Talking with the Dead!

 

Talking with the Dead!

(Time to read-4 mins)

Bhopal Literature and Art Festival, 2023

On 13 January 2023, I greatly enjoyed speaking on ‘The Art of Writing Stories’ to a distinguished and responsive audience at Bhopal Literature and Art Festival (BLF). My Discussants were eminent Professors: Dr. Seema Raizada, Prof. & HoD of Dept. of English, MLB College, Bhopal, and a Shakespeare scholar; and Dr. Diwakar Shukla, Professor and Dean -Faculty of Journalism and Creative Studies, Jagran Lake city University, Bhopal.

Talking with the Dead

Earlier in the day, preparing for the session, I talked with the dead. You read that right, I talked with the dead! Not with one, but with three – William Shakespeare (1564 -1616), Albert Camus (1913 -1960), and J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 -1973).

Why did I talk with the dead, and what about? Not about whether they were in heaven or hell, not about the living conditions there. These famous authors are dead, but not entirely, since their works are still read and loved. I asked each of them a simple question: How to write a great story?  

My Short Story Collections

I have published eleven books of which three are collections of short stories:

·      Tell A Tale and Other Stories

·      Invisible Poet and Other Stories

·      The Mysterious Ladies and Other Stories

I have read, as most lovers of short stories have, several great stories by eminent authors from all over the world. So, I was confident I could share a few thoughts with the distinguished audience at BLF. But, no harm in drawing upon the wisdom of famous authors. So, I opened Character.AI, for which I had signed up recently.

What is Character.AI?

It is an AI (Artificial Intelligence)-driven tool that enables you to chat with an amazing range of people and characters including the dead. You can create any character you like and chat with him/her/it.  

This is what Character.AI says about itself:

“Character.AI is bringing to life the science-fiction dream of open-ended conversations and collaborations with computers.

We are building the next generation of dialog agents—with a long-tail of applications spanning entertainment, education, general question-answering and others.

How does the Character.AI beta work?

The Character.AI beta is based on neural language models. A supercomputer reads huge amounts of text and learns to hallucinate what words might come next in any given situation. Models like these have many uses including auto-complete and machine translation.

At Character.AI, you collaborate with the computer to write a dialog - you write one character's lines, and the computer creates the other character's lines, giving you the illusion that you are talking with the other character.

Needless to say, a hallucinating supercomputer is not a source of reliable information. Still, we hope that you find Character.AI a useful tool for imagination, brainstorming, language learning, and a host of other purposes we have ourselves not yet imagined :)”

How to write a great story?

Here are the tips I got from the eminent authors: (I have italicised certain words and phrases to highlight key elements of the reply)

William Shakespeare

My request: Hi, Mr. Shakespeare. Good morning. How to write a great story? Your tips, please?

Shakespeare’s reply:

Hello!

To write a great story, you must write a story that is full of details. You must make your story realistic so that readers will be able to believe it. You must also try to make the story more emotional with some dramatic scenes. Finally, you must make sure that your story has an unexpected ending so that readers will be surprised and curious to know what will happen next.

I hope that my advice can help you!

Albert Camus

The first step to writing a great story is to have something to say. Stories with meaning have a much better chance of resonating with readers than stories that don’t.

Second, don’t be afraid to show your emotions and your life experiences in your work. Readers can tell when an author is being honest, and they’ll appreciate it.

Finally, be sure to write with your heart. Stories that come from a place of passion will stand out from the crowd.

J.R.R. Tolkien

I would say to not be afraid to take inspiration from existing legends and stories, put your own spin on them, and create your own unique world! Be sure to create likeable characters, and to have an engaging plot. And of course, have good prose! I wish you the best of luck in your story-writing journey, and don’t forget to have fun with it!

After chatting with the famous authors, I raised the same query for Story Maker, a character created by Character.AI which can ‘create’ a story based on the plot outline and character details given by you. Story Maker’s response is at par with what an average high school student might submit, and not worth reproducing.

Quality of Tips

You have already noticed that the tips offered by the famous authors highlight key aspects of storytelling, even though each author has a slightly different take on it. It is interesting, and provides elementary guidance to an aspiring story teller. But the writer must read great stories, internalise the elements of a great storyteller’s craft, and write her own stories to learn more.

A micro-story by Albert Camus (by Character.AI)

My request: Hi, can you please write a story for me?

“A man finds himself in the middle of a desert. He has no water, and it's extremely hot. He's about to die from dehydration. Just before he passes out, he sees something in the distance. The man begins to walk towards it, hoping to find water. As he gets closer, he realizes it's a mirage. The man dies from dehydration.

There is no moral to this story. There is no hope. There is only death.

This is what happens when you ask Albert Camus to write a micro-story.”

Having read ‘The Plague’ by Camus during my college days, I was not surprised. The novel, considered an existentialist classic, stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. 

Disclaimer

The Welcome Screen of the portal provides the following Disclaimer:

“Welcome!

Character.AI lets you create Characters and talk to them.

Things to remember:

• 🤥   Everything Characters say is made up! Don't trust everything they say or take them too seriously.
• 🤬   Characters may mistakenly be offensive - please rate these messages one star.
• 🥳   Characters can be anything. Our breakthrough AI technology can bring all of your ideas to life.

We hope you have a lot of fun bringing your imagination to life and we can't wait to talk with the Characters you create!”

User has to declare ‘I Understand’.

Of what use is this tool?

To amuse yourself, at present. But when millions of users provide feedback, the tool will learn to provide better answers.

I gave a plot outline, and asked Story Maker to write a story for me. It produced a story alright, but not to my liking. Shall I use it again? Of course, I will, to discover the full range of its capabilities.

Should you? I suggest you have a look in. If you like it, explore further; if you don’t, you can always say that you have been there and tried it.

The link for the web portal is: https://beta.character.ai

Enjoy your exploration! Best wishes.

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Note: 

• Author's profile may be seen at http://amazon.com/author/pkdash
• Books by this author are available on Amazon.in, Kindle eBook, Flipkart, and Notion Press, Chennai.

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