By Elaine L. Orr
I think one of the byproducts of generative artificial intelligence is mistrust. If I get an email from someone I don't know I'm immediately suspicious. It's especially true for book marketing outreach.
At least twice a day I get a friendly email from someone telling me how great one of my books is and how much they can do to propel it to a bestseller list. It can be any book not just new ones. However I had long short story issued in mid December and that has been a popular target.
Though the language isn't always identical the concepts are. Basically I've written something brilliant and they want to help me make money. And maybe pay them a little bit to do it. In checking with author friends it seems we are all getting deluged with these emails.
I do regular chuckles about some of the reels on Facebook. I must have looked at short videos about babies in the past, though I don't remember looking at any besides family. In any event, they now pop up regularly on my Facebook feed and I find it easy to tell which ones are fake. The kids are too cute and the pets they are interacting with are too perfect.
Every day I get one that shows a toddler reacting to having a new infant in the house. The toddler is too articulate for their age, their speech too precise. A lot of three-year-olds are talkative but they don't form all the words perfectly. The toddler in the reel is always furious that there's a new baby. The giveaway is all the adults do is laugh. Any legitimate mom or dad would be interacting with the toddler not merely laughing at them.
I've also been asking ChatGPT to write very short stories similar to those I write. I name titles of my books that they can use as samples. It's impressive in the sense that they write a few thousand words in less than ten seconds.
However, each thing they write is full of metaphors. I can't stand overuse of metaphors because I think it detracts from the story. If you're telling a reader that someone's eyes are almost as turquoise as the Caribbean Sea, immediately they're thinking of the time they went to the Bahamas rather than the character in your story.
The real giveaway is that while there is a series of actions and a character may solve a small mystery, there's no cohesion among the character, their actions, and steps necessary to actually solve a crime. In some ways it reminds me of some of the Hercule Poirot stories. He gives you detailed information on how he solved a crime but there's no way a reader was given enough information to do it with him.
Before you say it's pretty haughty of to make such a statement, go read a couple of the stories. Of course the setting, the crimes themselves, the characters, and the humor make Agatha Christie's stories far better! I carry a thin book of Poirot and Miss Marple stories so I always have something to read in a doctor's office.
I would like ChatGPT to compile a list of 2026 writers conferences in the Midwest. I'll let you know if it's a good list.
To learn more about Elaine's writing, visit her website or sign up for her newsletter.
No comments:
Post a Comment