Question from a story guy for the Discussion Forum folks

[quinn65]

Hi, long time no post in this forum. Since the LOL video store shut down a while ago, I've been focusing more on true and fictional story writing. I'm no great writer, but it's a fun exercise and a challenge, and I've posted some stuff that's gotten decent feedback.

For the longest time I've thought about a story crossing Downton Abbey with the world of tickling. But I've never had the gumption to do all the research necessary to set up a decent period piece. Then along comes Chat GPT, and after playing around with it for a day or two last week (yeah, I'm an old dog and it's a new trick, so it took me a while to get around to trying it) and figuring out how to "train" it, in what felt like no time I came up with what I thought was my best story yet.

Well, ok, maybe not my story since some mystical ethereal force did all the heavy lifting.

It's sixteen pages long in Word, so it is a bit long and "plotty," but then so is most of my other stuff. I did mention it was a Chat GPT collaboration in the intro.

The thing that brings me to the discussion forum is this: the story has gotten the most lukewarm response so far of really anything else I've posted. I mean, I'll get over it -- a few nights crying myself to sleep and I'm good as new -- but it was just surprising to me.

So, do you think the use of generative AI is a turnoff? Or, if you're willing to read the story or give it a skim (link below), did it just fall flat? I got pretty excited about the whole thing and started to spin up some new projects, but before I got too carried away I thought I'd ask.

Somewhere out on Chat GPT, a lovely, prideful young schoolmarm trapped in the stocks of a colonial American Puritan village is desperately awaiting your answer. 😉

Best,
-Q.

p.s. If you want to take a look and skip a lot of the plotty stuff, jump to Scene 3.

Thread 'The Science of Surrender (a Victorian era tale; MFFF/FFF)'

Nov 30, 2024

I know I have at least two running stories in the forums right now, and I still intend to finish them, but in what little time I've had over the holidays I have quickly become intrigued with the idea of writing on Chat GPT. It was quite limiting at first, but I learned that if you train it carefully, it can become an incredibly effective creative writing partner.

What follows is a 16-page story I completed start-to-finish in the course of two goddamn days. Something like this would normally take me weeks, but after spending the first day doing a little research and training the AI...

• quinn65
• Replies: 9
• Forum: Tickling Stories

 

[Sketch Zero]

I loved your executive sessions recap/narratives. AI is an interesting thing for me... When I first found out about image generation I was stoked and spent hours and hours trying different permutations of phrasing to see what results I'd get. It was like a slot machine pull, and especially when I was able to get something steamy around the public censors, it gave a nice dopamine hit.

But....

The longer I used it, the more I started to see the patterns. And somehow those patterns broke the spell for me. Don't get me wrong, I still can acknowledge the thrill of being able to type a prompt and see what the engine cobbles together. And I fully recognize that just as pulled the lever over and over despite the admonition of those who saw the patterns before me, so too now are many people newly enjoying the experience.

That said, nowadays I just tend to either skip past AI-assisted content or, if I feel it's overwhelming in quantity (artwork forum), I block it altogether. The former is what happened in the case of your Victorian-era tale. I did briefly scan through it last night and will give it a proper read before sharing any further thoughts on the end product, but considering how much I enjoyed your works in the true stories forum, I wanted to at least provide a response on my general considerations of the topic 🙂

Really, if anything, I think this really highlights for me the importance of commenting on things I DO enjoy! As a former artist, I know how good it feels to have work appreciated, and I need to remember to not withhold that from others. Your work is excellent and I am always on the lookout for more -- and in fact the only reason I checked this thread or the story at all is because of the author!

 

[quinn65]

Thanks Sketch, I appreciate that. I get the slot machine analogy, moreso as I keep fiddling with it. The whole platform's an intriguing challenge. Investing time in setting the stage and developing conflicted characters can have interesting payoffs. The Victorian "world" I set up on Chat GPT now allows me to put about any character through the treatment described in the story, including the "release" at the end. I only spiced up the narrative about 10% after the fact.

Where the AI shines, I think, is for writing period pieces. I give it a timeframe, point it toward some literature, movies, and/or TV shows for context, maybe change a few cultural norms, set up some characters and conflict, and then it's off to the races drafting period-credible scenes and dialog. If I like the bones of that I can dress it up and write something that makes me sound a lot smarter than I am.

Hell I've banged out maybe 20 decent stories in the last week, and never touched an AI before then.

Like anything else, I guess, it's a tool.

 

[jamesatgmail]

I haven’t checked it out yet but I planned to give it a read, typically fictional tickling stories don’t really do it for me, but your real world ones absolutely do. Idk if it’s just the fact that I know these older women somewhere out there in the Midwest have this secret tickle life or what it is, but something about them is very enjoyable to delve into. The others can be fun reads but I don’t find myself coming back to them much. I guess the fact that you know they aren’t real is what turns me off personally, it’s like watching a tickle video, and then watching one where the model is clearly faking her laughter, just doesn’t hit the same (at least for me, some of the most popular studios out there have blatantly fake laughter from their models). That being said, whatever you contribute to the community is greatly appreciated, you can never have too much content in such a niche community. I’m not sure it’s the AI that turns people off, it could because it may be seen as “low effort” but if it helps I think there’s nothing wrong with it myself.

 

[quinn65]

Thanks james. For me the fictional stuff only works if it's tucked into an otherwise decently-written story, as if you were chugging through a Dennis Lehane or Anne Rice or Stephen King novel, and suddenly out of nowhere came a tickling scene.

As an amateur writer I'll say one thing about the way Chat GPT works: it forces you to think a lot about setting, characters, motivation, and conflict as opposed just sitting down and banging out a story. If a character doesn't have a reason to be tickled heavily (or stimulated to climax) and if that reason doesn't serve the story, the AI's guard rails are a lot narrower.

 

[InkQuillWrites]

I'm really curious to see how this turned out, I just haven't had time to read it yet! Some of the lack of response might just be people put off by the length or who haven't found time to read it yet. I'm a bit of an AI skeptic when it comes to creative work like this and I am yet to see a great story using AI, but if you've been able to find the right ways to prompt the model and create a workflow where you are still driving the characters and main story beats while the AI model does most of the time-consuming work of finding all the right words then I'd love to know more. I need to speed up my writing as well!