Alastair Creamer
“For instance, it is nearly dawn.” His eyebrows went up in enquiry. “Anyone?”
Silence.
“Come on. Start your story somewhere for Christ’s sake.” His gaze swept the room – a scrag-end of creative writing students, numbskulls, dimwits he thought. God, the standard’s dropped.
A hand went up.
“Should we start our story with,” the lad raised his fingers in inverted commas, ‘For instance, it is nearly dawn’, or ‘It is nearly dawn’”?
He let out a strained breath, his eyes hooded with malice.
“Yeah, that wasn’t clear”, said his neighbour.
A moment later, the stapler hit the wall above the lad’s head where it snapped into shrapnel.
“That was naked aggression sir.”
He had flung it with more gusto than intended. His hand had grabbed the first object. But something had now sparked in him.
“That’s good! Naked aggression. Start there. It plunges you into the action. The reader asks, what was this act of naked aggression? Is this something that’s just happened or festered in the memory for years?”
“Yeah, but your act of naked aggression was dangerous, sir.”
“I did it to galvanise you into thinking. Look what happened. You’ve got a starting point. Run with it.”
One of the students was taking photos on his phone of the broken stapler and the small indent in the wall.
As he wandered the room, he peered at a paper in front of another lad who’d written, ‘For instance, this is almost porn’, with a very recognisable doodle in the margin. He winced. Is this it? The pinnacle of my career?
(260 words)
AI-laster Creamer (Claude.Ai)
Its 1st version was a lecturer reflecting on how awful his teaching life is. There was no interaction, no other characters. The obvious problems with this 2nd version are how it has not woven the opening sentence into any meaningful beginning. Also, the story is 231 words. Claude can’t count!
After its first response I made the following suggestions for improvement:
– Make it less of a monologue from the lecturer’s point of view; less reflection.
– Weave into the story some action and interaction with one or two of the students.
– The language feels formulaic, so remove all cliches. Write with freshness and edge.
– The lecturer is desperate. The students are bored. What happens when these opposite emotions meet?
This is its 2nd version entitled “The Broken Lecturer”:
For instance, it is nearly dawn when Professor Darren Fitch spots Tyler scratching his initials into the classroom desk with a penknife. The boy doesn’t even try to hide it.
“That’s mahogany,” Darren says, “Or at least it was in 1973.”
Tyler doesn’t look up. Behind him, Jessica continues painting her nails a shade of purple that reminds Darren of long-ago expired cough medicine. The rest of the class exists in various states of stupor and suspended animation.
“Today,” Darren announces, “we’re going to write about passion.”
“Like sex?” Tyler asks, still carving.
“Like anything that makes you feel alive.” Darren grabs Tyler’s penknife, surprising himself. The class stirs. “Like this knife, for instance. Write about how it feels in your hand. The weight of it. The way it catches light.”
Tyler straightens in his chair. “That’s my property.”
“And this,” Darren says, pressing the blade against his own palm, “is my classroom.”
Jessica’s nail polish topples, spreading across her desk like spilled wine.
“Sir,” she whispers, “are you okay?”
Darren realizes he’s shaking. The knife has drawn a thin line of blood. Twenty-two years of teaching creative writing at Underhill University, and this is what it’s come to – performing parlour tricks with confiscated weapons to grab their attention.
“Start writing,” he says quietly. “You have thirty minutes.”
For the first time all semester, the only sound is pencils scratching paper.
(260 words)
Notes on the experience.
By accident, I sent my prompt before I had included any suggestions. It immediately pinged back, “Please send me your suggestions for improvement,” like an over-eager, goody-two-shoes. After it had sent this version it sent me a separate note saying what it had done to improve its story, listing every single one of my comments. Honestly, some students just want so much attention!
But there are many things I liked about its story. There are related sources of action – carving, grabbing the knife, painting fingernails, knocking over pot, drawing blood – without it seeming like a thriller. They pace each other. I liked the reference to cough medicine – I can imagine the colour (I can even remember the taste!). It was an unexpected metaphor. There’s a satisfying story arc that moves the atmosphere from no energy, to quiet drama, into action. It came up with more drama than I had, so it stretched the emotional range of the story.
My thinking about AI is I have no intention of using vast chunks of it (or even chunks). However, I’m open to using ideas and odd words. The comparison I found helpful. I’d rarely get a writing tutor to write alongside me, doing the same task several times. It didn’t bother me that its versions were ‘better or worse’ than mine. They were just different but because we were doing the same thing I could adjust.
– Alastair