timwburke

To write and still have your reader relate to it, that’s a challenge. You start with vignetted characters and setting which a reader “knows”, say a dragon-brimming fantasy quasi-Europe or maybe a 1980s American suburb. Then an element is introduced. Or an existing element of the setting is slowly altered. The characters adapt realistically to the alteration. Either the alteration heightens or the characters’ reactions cause greater change. Okey-doke.

Here is a Twitter feed which critiques AI illustration, but in that critique provides a great overview of the creative process. Inisights like this are one of the few reasons I bother with Twitter anymore.

So many great questions spring from this sequence! Had the AI adjusted tone or content, would we have been frightened by those choices? Does the act of vignetting lay the groundwork of the uncanny? (If so, then *any scene* has the potential for becoming Weird.) How many different ways could one lay out these images to tell a story?

Do the limitations of language describing the moment of an experience, create a form of distress? “Distress” may be a poor word choice; I mean to describe the character being in a state of “alteration” as described above, whether it’s Horror, Weird, Comedy, Hallmark Romance, or whatever.

Would the act of using language cause distress in the writer, and could that be conveyed? That brings to mind any meta where “creator” becomes a “character”.

I really like this sequence of images. This poor AI is doing what it’s supposed to, but it’s frightening, yet the AI seemingly lacks the ability to realize the reaction. That brings to mind that Meryl Streep movie about the society dame who gave concerts where she sang, but was so bad at singing her invites became sought-after for their camp value.

Anyway, lots in here to unpack I think.