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?
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!
If you are a regular visitor to this blog you will know that I love to experiment, play and have fun with all things AI. With that in mind I thought I would delve into my favourite AI image generator – Midjourney.
What Inspired Me?
I was recently staying at a hotel and the notepad in my room had inspirational quotes on the bottom of each page. I wondered what Midjourney would do if I simply put an inspirational quote in as the prompt? How would it interpret the quote?
Whenever the topic of AI and creativity comes up, someone inevitably leans forward and whispers, almost conspiratorially, “But surely it won’t replace real writers and narrators?”
I sip my tea, tilt my head, and say, “Well… it might.”
I don’t say this with doom in my voice. No shaking fists. No Shakespearean cries of “Woe, the end is nigh!” Just a gentle shrug and a kind of affectionate curiosity, the sort you might feel watching a magician pull a toaster from a top hat. You’re not horrified; you’re simply thinking, “Well, I wasn’t expecting that… do it again.”
Because after two years of building an AI-powered creative life in my little garden shed, surrounded by old books, knick knacks, notebooks, and a slightly judgmental spider, I’ve learned this:
AI probably will replace some creative jobs. But it won’t replace creativity, and it certainly won’t replace the peculiar, irreplaceable quirks of being human.
Instead of running from it, I’ve chosen to walk right up to the machine, give it a biscuit, and say, “Right then, let’s see what you can do.” (And what it can do is rather astonishing.)
There was a morning not too long ago when I typed what I believed was a cracking first line, something sharp, moody, and self-assured, and I leaned back with the satisfied air of a man who still knows how to swing a hammer. Then, with the casual bravado of someone who believes he’s in no danger whatsoever, I asked the AI to “have a go too.”
What appeared on my screen wasn’t just good. It was annoyingly, almost cheekily good. It had rhythm. It had a spark. It had that little shimmer of confidence you get from someone who turns up to the party already knowing they look great. I remember staring at it and thinking, “Alright then… show-off.”
And that, rather unexpectedly, was the moment I realised I could either pretend this hadn’t happened or just admit the truth: sometimes the AI writes better short stories than I do. And instead of spiralling into panic, a curious part of me, the same part that once got me into teaching, podcasting, writing, self-publishing, and YouTube, quietly leaned forward and said, “Now this is interesting.”
The AI Grandad 