Hotly debated in the writing community is the impact of AI on story-telling. Of course, the exiting possibilities of AI are measured against the potential abuses and horrifying Terminator scenarios in almost all aspects of life these days. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should, to borrow a line from Jurassic Park. In the artistic/creative world, the morality debates add to the fire. From the world of writing, for example:

  • Is it okay if I generate an entire story with AI, then just modify it here and there, and sell it as my own? After all, I had to prompt AI and then give the story my own voice…
    • No? What about just portions of my story? For example, if I’m struggling with describing a gothic castle in the woods, can I ask AI to generate just that description for me? Or is that immoral?
    • What if I’m honest to readers that portions of the book were generated by AI? Isn’t our author-motto supposed to be reader-first?
  • Any problems with using AI to generate my book cover? It’s cheaper than hiring an artist.
  • Can I use AI instead of hiring an editor?
  • It is hard to find someone to read my book. AI might not sound as good as a real person, but can I use inexpensive AI to generate my audio-book?
  • If you object to all of this, what AI tools would be acceptable? Proofreading? Research for my project? Social media engagement?
  • AI trains its engines using content from books and other sources that humans have written. Should authors be compensated when AI trains on their books? Should authors be able to prevent AI from using their content?

For the record, I’m against much of the above. I will never use AI to generate content, unless it has a specific purpose that the readers understand (like the stories below). Otherwise, all my stories in any form are completely generated by my brain. I may use some AI tools, especially for research and basic evaluation of my writing. And I will try to hire real humans when I can afford it.

But this blog post is not about the morality of AI. Instead, I decided I’d be putting AI story generation to the test. Can AI generate a good story?

The Story – Ash and Asphalt

Below, I’ll dive into how I generated this and the prompt I used. But first, here’s the story. ChatGPT titled it Ash and Asphalt. Since I didn’t write it, feel free to take it and do whatever you want with it. I thought my 4-year-old nephew might like it, but he got a bit scared of the coyotes when his grandmother read it to him. My opinion? Scary-good:

The night smelled of rust and fried grease. I padded silently down the cracked sidewalk, ears pricked, ribs sharp beneath my matted fur. Somewhere behind me, distant paws scuffed the alley gravel—the coyotes again. I knew their breath, knew the hush that came before they struck. I wasn’t in their pack, and I never would be.

I was in search of mine.

My name used to be Bear. I remember the girl’s voice saying it, sweet and sticky like peanut butter. She had tiny hands and a laugh like squeaky toys. But that house was far behind now, swallowed by the roaring box that carried me too fast and then opened its belly on the wrong street. I chased until my paws bled.

“You’re going the wrong way, mutt.”

The voice slinked from above. I looked up. Perched on a rusted fire escape, a scrawny cat with one ear and amber eyes licked her paw like I wasn’t worth her gaze.

“Don’t care,” I growled, trotting on.

She dropped beside me in a blink, her landing silent. “You’re looking for the warm kind. Humans. They’re that way,” she nodded to the east. “But so are the coyotes. Five of them. You won’t make it alone.”

“I don’t need you.”

She snorted, tail flicking. “I know. Dogs never do. Until they do.”

I wanted to snap at her, tell her to leave, but something in her eyes held me. Not pity. Just… knowledge. She knew the streets the way I once knew the backyard with the yellow ball and the smell of bacon from the porch.

We moved together through alleys lined with broken fridges and sagging sofas. She darted ahead, pausing only to hiss when I slowed or turned wrong. She never explained how she knew where we were going.

Once, she stopped dead and crouched low. The air changed. I smelled them. Coyotes. Their breath was closer now. She led me under a collapsed fence and through a crawlspace behind a liquor store. I scraped my belly raw, but I didn’t whimper.

“You still don’t trust me?” she whispered when we emerged.

“No,” I said. But I followed her anyway.

At dawn, we came to a narrow street where the trash bins gleamed like silver mountains. My heart stopped.

A voice—her voice—soft, hoarse from calling, calling…

“Bear? Baby, is that you?”

The girl. Taller now, maybe. Thinner. But her scent—soap and sun and something like home—wrapped around me like a blanket.

I bolted. She dropped to her knees as I tackled her, tail a blur, heart full.

When I turned to thank the cat, she was already gone, a sliver of shadow slipping into the rising sun.

Evaluation

Just for fun – I had ChatGPT generate an image for it’s own story

I’ve entered a number of flash fiction contests where I received feedback from judges. The difficult part about flash fiction is telling a complete and compelling story, with well-developed characters, who experience a character arc, and to accomplish it in under 1000 words. I can see a judge complaining that the cat’s character is not well-developed enough. What was her motivation for helping the dog? There also could have been more of a confrontation with the coyotes. And a few things could have been tightened, like the sentence “I looked up.” Where else would the dog have seen the cat?

Maybe say something about trust. Maybe talk about broken dreams of the cat, and how she kept her heart in spite of her life. There’s more that could have been done with it. But these are all nit-picky criticisms. The story was captivating and had a satisfying ending. This experiment proved to me that AI can generate a good story.

Is it all in the prompt?

Next I wondered how much the prompt mattered. I was fairly proud of my AI-prompting abilities. Here’s how I had prompted this story from AI:

Me: Can you write a flash fiction story for me if I give you some input on it?

ChatGPT: Absolutely! Just give me your input—whether it’s a setting, character, theme, mood, or even a specific line you want included—and I’ll craft a flash fiction story based on it.

Me: I want the story to be written from the POV of a lost dog wandering through a poor neighborhood, where he avoids a pack of coyotes and searches for his family with the help of a cat who he doesn’t trust.

So what if my prompt wasn’t this brilliant? Next, I tried: Please write a flash fiction story about a one-eyed bear in Scandinavia. Why did I say please to a computer? I don’t know. But the result is still quite good:

“The Eye of the North”

The forest spoke in snowflakes and silence.

Bjorn limped through the birch shadows, his breath fogging in the early dusk. A scar split the left side of his face, sealing one eye forever. He didn’t remember the pain—only the flash of steel and the men’s scent: smoke, oil, fear.

They had taken his brother. Left him half-blind and roaring into the trees.

Winter had come hard and fast in the north, and now the world was white and brittle. The fjord had frozen early. Bjorn wandered further from his den each day, chasing a scent he wasn’t sure was real. Some part of him, the part that dreamed, believed his brother might still be out there. Caged. Muzzled. Alive.

The old Sami woman found him at twilight.

She didn’t run.

She stood, wrapped in reindeer skins, her hair silver and eyes deeper than any ice. In her hand was a carved bowl. She set it down on the snow. Lingonberries. Fish oil. A gesture, not bait.

He sniffed. Waited. Stepped closer.

“You have a story,” she said, voice low and steady. “And I have a task.”

That night, the aurora spilled across the sky in green waves. Bjorn followed her beyond the ridge, past forgotten stones and whispers in the pines. To a camp. Scent of men. Dogs. Traps.

One snarl. One charge. A blur of fur and fang.

He didn’t need both eyes to see what mattered.

In the end, they freed more than just his brother.

And one more try – this time with a very generic prompt using my nephew’s name: Write a story about a boy named Titan playing with his grandparents. Not only did AI write an okay story, it also followed up with me, asking me if I’d prefer the story to be written from the POV of Titan or one of the grandparents! I had it redo the story from Titan’s POV. I’ll include both versions below.

What are your thoughts on AI and story-telling? It can certainly be a good tool for bedtime stories for 4-year-olds. I’m not sure how well it would do with generating a longer story, like a novel. But it is clear AI is here to stay.

What do you think of these stories? Let me know in the comments whether you liked them. Also, what you think about the role of AI in the creative arts.

“Titan’s Kingdom”

Titan ruled the living room.

A throw blanket became his royal cape. A plastic mixing bowl was his helmet. The ottoman? Clearly his warhorse. He galloped across the rug, brandishing a wooden spoon like a lance.

“Who dares challenge the great Titan the Brave?” he bellowed.

From her throne (a floral recliner), Grandma squinted over her knitting. “I believe Sir Titan has left his shield in the cookie jar.”

He paused, brows furrowed. “That’s not a shield. That’s the Orb of Sweetness.”

Grandpa, crouched behind the couch with a colander on his head, popped up like a jack-in-the-box. “Nonsense! That orb belongs to the Dark Wizard—me!”

Titan shrieked with laughter and charged. A gentle duel ensued: spoon vs. flyswatter, boy vs. old man pretending to grunt in pain as he staggered dramatically behind a potted plant.

They collapsed into a pile of giggles and yarn.

Later, Titan curled up on the carpet, cheeks pink, eyes heavy. Grandma draped a quilt over him. Grandpa took off his colander crown and sat nearby, just watching.

“Good battle today,” Grandpa whispered.

Titan’s eyes fluttered closed. “Tomorrow we fight dragons.”

“Titan’s Kingdom” (Titan’s POV)

This was my castle.

The living room stretched wide, with tall couch-walls and a soft carpet floor perfect for sneak attacks. My cape flapped behind me—the soft red blanket from the guest room. I’d picked the mixing bowl from the kitchen for my helmet, because it made a clunk when I tapped it with my wooden spoon sword. Knights need the right sound.

“Who dares challenge Titan the Brave!” I yelled, standing tall on the ottoman. I almost fell but caught myself just in time. The ottoman was a wild horse. I was the best rider.

Grandma didn’t even look up from her knitting. “You forgot your shield, sweetie. It’s in the cookie jar.”

Pfft. That wasn’t a shield. “That’s not a shield, Grandma. That’s the Orb of Sweetness. It’s magic.”

From behind the couch, Grandpa popped up with a colander on his head. I gasped—he was the Dark Wizard! He even had the flyswatter staff.

“You’ll never get the Orb!” he growled in his best monster voice.

I screamed-laughed and ran at him. We battled across the kingdom. My sword clanged against his flyswatter. He blocked me, then tripped over a slipper and fell backward into the beanbag chair.

I raised my spoon and roared in victory.

Later, I was so tired I just laid on the carpet. Grandma covered me with the quilt that smelled like cinnamon. Grandpa sat next to me, still wearing his wizard helmet.

“Good battle today, Titan the Brave,” he said.

I yawned and smiled. “Thanks. Tomorrow… we fight dragons.”

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