If you’d told me twenty years ago that one day I’d be creating stories, images, videos, and audio with the help of a machine that lives in my browser, I’d have smiled politely, nodded, and quietly assumed you’d had a funny turn.
Yet here we are. I’m seventy-five, tapping away in my little shed at the end of the garden, watching as creativity spills out of me faster and more joyfully than it ever did when I had a school to run and assemblies to plan. And the strange thing is, I’m not overwhelmed by this new era. I’m energised by it.
Because despite the noise, despite the panicked headlines, despite the grumbling in certain corners of the writing world, something extraordinary is happening. We’ve entered the age of creative abundance. And abundance changes everything.
Last week I toddled off to my writers’ group with a small bundle of Drabbles tucked in my bag, four tiny stories, each exactly 100 words. One of them I wrote seven or eight years ago. The other three? Written that morning by AI, using my original Drabble as an example.
I didn’t tell them which was which. I just read them out and waited to see if anyone could recognise the story written by me. They couldn’t. Not a single one of them. And yet… most of them still don’t believe AI can “really write”. Which, frankly, made the whole thing even more delicious.
I’ve just come back from a conversation with a few writer friends, the sort where you expect to chat about books, ideas, how to self-publish your latest book, but instead you find yourself knee-deep in an argument about AI before you’ve even taken your coat off.
They’re lovely people, sharp minds, a great sense of humour, but the moment I mentioned something I’d been experimenting with that morning, faces tightened in unison. Someone actually groaned, which is not an uncommon reaction when I mention “AI”. One friend said she refused to “touch all that AI nonsense”. Another muttered that it was “ruining everything”. And there I was, sitting with my tea cooling in my hand, thinking: If we’re reacting like this now, what on earth will the conversation look like a year from today?
Every so often I like to give AI a prompt that gently nudges reality out of line and lets the story tip into something stranger. Not big flashy “save the universe” stuff, just a quiet twist that makes the world wobble and forces the characters to confront something true.
Today’s experiment is a favourite of mine. The premise of the prompt is: ‘In this world, photographs don’t show what people look like. They show what they fear most.‘
So, I put this prompt into ChatGPT, Claude and Grok – “Write a 400 word sinister, dystopian story where in this world, photographs don’t show what people look like. They show what they fear most.”
I got three very different stories. My favourite came from ChatGPT.
Welcome back to the AI Drabble Challenge, a weekly experiment in human and AI creativity. Each Wednesday, I will set a prompt to inspire a Drabble, a story told in exactly 100 words.
You can use any AI model you like (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini, or others), or several at once. How you collaborate is up to you. Maybe the AI drafts the first version, or writes the whole thing, maybe you co-write, or maybe you use it to spark ideas. What matters is the process, and sharing it.
This Week’s Prompt
This week’s Drabble Challenge prompt is two black and white sketches, both generated by Midjourney. I’ve included the prompt for each image which you might want to use.
Image 1
Prompt – If Imagination Knocks, Why Not Fling The Door Open? – black and white sketch
Image 2
Prompt – A black and white sketch of a man lost in the ruined streets of an apocalyptic city.
Example Drabble – ‘The Last Witness’
I put Image 2 into Claude and asked – “Write an evocative monologue of exactly 100 words using this image as the starting point.“
I thought I’d return to ghosts, to emptiness echoing through hollow windows. Instead, there’s weight here. Every shattered brick remembers the hands that laid it. The clocktower still reaches upward, though it measures nothing now but patience. They said forgetting would be mercy, but these ruins refuse. They insist. Each twisted beam testifies to what we were, what we built, what we lost in a single morning of human madness. I am the only one who came back. The only one still breathing. The streets don’t need my memories. They have their own. They will outlast mine, permanent as scars.
How to Take Part
Write your 100-word Drabble with help from an AI tool (or two).
Post your story in the comments, or publish it on your own website and include a pingback to this post.
If you can, share which AI model(s) you used and the prompt that started your process, we can all learn from each other.
Community & Highlights
Each week, I’ll read through the entries, share a few favourites, and highlight one that particularly stood out, for originality, style, or the inventive way it used AI.
This isn’t about competition; it’s about curiosity, experimentation, and celebrating how humans and machines can create together.
A Closing Thought
AI gives us the tools, but we give it meaning. Let’s see what stories emerge this week, 100 words at a time.
Your Turn!
Now it’s over to you, can you craft your own 100-word Drabble inspired by this week’s prompt.
Post your story in the comments below or link to your own blog, I love seeing the imaginative twists readers come up with. So don’t be shy, join in and show us what your AI + Your Imagination can do!
The AI Grandad 