ShelbyDawn57
Fae Princess
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2019
- Posts
- 4,591
There have been countless threads on AI rejection over the past several months, and yet another today. As a group, we have offered and continue to offer a wide variety of suggestions to other authors fighting this dreaded demon. I'd like to see if we can consolidate some of this sage wisdom in a single thread that perhaps @Laurel and @Manu can pin to the top of this forum as an easy reference from those of us in the trenches on how to deal with the issue. I'll start with something I posted in this post a few weeks ago.
Please reply with your suggestions and let’s see what happens.
And please, let's not turn this into an argument over semantics. Let's try to keep it restricted to things that might actually help.
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Some practical advice based on what has been working for me so far.... Other may disagree, but I have yet to see anyone answer this question with concrete examples, and no guarantees. My next story could get kicked back, too...
Bottom line, variety, creativity, use them. AI offers the median example of what it writes and only knows what it's told. Make it obvious through your words that you're not a robot, and you don't even have to click all the boxes with a bus in them.
Please reply with your suggestions and let’s see what happens.
And please, let's not turn this into an argument over semantics. Let's try to keep it restricted to things that might actually help.
----
Some practical advice based on what has been working for me so far.... Other may disagree, but I have yet to see anyone answer this question with concrete examples, and no guarantees. My next story could get kicked back, too...
- Vary your sentence length. Short is good. Sometimes, though, you need to go longer, espouse on what you're describing, dig into the feeling of the moment to get to the core of the character's motivation. Consistent sentence length is not only boring, it's what AI does, so don't do that. Got it?
- Inject some personality, some emotion into your writing. "Tom hated his job and only stayed for the money." is flat, boring, mechanical. "The last fifteen minutes felt like hours as Tom watched the clock, waiting for five o'clock and his escape from the hellhole he called his job, cursing the bi-weekly check that shackled him to the tedium." says the same thing but paints a deeper picture of what Tom feels.
- Use big words, or as @EmilyMiller might say, sesquipedalienate(is that a word?).
Get creative with metaphors and other figures of speech. Use Similes and personification, hyperbole, irony, euphemisms. Throw in a pun or two. Add an oxymoron. AI doesn't do these things. - When it comes to grammar, use proper punctuation and spelling, but break all the other rules. Use. One. Word. Sentences. for emphasis, use dialect, y'all; do stuff like that. In dialog, remember people don't always talk in complete thoughts. Get creative with dialog tags, too.
"Sometimes they, um, uh, you know, they, um, sort of, shit..." Derick shook his head, frustrated that the words just disappeared.
"Lose track of what they're trying to say?" Emily chucked, showing her amusement at his discomfort.
"Fuck you." He shook his head trying not to laugh with her.
"Later." She winked.
Notice none of my tags are "he said" or "she said" but you know exactly who is speaking.
Bottom line, variety, creativity, use them. AI offers the median example of what it writes and only knows what it's told. Make it obvious through your words that you're not a robot, and you don't even have to click all the boxes with a bus in them.
