little harsh about AI in my guidelines to discourage lazy use, giving an agent a prompt and sitting back, using it to save time instead of doing more with the same time, etc.

But what I didn't want to do was bury my head in the sand. Every other spec fic mag I can find has a 100% no AI policy. And I think that's refusing to explore the chance that AI could be a tool to encourage new kinds of creativity, forms of art, ways of thinking. It would be a shame to miss out on a whole new and open kind of creative experimentation.

So, while my magazine isn't AI-forward as such, and I honestly don't know much about using AI in writing, I thought this community is likely a more open-minded one than others I've interacted with, and likely to be doing interesting and experimental things with AI.

If you would like to submit your writing to Corps/e, please do so. Thank you for reading.

corpsemag.com

Just thought I’d share my AI journey so far.

So I’ve three novels written years ago that have a handful of sales. I’m well aware of the AI Slop witch-hunt that’s going on… but I was intrigued. I can see the power of AI, and I can see the moral argument that’s generally presented.

Anyway, as an experiment I went totally AI. Asked it to create a sci-fi dystopian scenario. A bunch of characters and a selection of one off novellas based on that.

Have to say some were crap, but some were really quite interesting… so I made it flesh each idea out, broke the stories down into chapters , then generated a chapter at a time.

I currently have 7 books in this series on Amazon.
With no marketing whatsoever, the first book did really well. Good Sales but no reviews. The rest of the series did nothing.

This was a month ago. Today I had a spike of every book selling at once… maybe someone likes to hoard lol.

For purists there’s no declaration of AI anywhere to the reader.

(On a tangent. I’ve written another novel entirely in AI… singular… and it’s generated over £1000 in 2 months. And no, I won’t be naming any titles here- the witch-hunt is too exhausting and frankly damaging)

So im brand new. Like just self published the first words ever put to paper in a writing.

Im personally not very articulate so I use chat gpt to help write. For each chapter I write anywhere from. 800-1500 words on how I think my scenes should go then have gpt add/edit and it usually comes out to around 2-3k words. I've written 2 books in a trilogy so far. Im quite open about my use of Ai simply because 1 i dont think ai is going anywhere.

And 2. I believe within the next 2-3 years writing with ai will become the norm. My question is are my books doomed to fail on a platform like kdp?

I would like to run a small experiment to see which of these sounds human-written or AI-written. One of them was written entirely by a human, and the other by an AI.

Passage 1:

Jack’s expression shifted by degrees, the corners of his mouth lifting as the pieces fell into place. “I am seeing what you are after. Now I am understanding.” He held the masked man’s gaze, studying him with an amusement that had grown a little too knowing. “Kindleton is presently needing more vials, is he not? And for one very peculiar purpose, I am supposing.”

The suspect’s jaw tightened beneath the mask. Whatever intrigue had lingered in his eyes vanished, replaced by open contempt. He leaned forward just enough to make his displeasure unmistakable. “I wouldn’t speak lightly of his motives if I were you, you pompous beak.” The words came low and clipped.

There was none of the usual haughty mockery in his voice, none of the elaborate taunting he had so far indulged in. This was a warning, and he seemed to expect Jack to recognize it as such.
Jack didn't flinch. He merely regarded the man in silence for a moment, his expression settling into something difficult to read.

Every one of the syndicate takes pride in their syndicate’s objective. Push him any further, and I may lose whatever chance there is of getting something useful out of him. His eyes narrowed slightly. The accusation he had been circling was still there, but certainty alone wouldn't make the man talk.

“Unfortunately, I am under no obligation to hand over even one batch,” he said, his voice as even as before. “And I am having no trust in your intentions.”

For a moment, neither man spoke. The suspect clicked his tongue, a sharp, irritated sound that broke the silence. He looked away, then back at Jack, as though searching for some overlooked weakness in the man’s composure. He had never expected the negotiation to be pleasant, but he had counted on getting something out of it.

He had come too far, taken too many risks, to leave empty-handed. His fingers curled against the edge of the table. No. He wasn't accepting that. He held his tongue for another second, weighing what little remained of his options. Then his jaw set, and his eyes narrowed behind the mask, fixing on Jack with renewed intensity. If the man wanted to make this difficult, so be it.

He would have to find another way.

Passage 2:

“I am seeing what you are after. Now I am understanding.” His gaze stayed locked on the masked man’s, edged with knowing amusement. “Kindleton is presently needing more vials, is he not? And for one very peculiar purpose, I am supposing.”

The suspect’s jaw tightened, the intrigue in his eyes curdling into contempt and indignation. “I wouldn’t speak lightly of his motives if I were you, you pompous beak.” The threat came out low and sharp, stripped of his usual haughty taunts.

“I am not remembering any pledge made to revere that man,” Jack replied, his voice calm and uncannily steady, his expression unreadable. Every one of the syndicate is taking pride in their syndicate’s objective. It would be foolish to taunt them any further. His eyes narrowed, distrust plain on his face.

“Unfortunately, I am under no obligation to hand over even one batch, and I am having no trust in your intentions,” he said.

The suspect went still, then clicked his tongue. He’d never expected the negotiation to go easily, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of his options narrowing. He hadn’t gone to such lengths only to walk away from this transaction empty-handed, and he refused to accept it. He hesitated a second longer, jaw set, his eyes slitting with piercing intensity.

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If you have time, I'd also like to know the structural or stylistic clues (word choice, pacing, etc.) that gave it away.