I fed the opening of Pride and Prejudice to fourteen AI content generators. Here’s what happened.

So there I was, scrolling through social media, when an ad popped up on my feed.

“Write blog posts 10X faster with robots!” it said.

O-kay, I thought. Sure. What could possibly go wrong?

A bit of googling later, I’d fallen down the rabbit hole of AI content generation—sites that promise to take the pesky work of, well, coming up with words out of writing. In exchange for a prompt (and in some cases a subscription fee), these sites will autogenerate text—or rather, content—freeing writers up to do whatever writing is about for them besides stringing words together in meaningful ways.

Some AI sites helpfully offer suggested topics, such as fashion, or banking, or cryptocurrency, or everyone’s deepest passion, search engine optimization. 

But they also all let you enter text of your own. So, I entered this:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Then I sat back and let more than a dozen different AI content generators tell me what, exactly, they would do with the opening line of Jane Austen’s most well-known novel.

Not surprisingly, none of them responded by generating a copy of Pride and Prejudice on the spotHere’s what they did instead.

Some AI programs played it straight

Faced with that opening line, this AI started to write a paper on the subject.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. This prevailing wisdom is the impetus for Mrs. Bennet’s obsession with finding husbands for her five daughters. She is convinced that if her girls do not marry well, they will be destitute for the rest of their lives.” –Simplified

More AI programs tried to play it straight, but just lost hold of the narrative along the way

“The novel is about a single man named Mr. Bennet who has five daughters. He is in want of a wife for his daughters and so, he must go to all the trouble of finding them one.”—Rytr

I do appreciate the daughters’ willingness to share.

“It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged, That A Single Man In Possession Of A Good Fortune, Must Be In Want Of A Wife is a novel about Elizabeth Bennet and the five husbands she does not marry.” –Anyword

Five women who marry one wife, one woman who doesn’t marry five husbands. It’s all good.

“Jane Austen is famous for her novels, like Pride and Prejudice, which are full of beautiful language. They are a must read for anyone who has even a vague interest in English literature. #8: Memebox Blogging Challenge Winners Memebox Blogging Challenge. Memebox is a Korean skincare and beauty eCommerce store that curates high.” –Peppertype.ai

English literature, memebox blogging, skincare. It’s all good.

One AI decided to throw shade on Miss Austen herself

“Contrary to popular belief, love can be found in the most unlikely places. And very often, those places are not to be found in a romantic novel like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.” –Copymatic

You tell them, Copymatic.

Many AIs just wanted to help those fortune-possessing single men out

“The search for a wife can be a daunting task. There are many factors to consider, from finding someone who is compatible with you on a personal level to making sure that she meets your family’s approval. If you’re starting to feel the pressure to find a wife, don’t despair. With a little bit of effort, you’re sure to find the woman of your dreams.” –Jasper

“A wife can help manage your money and provide financial stability for your family. She can also help take care of the home and children while you’re away on business or vacations. Plus, she can add some much-needed spice to your life! –Scalenut

“Single men have a bad rap. We’re portrayed as sad, lonely and desperate. But the reality is that being single in your 20s and 30s can be liberating and exciting. This chapter of your life gives you the freedom to pursue the things you really want … without worrying about meeting someone or finding an old lady roommate who will judge you for leaving jam out on the counter.” –Writesonic

“Women are natural managers and caretakers. They make great wives because they are able to understand finances, make good decisions, and are great at taking care of others. They also make good mothers because they can be nurturing and have a deep understanding of human emotions.” –HyperWrite

So many AI-generated reasons a man might want a wife, so few AI-generated reasons a wife might want a man.

One AI gave a shoutout to … no, not to women getting married. To the mothers of women getting married

“It is a truth universally acknowledged by mothers of daughters that weddings are an expensive business. Invitations, flowers, dresses, photographers, catering companies—the list goes on.” –Copysmith

Some AIs had their own agendas to pursue

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. But the subject will become clear if we consider how this very circumstance was taken into consideration by Joseph Smith while he endeavored to persuade his brother Hyrum about marriage.” –Zyro

Sure, sure, that was my first thought too.

We are a community of single men and women who are looking for friendship, dating and more. Join us today and get access to our private forums, where you can post your own profile, send messages and get replies from other members.” –INK

I mean, why are you even on the Internet if you don’t have something to promote?

But a couple AIs actually seemed to get that this was fiction, and they wanted to come out and play

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. But what happens when that man is not so much in possession of a good fortune, as in possession of a bad one? 

“This is the story of [name], who was not quite as rich as he thought he was. He had recently inherited his father’s estate and was now feeling the pressure to find himself a wife before it all ran out. So he went on an adventure with his friend [friend name] to find love, but instead found fame!” –Copy.ai

With a hook like that, who wouldn’t hit refresh for another round?

“This is the story of [name], who wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was a little bit of a gold digger. Though, in this fairy tale there are no evil queens, but instead a group of misfit girls who befriend [name] and help him with his flirting. With the help of his new friends, he finds his prince charming.” –Copy.ai

Even better!

And finally:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

“But what if that single man is too busy being a vampire hunter to think about getting married?

“Enter Jane Austen, who will turn the vampire hunter’s world upside down with her wit, intelligence, and charm.

“Austen is the perfect match for the vampire hunter, and not just because she is a formidable opponent to the undead. Austen is also a woman who knows her own mind, and is unwilling to compromise on what she wants in life.

“The vampire hunter may think he is in control of his destiny, but Austen is about to show him that he is not the only one who can be a hunter.” –Smart Copy

I have no idea where you pulled this from, Smart Copy, but I’m here for it. I’m here for it.

Conclusions?

Read line by line, AI generated prose was more coherent than I expected, except for the places where it wasn’t. The actual content behind all that prose was less coherent, though, except for the places where it made sense after all.

Seeing the male gaze so strongly at work in the world of AI content generation was a bit startling, though it shouldn’t have been. Everything an AI generates ultimately comes from us humans, after all.

There’s probably a lot more AI generated content out there than most of us realize, or more than I realized, anyway. That’s useful knowledge to add to the informed skepticism we need to bring to all the things we find online. 

Finally, if we are going to have robots churning out copy for us, it’s better to credit them and poke fun at them than to quietly cut and paste and claim that copy as our own.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go auto-generate the rest of that vampire story.

Or maybe not

In the end, sadly (happily), AI content generation just couldn’t bring the story of Jane Austen and the vampire hunter home. 

“… The vampire hunter may think he is in control of his destiny, but Austen is about to show him that he is not the only one who can be a hunter. What starts as a battle of wills, quickly turns into something more, as the two realize that they have more in common than they first thought.

“The vampire hunter and Jane Austen may seem like an unlikely pairing, but they just might be the perfect match. What do you think about the vampire hunter and Jane Austen as a couple? Do you think they would be able to overcome their differences, or would they ultimately end up driving each other crazy? Post your thoughts in the comments below!”— Smart Copy

So no, AI content generation isn’t going to replace living breathing writers quite yet.

But if you do have thoughts, feel free to do as the AI says, and share them in the comments below.

Free Bones of Faerie short story

Happy holidays! “Invasive Species,” a short story set in my Bones of Faerie universe, is now online. It’s also FREE this month wherever ebooks are sold.

You can download a copy now from Amazon Apple Barnes and Noble Kobo or Smashwords.

[Invasive Species: Book Cover]

The Bones of Faerie trilogy is set in the aftermath of a catastrophic war between the human and faerie realms, one that has left behind a world filled with deadly magic: stones that glow with deadly light, trees that seek blood and bone to root in, dark forests that can swallow a person whole.

While the main trilogy is set in the Midwest, “Invasive Species” is my look at what the war with Faerie might have looked like here in the Arizona, where even without magic, the plants know how to bite. Here’s an excerpt.


I held tight to my little cousin’s hand as we walked the road through Summerhaven, scanning the broken asphalt for weeds. Alex tugged at a stray thread on his faded Cookie Monster T-shirt and scuffed his sneakers against the ground. He’d been fidgety all day, like his skin felt too tight. Maybe it was the heavy gray clouds, promising rain, but giving us only another sticky summer day.

Maybe it was that for five years—since before Alex was born—our entire lives had been lived within a couple miles of this road. Thinking about it made me want to crawl out of my skin, too.

Alex spotted a fuzzy pink thistle poking through a crack in the pavement. He reached for it. I pulled him back. “Gloves on?” I asked.

Alex looked down at his bare hands, as if he had to think about that. He pulled leather gloves out of his jean pockets, tried to put them on, and got his thumbs stuck in the finger holes. I helped him straighten them out.

“Gloves on,” he said, as if it had been his idea.

“Go for it, then.”

Alex grabbed the thistle and pulled, throwing all his four-year-old strength into the job. The stem came up in his arms, wriggling like a thorny green snake, while the fluffy bloom at the end thrashed wildly, trying to break free. I opened my leather weed-gathering bag, and Alex threw the thistle in. Once it was dead, we’d feed it to the goats and rabbits, just like all the other weeds.

“Take that, stupid plant.” Alex laughed, as if hunting down killer weeds was all in a day’s work. He’d never known a plant that was safe. He’d never known a world more than a few miles wide, either.

I knelt beside him and dug the thistle’s roots out with my knife, ignoring the strap of my quiver as it dug into my shoulder.

Sweat plastered my I Love Mount Lemmon T-shirt to my back. “Never forget the roots,” I said.

Never forget the roots.” Alex threw them into my bag, too, grinning like a preschooler learning his ABCs. Except Alex hadn’t been to preschool, either, hadn’t learned his letters and numbers anywhere but by the fireplace with Aunt Anna and Uncle Doug.

I sighed and stood, looking at the familiar cabins that dotted the hillsides east and west of us, the snags of burned trees punctuating the earth between them. Beyond the houses, terraced fields of beans, squash, and corn moaned as they reached for the sky. Most of the town was up in those fields today, reinforcing the scorched rings of earth that surrounded the crops and kept them from marching down the hillside into town.

Five years ago, if someone had told me plants could march, I’d have told them they’d been streaming too many bad movies …


Read more! Download “Invasive Species” from Amazon Apple Barnes and Noble Kobo or Smashwords.

Happy writerversary to me

Oh, right. It’s 2020.

Okay, you don’t need me to tell you that. What with the election and the pandemic and the wildfires and a thousand thousand other things, 2020 has seen to it that it won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

But February 2020 was also, as this ten-year-old post just reminded me, my writingversary. As I explained then:

Back in February 1990, just a few months out of school, I spent the last of my student loan money on a computer with two 5 1/4″ floppy drives, promised myself I would write at least something every single day when I got home from my new day job, and decided to see if I could make a go of this writing thing. I knew enough to know it would take time, so I gave myself ten years before I would step back, evaluate, and decide whether to keep going.

In February 2000, I’d sold the three middle grade Phantom Rider books and a couple dozen short stories, though the Phantom Rider books were by then out of print and I was feeling more than a little anxious about not having sold any more novels. But I stepped back, looked around, and decided I was in for a second ten years.

I completely missed February 2010, because I was frantically finishing a draft of a sequel the YA fantasy I’d started on that first student-loan funded computer but not finished and sold until late 2006. That was the third YA fantasy I’d sold in the second half of that decade; along the way I’d also sold another middle grade novel. Being too busy to step back and decide whether to keep writing is, of course, an answer of its own. Still, it’s good to actually state these things, so: I’m in for a third decade. I’m in, as I pretty much knew before the end of that first decade, for the long haul.

[Author at keyboard]
One of a great many devices I’ve written on through the years.

I completely missed February 2020 because, well, it was part of 2020. Writing has brought its challenges over the past decade, as it does; parenting has brought its own challenges to the second half of that decade, as it also does. But I’m still here and I’m still writing and it feels good to say it aloud:

I’m in for a fourth decade. I’m in for another ten years.

“Do you believe that spring will come?”

Bones of Faerie, the first book of my Bones of Faerie trilogy, is about uncontrolled growth: plants that bloom in every season, crops that fight their harvesters, trees that seek human blood and bone to root in.

[Faerie Winter Cover]

Faerie Winter, the second book of the trilogy, tells the opposite story. It’s about endless winter, failure to grow, and the fear that spring might never come.

During our current physical and psychological winter, Faerie Winter is the book I’ve been thinking about.

The story’s protagonist, Liza, is surrounded by adults who remember countless other winters, followed by countless other springs. Liza was born after the war between faeries and humans banished winter from her world, though. She’s never known anything but deadly, unbounded growth. When that growth stops at last, Liza’s first thought is about how much safer the forests have become. Later, when she realizes that those forests have also stopped producing the things humans need to survive, she has no mental roadmap for what might happen next.

When Jayce, a member of Liza’s town’s council, talks about preparing for spring planting, Liza wonders at the fact.

If he feared that the spring crops wouldn’t grow, he gave no sign. Adults believed, somewhere deep inside, that spring would come, for all that they were careful of our rations. Some part of them couldn’t imagine that green wouldn’t return to the world, as if green was something we were born to. I did not understand it. Deep inside I felt as if this gray had surely gone on forever and the forests I’d fought all my life had been merely illusions.

Not all the adults in Liza’s world share Jayce’s certainty, though. As the story progresses, Liza flees a danger that comes from beyond the dying forest with Karin, a fey survivor of the War. Karin is a plant mage, keenly aware of the changes winter has brought to the world, and she asks aloud the question that human adults have not.

The grasses sighed wearily and retreated back into the snow. “They’re not dead,” I said. “Not completely, not around you.”

“They are not dead.” Karin sounded as tired as the grasses had. “But they are dying. Tell me, Liza, do you believe that spring will come?”

Why ask me? I was no plant mage. “The adults in my town believe it.” They believed in spite of the gray trees and the gray skies, the failed crops and the too-long winter.

“So it is with the human adults in my town as well.” Karin held a hand out to the falling snow as we walked on. Snowflakes melted against her skin. “Yet I have never heard the trees so quiet. They yearn for darkness, and some have given way to it. Others slip into sleep, accepting that they may never wake. I am told this is the way of your world. It is not the way of mine. I have never known a forest that was not green. What do you believe?”

Do you believe that spring will come? It’s a question I’ve returned to many times since I wrote Faerie Winter. It’s a question I was asking before I wrote that book, too, before fiction led me, as it so often does, to put into words the things I was already saying.

Because Faerie Winter is fantasy, the question of spring’s return is not merely metaphoric. It turns out the danger of endless winter is real, and so Liza’s inner crisis is echoed by the world’s outer one. Fantasy does that, sometimes—lets us transform internal struggles into external realities so that we can face those struggles head on and in a more concrete way than other types of stories allow.

Do you believe that spring will come? Things have changed so much already—in Liza’s world, in our world. There’s no changing them back. Do we believe that forward change will continue instead, leading us on to someplace new, someplace viable, someplace where things can grow once more?

Do you believe that spring will come? There’s a strange comfort simply in putting the question into words.

On one level, I know the answer, always have known it. If I didn’t believe, deep down, that spring—that the future—would come, writing a book where spring was called into question would have been too much to bear.

On another level, I need, just as deeply, to hear the question asked, and I need to travel the hard path toward its answer, again and again, not just in the books that I’ve written but also in the countless books that I’ve read through the years, ever since I knew how to read. Stories were the thing, after all, that got me trough childhood and adolescence and all that came after. Every misunderstood kid who had adventures and saved the world and found their place in that world was, in their way, another needed answer.

An answer, and also a map—the map Liza lacks—for what the journey might look like. Spring comes. Not always easily, not always painlessly, not always as quickly as we want or as we need, but in the end and at the last. Spring comes. Deep down, I know that.

After all, I’ve taken this journey before.