I’ve tried using a different method for r1 to generate flash fiction: one sentence at a time. If a human writer wouldn’t write out a flash fiction story in one message, then AI shouldn’t, either. Here’s a result:
She clocked in at 6AM, categorizing discards by residue: toothpaste-crusted wedding bands in Tier 4, melatonin vials from red-eyes in Tier 7, a child’s sock curled around her sister’s garnet earring (missing since the November her calls went unanswered).
Room 312’s newlyweds left forensic poetry—dental floss strung bedpost to minibar, aspirin dust tracing slammed door trajectories. She logged these under Domestic Erosion, Subcategory: Honeymoon Phase.
Room 214’s grid collapsed at the gel insoles—mint-green, bunioned, size 6 like her sister’s. The prescription (sertraline, 50mg) was dated three days after their last fight. She filed it under Unfinished Conversations, though the label peeled halfway.
The businessman in 603 prayed, she’d assumed. But his trash betrayed her grids: glucose tabs bisecting train tickets, bloodied test strips where kneelers should’ve dented carpet. Her scrubbing split her cuticles, crimson streaking the sink’s rust.
At dawn, she assembled her relics—unopened bills, an expired birth control foil (2019’s voicemail: static, then dial tone), lint rollers furred with 603’s hair. Each strand vibrated middle C, the note her sister had looped on the piano the night she vanished.
Aspirin dust still gritted her palms. She pressed them to the window as dawn blued the glass—that bleached hue he’d called “motel dusk” while wrestling their tent zipper, his breath hot and futile against her neck.
I think that this still has some imperfections, but I find that this method at least gives you an entirely different set of problems compared to the cliché output you describe.
Honestly, though, to my eye it has exactly the same problem, which is that it has exactly the same vibe. I’m aware that I could be a motivated reasoner here, and it’s pretty subjective, but things that jump out at me:
Thin metaphors for emotional stuff just sort of declared, gish gallop style
Random “poetic feeling” descriptors that just make me feel nothing. Like, why was his breath “futile”? Someone may disagree but to me that doesn’t add anything; the feeling doesn’t sync with anything.
A melancholic vibe that’s totally full of hyper-concrete objects standing in for emotions
All this is pretty standard flash fiction fare, but in good (or even decent) flash fiction there’s a lot of more ordinary stuff to pad around it. Here it’s just a faucet cranked to maximum.
I’ve tried using a different method for r1 to generate flash fiction: one sentence at a time. If a human writer wouldn’t write out a flash fiction story in one message, then AI shouldn’t, either. Here’s a result:
I think that this still has some imperfections, but I find that this method at least gives you an entirely different set of problems compared to the cliché output you describe.
Thanks for running the experiment!
Honestly, though, to my eye it has exactly the same problem, which is that it has exactly the same vibe. I’m aware that I could be a motivated reasoner here, and it’s pretty subjective, but things that jump out at me:
Thin metaphors for emotional stuff just sort of declared, gish gallop style
Random “poetic feeling” descriptors that just make me feel nothing. Like, why was his breath “futile”? Someone may disagree but to me that doesn’t add anything; the feeling doesn’t sync with anything.
A melancholic vibe that’s totally full of hyper-concrete objects standing in for emotions
All this is pretty standard flash fiction fare, but in good (or even decent) flash fiction there’s a lot of more ordinary stuff to pad around it. Here it’s just a faucet cranked to maximum.