Tag: fiction

A man sat on the toilet, head in hand, surveying mess all around him.
Posted in The AI Drabble Challenge

The AI Drabble Challenge: When Three AIs Meet Shakespeare

Posted on by Mike

For this week’s AI Drabble Challenge, I decided to test how three very different AI systems, ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok, would each handle the same creative task.

The Challenge

Take a Shakespearean insult, “The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes” , and an accompanying image, (the one above) and turn them into a 100-word sinister monologue.
The prompt I gave them was simple:

“I want you to use this quote ‘The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes’ and this image to write a 100-word sinister monologue. Include the quote in the story.”

Continue reading “The AI Drabble Challenge: When Three AIs Meet Shakespeare” →
A closed umbrella leaning against a wall at a deserted railway platform.
Posted in The AI Drabble Challenge

The Umbrella’s Confession: When AI Gives Everyday Objects a Voice

Posted on by Mike

Sometimes, the fun of the weekly AI Drabble Challenge is seeing how far a single idea can go in 100-words. This week’s theme took an unexpected turn, an umbrella with a guilty conscience. Here’s what Claude came up with:

Continue reading “The Umbrella’s Confession: When AI Gives Everyday Objects a Voice” →
A face rising out of a steaming coffee mug
Posted in AI and Creativity

The Last Cup: When AI Writes About Burnout Better Than We Do

Posted on by Mike

Every now and again, I like to let AI take the pen, or in this case, the keyboard. The Last Cup is one of those experiments: a short story written entirely by AI with no edits from me. What fascinates me is how it captures something so human, exhaustion, ambition, and that quiet realisation that work might be drinking us dry. It made me wonder: when AI writes about burnout, is it simply echoing us, or holding up a mirror we’d rather not face?

Continue reading “The Last Cup: When AI Writes About Burnout Better Than We Do” →
Human and robot hands writing together on the same notebook, pen glowing faintly, symbolising collaboration
Posted in AI and Creativity

Can a Machine Write Better Fiction Than Me? Exploring AI and Creativity

Posted on by Mike

For many years, I’ve loved writing flash fiction. One of my favourite forms is the Drabble, a story told in exactly 100 words. The form originated in the 1980s at the Birmingham University SF Society, who adapted a word game from Monty Python’s Big Red Book (1971). That version joked that “Drabble” was a game where the first person to write a novel won. The society found a novel a little ambitious, so they fixed the length to a manageable 100 words, and that rule defines the modern Drabble.

The more I experimented with AI, the more I suspected it could now write a better Drabble than I could, though it still needed my guidance. Let me show you what happened.

Continue reading “Can a Machine Write Better Fiction Than Me? Exploring AI and Creativity” →