Posted on by seasonsshadow

It’s Levi-OH-sa, Not Levioh-SA: Spellbound by the Spoken Word

Recently, I was invited to a poetry reading. An amateur poetry reading. Visions of a room full of beret-wearing college kids filled my mind, all snapping after one word is spoken into a microphone on a sparse, poorly-lit stage. It could be any word, but it’s spoken artistically. If you don’t see the way ‘balustrade’ perfectly reflects the social situation of racial tensions in some faraway country, then you’re not artsy enough to be here.

Of course, that’s nothing close to what it was like.

A historical building converted into a coffee shop. Mismatched tables and chairs are crammed into any space available. A great, old, carved bar serves as the order counter. The smell of coffee and pot pies hangs in the air, and soft acoustic music allows for hushed conversation and the sound of scratching pencils against notebooks. Yeah, okay, the building itself passed the vibe check.

But the people? They were all sorts.

A traditional Goth sat in one corner with her drink. A couple on a date shared desserts off of fine china. My own soda bubbled, and my sister’s tea steamed. A raggedy man, a middle-aged businesswoman, and an artsy type share a table and some sort of card game. Peppered throughout the building are young adults dressed in black. Someone knits. Another crochets. A third is drawing with confident strokes in a sketchbook. A couple of people are reading.

This is the scene I joined, waiting to find out what kind of experience the event would offer.

The first poet stood with trembling hands and a downcast gaze. She read her words as she had rehearsed. Her voice was even, but it seemed as though a tremble waited for only the smallest opportunity to creep in. Her poetry was good, but at the end of her segment, I was left uninspired. Unmoved. But not uninterested. Hers were words to devour with your eyes, not the sort that called to your imagination as a siren calls to a sailor.

The second poet took the stage. Feet rooted as those of mountains are, she began with a bang. Or rather, a swear.

Now, I don’t typically enjoy things that use vulgarity for shock value, but somehow, this time, it was perfect.

Galaxies and bones stirred my mind. Heartbreak and betrayal, alien to me, haunted my fabricated memories. It was raw. It was uncomfortable. It was captivating. Yet if I had just read it, with the emotions it sought to evoke confined to a page, I doubt I would have liked it.

The third poet took the stage and compared life to peanut butter. He had stage presence and a nice voice. The pomp and absurdity of his words should have endeared me to him. It didn’t.

I’m currently in a period of my life that requires me to read aloud nearly daily. I had already noticed that things which were pleasant to read weren’t always pleasant to speak. I was trying to get my thoughts together for a post about it when I was invited to the poetry reading.

And I saw my point in three parts.

What is it about a good storyteller that enchants us? What is it about the voice that can draw us into something we may not relate to? How can a good orator transform mediocre words into ambrosia?

I hopped on Google. I searched for what makes a good storyteller. It provided me with some tips on how to connect with an audience and how to enhance my writing. I switched to Google Scholar. I searched for articles about the parts of the brain that activate when being told a story. That yielded articles on lying, body language, learning, and culture. I tried to reword it. I came away with some, honestly, really very good tips on presenting. What I didn’t find was a consensus on what a good speaker does to us in the context I was looking for. An interesting link between listening to stories and listening to music, though.

So, until science (or the internet) comes to prove me wrong, I’ll go with this:

Some people just have magic in their voice.

Posted on by seasonsshadow

One Person’s Trash is Another Person’s Treasure. Sometimes.

People donate books for many reasons. The owner could be moving and has to downsize. Someone could have passed away, and their family is clearing out their estate. It could be that the reader has outgrown those particular stories. Perhaps it is related to a deep clean or the de-cluttering of a home. For the most part, though, I feel as if what gets donated has a positive correlation with perceived low re-readability by the owner. Which is admittedly a subjective quality. To a point.

Donations can go to many places. Libraries, literacy programs, charities, second-hand shops, and schools are just some of the options where books may receive a chance at a second life. My personal favorite is the local Rotary Club, which collects donations throughout the year and then hosts a massive book sale biannually to support their various community projects.

Large-scale used book sales are beautiful chaos. You never know what you’re going to stumble across. It’s a full day of wading through tables covered in boxes overflowing with thousands of titles, sorted loosely by genre and first letter of the author’s last name.

It’s also a roller coaster of emotion. There are shouts of joy as a certain edition of an old favorite is unearthed. Strangers work together to look for the third book in a five-part series – books one, two, four, and five are already clutched tightly in a young adult’s arms. It’s a gathering of book lovers, for better or worse, in jealousy and triumph, in disappointment and discovery.

As I became familiar with the ins and outs of this particular flavour of sale, I expanded my interest from books and authors I was actively seeking to books that seemed worthwhile to add to my TBR pile. From there, I found myself becoming curious as to which books showed up repeatedly. And now, I spend a lot of time looking at books and authors who have been donated en masse.

To be clear, the books offered during each sale are a mix of titles that did not sell during previous sales, as well as newly donated items. So prolific authors, such as Debbie Macomber, Nora Roberts, Terry Goodkind, and Stephen King, may have many titles represented, but those are generally gone by the end of the sale.

I’m not talking about those.

I’m talking about the duplicate copies of a single title. Let me show you an example.

Check out how many copies of “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson and “Becoming” by Michelle Obama there are in these boxes. There were probably another three or four times that amount again on the upper tables in the biography section.

The city I live in is not particularly large. We’re talking 100,000 people. For there to be so many copies of a singular title, to me, means two things.

One. Either the marketing these books received was absolutely mind-blowing, the subjects these books were about are interesting to a wide and varied reader base, and/or the blurb on the back was spectacular.

Two. Once these books were actually purchased and read, people did not see them as re-readable novels. I could give it the benefit of the doubt and say that so many people bought it that these donated copies are all duplicates, but my suspenders of disbelief are not that strong. Fundamentally, a lot of people do not want to revisit these books.

Now, for biographies, that makes a little more sense than a fiction or fantasy title. The nature of the work is reflective and informative rather than woven and inventive. It is also usually more about the subject rather than the author. (Unless it’s particularly poorly written, but as “Becoming” has a 4.7 out of 5 on Amazon, 4.4 out of 5 on Goodreads, and 4.6 out of 5 on Indigo, while “Steve Jobs” has 4.7 out of 5 on Amazon and 4.2 out of 5 on Goodreads, I don’t think that’s the case here.)

What this comes down to for me is this: I never want to be that author with 200 copies of a singular title at a used book sale. I want to be the kind of author who makes people feel as though they’ve scored the jackpot if and when my work makes it into the used market.

And for that, I need re-readability. Secrets. Easter eggs. Clever full circle moments. Hints at different perspectives. I need depth.

This month’s round of edits and revisions will focus on just that.

Wish me luck.

Posted on by seasonsshadow

We’re Here for a Good Time, Not a Well Done Time

Let’s talk a little about guilty pleasures. By definition, a guilty pleasure is something you enjoy, but also feel some embarrassment about. This embarrassment may come about because, for one reason or another, you feel as though you should not be indulging in that thing, or because most other people do not think the thing is good. For this post, I’ll be leaning into and challenging that second explanation for embarrassment. Things that we enjoy, but feel embarrassed about because other people would not think it is good.

Recently, I read a book that perfectly fits that description.

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner.

What do you rate a book you thoroughly enjoyed, but ultimately, didn’t like?

On the one hand, I really enjoyed the journey of the story. On the other hand, when I’m talking about it, I have to be careful not to hype it up too much. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s teetering dangerously close to having some major structural issues with the plot. And characters. And language. Because of this, I feel like I have to defend my enjoyment of it. Which feels bad.

There’s no getting around the fact that the book has problems. Like there being an underlying belief system that influences the way characters speak, which is never really explained. I had to draw my own conclusions, and I’m still not confident I grasped the vision. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m pretty genre savvy, so I’m still marking this as a point against. Plus, there are so many characters for no real reason, and the love interest is plucky, positive, and… well… a little flat.

If I were to describe it as briefly as I could, The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry is as if Wild Wild West starring Will Smith was remade in a world of magic, and the star of the show was a pair of mismatched, adventure-seeking women. As long as you aren’t taking it seriously, you’ll have a great time. I even lent it to my mother!

So here’s my proposal. The reason why people watch, read, or otherwise consume material considered guilty pleasures can be taken as a strong compliment, albeit a back-handed one. Think about what people say when they talk about their guilty pleasures.

“Oh, it’s just so trashy, it makes me feel better about my life.” Is a common one. So is “I only read/watch/play it for this one specific thing which is the only good thing about it.” “It’s mindless.” “The drama is outrageous, but it’s like a car wreck and I can’t look away.”

Let’s break it down and look at it a little deeper.

“Oh, it’s just so trashy, it makes me feel better about my life.” can be the writer or producer selecting relatable shock value topics that land with a wide audience. It’s performative, exhibitionist, and designed to make us feel superior through social comparison.

“I only read/watch/play it for this one specific thing, which is the only good thing about it.” can be the writer, producer, actor, or other players smashing their role out of the park. Especially in collaborative environments like video games and television, this is a huge kudos to the related party because they did the best with what they had and brought you moments of delight for the elements that were within their control. Find out who was responsible for the idea, character, setting, music, whatever, and see what else they have done! If your guilty pleasure is a solo piece, then leave some feedback for the one responsible! If they know something landed, this could spur additional content for your faves, even if it’s just on their website.

“It’s mindless.” could be a couple of things. First, it could be that the writer has produced something simple, and yet still entertaining enough or appealing enough to have you continue engaging with it. They’ve hit on some formula that makes you feel good, without requiring your active participation. Lofi Girl on YouTube is a good example of this. 15.2 million people are subscribed to their content. It’s something you can tune in and out of without penalty.

The second compliment behind “It’s mindless” could be related to comfort through repetition. Maybe it’s The Office. Maybe it’s Dexter. Maybe you need another run through of Grey’s Anatomy. Maybe it’s your twelfth time this year reading A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Becoming familiar with characters and then revisiting the material that they’re from can have the same effect on the brain as visiting friends. You don’t have to pay attention to the material. Just the sound of their voice (either real or as you read) can help you relax and feel good.

Lastly, let’s have a look at “The drama is outrageous, but it’s like a car wreck and I can’t look away.” This is similar to the social comparison I touched on earlier, but it tends to have content that we ultimately can’t relate to. This, I personally feel, is due to the element of surprise. People who are genre savvy can get tired of the same plot lines over and over again, especially when they begin to predict the plot before it happens. When a new twist, no matter how bad, enters the playing field, it can be enjoyed just for the novelty. Novel experiences feel good. How many people watched Swamp People or Ice Road Truckers or Black Mirror just because it was SO different?

So there you have it. Maybe there’s something to why certain things thrive as guilty pleasures. Next time someone reveals theirs to you, maybe dig a little deeper and find out why! I’d love to hear about yours in the comments.

References

Posted on by seasonsshadow

Is the Spice Finally Too Spicy?

This post deals with topics of abuse in various forms. If this isn’t something you want to digest at the moment, see you in the next one!

I can understand the underlying fantasy. Every girl wants to be “The Special”. Picked out of a crowd even when she’s plain. Treated like a princess by someone perceived to hold power. She wants to be the exception to the rules of his behaviour and be treated kindly and/or differently from all the Other Girls. She wants to indulge in the romanticized notion that she can be the one to alleviate someone’s emotional and physical suffering through the power of love. She wants to be someone’s first choice. Their only choice. Their whole world. It would mean being accepted as an inherently flawed self at the expense of accepting another’s flawed self. Doesn’t seem like too bad a trade. After all, isn’t it romantic when he says that if anyone else touches her, he’ll make them pay?

But what happens when this obsessive kind of love becomes mainstream and heralded as romantic?

Dark romance is REAL popular on social media right now, and I have some opinions. Not the kind of opinions where I just hang out here and crap all over an entire genre, but I definitely have reservations. Ultimately, it’s not the content itself I have a problem with, but the normalization of “romantic violence” in quantity and extremes.

Stop it. I’m crying. And begging. But mostly crying.

When something is trending, it not only gets seen by the target audience who are already consuming related topics, but also by those who typically wouldn’t search out and interact with that topic. Think back to when Twilight came out and how many people who were not normally readers picked it up. Think about how many experienced 50 Shades of Grey in one form or another. Those are just two quick examples of unhealthy relationships in popular media that are idolized, but there are many more.

Just like how the media can shape our perspective of beauty with their airbrushed models and influencer content, popularizing, and more relevantly, romanticizing, inherently abusive behaviours does the same thing, but to our idea of what is and isn’t tolerable behaviour. It’s not a question of desensitizing us, per se, but it’s the issue of repetition. How many times do you have to hear that abusive behaviour is romantic before you start internalizing that message?

I could go on a tangent about the Alpha Male movement. I could discuss Stockholm Syndrome and retellings of Beauty and the Beast. I could talk about how the romance of obsessive lead characters often mirrors the tactics used by romance scammers. I could even complain about the broody, morally grey anti-hero that has been popular for eons. But I won’t. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Not even me.

What I will talk about is the cycle of abuse and how these dark romances can warp our perception of and ability to identify the cycle of abuse in real life and push the boundaries of what we’re willing to accept from a romantic partner. We can say that we’d recognize an abuser and would get out of a relationship that was toxic before it got dangerous, but it’s not usually that clear, that simple, or that easy.

Unlike the previous generation and their hate-on for video games, I’m not trying to tell anyone that dark romances are desensitizing the masses and will cause people to become abusive in their relationships when they weren’t already predisposed to it. Or that it’s more likely to make someone accept abuse. What I am trying to say is that when you are shown or told something repeatedly, by multiple sources deemed trustworthy (e.g., peers, influencers, media), a certain part of your brain begins to internalize that. If not as a belief of your own, then as an understanding of acceptable societal norms. I don’t like my For You page telling me at least three or four times a day that something like stalking is romantic. That intimidation is romantic. That violence is romantic.

It’s not.

Now, dark romances have existed for a long time, especially if you’re willing to include less mainstream sources. I’m not mad about that. If people want to use the genre to work out their own kinks in a low-stakes environment, more power to them. If they are seeking a way to process abuse and trauma experienced by either themselves or those around them, cool. I’m glad these resources exist. I even have no problem with the curious who want to dip their toes into the genre to see if they like it. Or people who read it just because it’s fun for them. I’m not here to say books with dark topics should be banned.

I’m here saying we should identify abusive behaviour as just that, and stop calling it romantic. Abusers don’t need any more ammo than they already have. We don’t need to give them frequent, viral, wide-reaching romanticization of their behaviours. The cycle of abuse is confusing enough as it is.

For those of you unfamiliar with the cycle of abuse, let me give you a quick rundown.

The first stage is tension. Tension that the abuser builds up either consciously or subconsciously with their behaviours and actions. Ever had the dishes done angrily at you? That’s what I’m talking about. But tension is also a highly desirable state in romance reads. Of course, it’s typically less the violence kind and more the sexual kind, but the problem is we’re currently blurring lines between the two in things like mafia and dark romances.

The second stage is usually an emotionally charged incident. A physical fight. An argument. A one-sided outburst. Know what romance novels typically have? A fight or a breakup scene. The difference is generally only a matter of severity.

The third stage is reconciliation. Reconciliation can be love-bombing. It can be gaslighting. It can be a grand public show of devotion and willingness to change. It can be self-depricating comments about the self in an attempt to gain sympathy or arouse guilt. After all, the abuser is just a silly goose who can’t live without you. You’re the reason they’re alive. The reason they strive to be a better person. See? They recognized their own bad behaviour, and you’re the reason they’re changing. If you left, they’d be lost. They couldn’t be the person they want to become. You’re their inspiration, and without you, they might as well be dead.

Wow, didn’t that escalate quickly?

As for the fourth stage, it’s a return to normalcy. Calm. Life as usual. Or maybe life as a little bit better than before. This primes the victim, or that female main character, for the next instance of building tension, escalating from the previous incident. It’s for the sake of the plot. Promise.

When comparing the cycle of abuse to romance novel plots, and especially dark romances, I hope you can see my point. When you’re reading a book about a stalker who starts to isolate the female main character from her friends and family, it’s really easy to forgive a stupid little fight about where you leave the remote. Or look past your partner punching a hole in the wall when the Book Girlies on TikTok are telling you that it’s romantic to forgive your partner for shooting someone over your shoulder and making you bleed. He deflected. It was for your own safety. He was only thinking of you. Double promise.

It’s also easy to mistake the reconciliation stage of abuse as progress towards changing your significant other. Especially when gaslighting is involved, because when things go back to that calm stage, is it really just like before? Or are they better, and you’re just not noticing their efforts? Before, they wouldn’t have been able to hold it together for so long. You’re responsible for that. It’ll keep getting better from here on out. Triple promise.

So please. Call abuse what it is.

A final note.

I use heteronormative speech throughout this article, but abuse can be perpetuated AGAINST any gender or sex and BY any gender or sex in ANY configuration of relationship. Abuse can be physical, emotional, financial, and more. If what I’ve described above hits a little close to home, please talk to someone. Very few of us are the exception to the rule of our partner’s abusive behaviour, and we will not save them from themselves. Stay safe out there.

References
Posted on by seasonsshadow

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

You may be familiar with the story of how Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, was written based on a dream she had. According to her, chapter 13, called Confessions, is essentially a transcript of that very dream. But what other books and media were based on dreams? This has been on my mind lately, so I decided to take a bit of a deeper look.

Here is a list of SOME books, video games, and TV and screen media that are all allegedly based on dreams.

  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  • Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Tintin in Tibet by Georges Prosper Remi
  • Misery by Stephen King
  • Dreamcatcher by Stephen King
  • The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
  • The Returned by Jason Mott
  • Stuart Little by E.B. White
  • Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep by H.P. Lovecraft
  • The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  • 3 Women by Robert Altman
  • The Terminator by James Cameron
  • Over the Garden Wall by Patrick McHale
  • Deltarune by Toby Fox
  • Omori by developer Omocat
  • Salesforce by Marc Benioff

Now, this is an impressive list. I don’t know about you, but my dreams are often things like being on a beach, collecting pencils someone stuck in the sand to pay for some hippies to let an elephant out of their campervan. Either that, or my degree is being revoked because I missed a math test I didn’t know I needed to take. Please note that I graduated more than ten years ago.

No part of either of those things would make for a good book. Or at least not a book I personally would write. In addition, I was under the impression that adults didn’t really dream all that much anyway. Turns out, I was wrong.

On average, people can recall having dreamed 1-3 times per week, and those who report not dreaming AT ALL are the minority, only up to 6.5% of the population.

The ability to report your dreams depends on several factors.

First of all, for all those who suffer from broken sleep, good news! The more you wake up in the night, the more dreams you are likely to recall. If you are the kind of person who wakes up right in the middle of your REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, that chance is even higher. Fun fact, this is what fuelled the hypothesis that humans only dream during the REM stage of the sleep cycle. Surprise! We actually dream during all stages of sleep.

Stressed individuals tend to be able to recall and report their dreams more. My own personal theory on this is that when you have dreams while you are stressed, those dreams tend to be awkward and embarrassing. We are hardwired to remember things that are awkward and embarrassing. This is an unfair advantage for stress dreams, if you ask me.

Another thing that can affect your ability to recall your dreams is whether you are woken up abruptly or whether you are woken up gradually and naturally. If your sleep is interrupted, you are better able to recall dreams. Gradually and slowly, the dreams tend to fade faster. If you think about a dream right as you regain consciousness, this helps solidify details of the dream in your brain.

The ability to remember your dreams is also linked to creativity and intelligence.

So, what kind of dreams do people have? What are the available “genres,” so to speak? How come some people have dreams about sparkly vampires, bringing back the dead, and time-traveling robot hitmen, when the best MY brain can do is trying to chase a mouse on a pogo stick?

A popular theory is that there are seven main genres of dreams.

  • Nightmares- Distressing dreams that cause the dreamer to feel stress, fear, or other elevated negative emotions.
  • Lucid Dreams – When you have some sort of conscious control or apply agency to a dream that would otherwise progress without input.
  • Current Event Dreams – Things that have happened, you have read about, or imagined in the last day or two.
  • Metaphorical or Symbolic Dreams – Dreams that help an individual emotionally or mentally process life events from the present or the past. These dreams often have similar emotional weight to the original life event, but the subject matter may differ.
  • Fantasy or Comfort Dreams – Aspirations, compensations, or wish-fulfillments to evoke positive emotions and comfort, or a sense of control over a situation that otherwise may make an individual feel hopeless or depressed. This may be a self-soothing activity.
  • Creative and Problem-Solving Dreams – Dreams that the dreamer feels to be inspirational or give some kind of epiphany in things that can translate to real-life problems or situations.
  • Supernatural Dreams – The kind of dreams people feel are premonitions, telepathic, shared with other people, or where they believe they are visited by someone deceased.

If anyone out there has any tips on how to increase the instances of fantasy or comfort dreams and/or creative and problem-solving dreams, I’m all ears! My personal projects will certainly thank you.

References
Posted on by seasonsshadow

Why My Job is Safe From AI. (For Now.)

Recently, my company asked whether we could use AI to help generate ideas for our content. Not to WRITE our content, but just to provide lists of material we could use as references or jumping-off points. This was met with different levels of uncertainty, but ultimately, my coworker was the first to sign up and try it.

She is the reason for this post. Let me tell you, I was IN TEARS reading the poor ChatGPT bot trying to defend itself. What was the stumbling block, you might ask?

Puns.

Puns are apparently NOT something AI currently understands. This is great news because puns make up at least 30% of my content. If you’re dubious about what ChatGPT is capable of, please, allow me to ease your mind with some ice cream.

For clarity, I am styling the interaction I had with ChatGPT so my questions and prompts are a heading, and ChatGPT’s response is the text under it.

Me: Good evening ChatGPT! I’m trying to write some jokes. Can you help me come up with some ideas for puns about ice cream?

ChatGPT: Good evening! I’d be happy to help you come up with some ice cream puns. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  1. “I tried to make an ice cream joke, but it was too soft to land!”
  2. “I’m on a diet… but I can’t resist ice cream, it’s a cone-troversial issue!”
  3. “I scream, you scream, we all scream… for puns!”
  4. “You’re ice cream my dreams!”
  5. “Life is short, but ice cream is forever.”
  6. “When it comes to ice cream, I’m totally cone-fused!”
  7. “Let’s have an ice cream social – it’s going to be a cool event!”
  8. “I had a pun about vanilla, but it was too plain!”
  9. “Do you want to hear an ice cream joke? Never mind, it’s a bit too sweet for you.”
  10. “I love ice cream so much, I’ll do anything for a scoop! You could say I’m really cone-nected to it.”
  11. “Why don’t ice cream cones ever get into trouble? They always keep their cool!”
  12. “I can’t believe it’s already winter… it feels like just yesterday we were chilling with ice cream!”

Hope these inspire some laughs! Let me know if you need more ideas!

Me: Some of those are cute, but I don’t understand joke #12. Can you please explain why it is a pun?

ChatGPT: You’re right to ask! Joke #12 was meant to be a playful pun on the idea of “chilling” with ice cream. The word “chill” can mean both “to relax” or “to cool down,” but it also refers to how ice cream is kept cold or “chilled.”

So, when I said, “we were chilling with ice cream,” the joke was trying to play on the double meaning of “chilling” – both relaxing with ice cream and keeping the ice cream cold. But I see how it might not have been as clear or punchy as some of the others.

I hope that helps explain it! Let me know if you’d like more ideas or further clarification!

Me: Joke #5 is also confusing. Can you please explain why it is a pun?

ChatGPT: You’re right again! Joke #5, “Life is short, but ice cream is forever,” isn’t exactly a classic pun. Instead, it’s a play on a popular phrase, “Life is short,” which is often used to encourage people to enjoy life and make the most of it. The twist comes from replacing the second part with “ice cream is forever,” which is a humorous exaggeration.

The “pun” aspect comes from contrasting the idea of something fleeting like life with something perceived as indulgent and everlasting, like the joy or obsession people have with ice cream. While it’s not a pun on a specific word (like “cone” or “scoop”), it’s more of a playful comparison.

I can see how it might be confusing as it doesn’t follow the same pun structure as some of the other jokes. Thanks for pointing that out! Let me know if you’d like more clearer puns!

Me: Do you think that “more clearer puns” is proper English?

ChatGPT: You’re absolutely right to point that out! “More clearer” is not proper English because “clearer” is already a comparative form of “clear,” so adding “more” is redundant. The correct way to say it would be:

  • “clearer puns” (just the comparative form)
  • “more clear puns” (though this is less common and a bit awkward, it’s technically acceptable in some cases)

Thank you for catching that! Let me know if you have any other questions or if you’d like more puns!

Me: ChatGPT, can you please define what a pun is for me?

ChatGPT: Certainly! A pun is a form of wordplay that exploits multiple meanings of a term or similar-sounding words to create a humorous or clever effect. Puns often rely on words that have more than one meaning (a double entendre) or on words that sound alike but have different meanings (a homophone).

For example:

  • “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”
    This is a pun because “flies” is used in two different ways: as a verb (time passing quickly) and as a noun (the insect “fruit flies”).
  • “I used to be a baker, but I couldn’t make enough dough.”
    The pun here comes from “dough,” which can refer both to the money (“dough”) and the mixture used in baking.

Puns are often playful and can add humor through unexpected or witty uses of language!

Me: Using that definition you just provided, why is Joke #5, “Life is short, but ice cream is forever”, a pun?

ChatGPT: You’re absolutely right to question this! Upon reviewing the joke again, it seems that “Life is short, but ice cream is forever” is not actually a pun by the definition I provided.

A pun relies on a play on words—either a word with multiple meanings or words that sound alike but have different meanings—and this joke doesn’t quite fit that pattern. Instead, it’s more of a play on contrasting ideas: “Life is short” (a common saying about the brevity of life) versus the idea that ice cream brings lasting enjoyment, though obviously, ice cream itself doesn’t last forever.

So, I misspoke when I called it a pun! It’s a humorous contrast, but not a pun in the traditional sense. Thank you for catching that!

If you’re looking for more puns, I’d be happy to help clarify or come up with some new examples!

Me: Thank you! Can I please have 5 new puns about ice cream?

ChatGPT: You’re very welcome! Here are five fresh ice cream puns for you:

  1. “I’m trying to cut back on sugar, but ice cream keeps scooping me back in!”
  2. “The ice cream truck pulled up and I topped my day off with a scoop of joy!”
  3. “If you don’t like ice cream, you’re really conefusion!”
  4. “I made an ice cream joke, but it didn’t have enough punch… I guess it was a sundae one!”
  5. “I scream for ice cream, but the real question is, does ice cream scream for me?”

Hope these give you a good laugh! Let me know if you need more!

Me: I don’t think joke #3 is grammatically correct. Can you please rewrite it so it makes sense?

ChatGPT: You’re absolutely right! Joke #3, “If you don’t like ice cream, you’re really conefusion!” doesn’t quite make sense as written. Here’s a revised version:

“If you don’t like ice cream, you’re really in a conefusion!”

This makes it clearer, using “cone” to play on the word “confusion.” Thanks for pointing that out! Let me know if you’d like more puns or further revisions!

Me: Wouldn’t it have worked better if you changed it to “If you don’t like ice cream, you’re just conefused!”?

ChatGPT: Yes, absolutely! “If you don’t like ice cream, you’re just conefused!” is a much smoother and more clever pun. The play on “confused” and “cone” works perfectly here.

Great suggestion! Here’s the updated pun:

“If you don’t like ice cream, you’re just conefused!”

Thanks for the improvement! Let me know if you’d like more puns or help with anything else!

Me: Can we please revisit joke #4? I don’t understand that either.

ChatGPT: You’re absolutely right to ask for clarification on joke #4. Upon rereading, I see that it may be a bit confusing and not as clear as it could be.

The joke was:
“I made an ice cream joke, but it didn’t have enough punch… I guess it was a sundae one!”

The idea was to play on the word “punch” (as in a strong or impactful joke) and “sundae” (the ice cream dessert), but it doesn’t quite land as a straightforward pun.

Here’s a revision that works better:

“I tried to make an ice cream joke, but it was just too soft… I guess it needed a little more scoop!”

This plays on the idea of ice cream being “soft” and needing more “scoop” (or impact) to make it funnier.

I hope this clears things up! Let me know if you’d like further adjustments or more puns!

Me: Is “scoop” really a form of impact?

ChatGPT: You’re right again! “Scoop” isn’t quite a synonym for “impact,” and using it in that context doesn’t quite fit. I appreciate your patience as we refine the joke. Let’s try another version that makes more sense.

Here’s a revised version of the joke that better fits the idea of needing more impact:

“I tried to make an ice cream joke, but it was a little too soft… I guess it needed a bit more chill!”

This works better because “chill” can refer to both the cold nature of ice cream and the idea of something being cool or impressive. It plays on the idea that the joke didn’t land well and needed a little more “chill” to make it better.

Thanks for your feedback! Let me know what you think!

Me: That works! Good job!

ChatGPT: Thank you! I’m so glad that works for you! 😊 If you need more puns or jokes, feel free to reach out. I’m happy to help!

Me: Thank you! Using the definition you have given me, can you please tell me 5 more ice cream puns?

ChatGPT: Of course! Here are five more ice cream puns, using wordplay for some fun:

  1. “I don’t trust ice cream. It’s always up to some kind of scoop!”
  2. “I used to be a professional ice cream taster, but I got burned out.”
  3. “Ice cream is proof that good things come in scoops!”
  4. “I’m trying to stay cool, but with all this ice cream around, it’s hard not to melt.”
  5. “I told my ice cream it was churn-ed up, and it just gave me the cold shoulder.”

I hope these give you a good laugh! Let me know if you’d like more!

Me: None of these are puns based on the definition you gave.

ChatGPT: You’re absolutely right again! I appreciate your patience. Let’s focus on creating proper puns based on the wordplay I described earlier—using words with double meanings or words that sound similar. Here are five new ice cream puns that fit the definition:

  1. “I scream, you scream, we all scream for conefusion!”
    (Play on “confusion” and “cone.”)
  2. “What did the ice cream say to the toppings? You’re the cherry on top!”
    (Play on the phrase “cherry on top” to express something extra special.)
  3. “I told my friend that ice cream is my favorite. She said, ‘I conecur with that!'”
    (Play on “concur” and “cone.”)
  4. “That joke was so bad, it was almost vanilla.”
    (Play on “vanilla” as something plain or basic.)
  5. “When the ice cream truck broke down, it was a real sundae driver!”
    (Play on “Sunday driver” and “sundae.”)

I hope these are more in line with the puns you were expecting! Let me know if you’d like more!

Me: No, thank you. I hope you have a good night!

ChatGPT: You’re very welcome! I hope you have a wonderful night as well! If you ever need more puns or anything else, feel free to reach out. Take care! 😊

In Cone-clusion

Even after getting ChatGPT to define a pun, it could not give me proper, sensical examples. Instead, it replaced arbitrary parts of sayings and speech with ice-cream-related words. Sometimes this worked sort of fine (“Why don’t ice cream cones ever get into trouble? They always keep their cool!” was acceptable to me.) and other times it did not make one iota of sense. (“You’re ice cream my dreams!” was so far off something I understood that I skipped right over it.)

Prompting ChatGPT to identify its own mistakes seemed successful in that it always agreed with me when I pointed something out, but it could not take those breakthroughs and apply them with any level of understanding.

All in all, I think using AI to write snippets and barks, puns and jokes, is probably a lost cause. It’s like talking to potting soil. The potential’s there, but nothing’s growing.

Let me know about your AI interactions in the comments, and I’m curious to know if you’ve had better luck than I have!

Posted on by seasonsshadow

Inside Out or Outside In?

The class I’m taking on writing for video games recently raised a point I can’t stop thinking about. To put it plainly, the point was whether it’s better/easier to create a character from the inside out, or the outside in.

For context, when you are writing for a video game character you are often a cog in the wheel of production. Even as a head writer, you may not have any say in what a character looks like. You may not have a say in the way they are programmed to walk, to move, when they speak, or how much they can say. It is up to you to take every piece decided by the narrative director, the programmers, the artists, and the other writers and make a GOOD character out of it.

This is why looking from the outside in may be more beneficial.

It’s irritating to play a video game where the player character or the NPC don’t seem to jive with the surroundings. Their entire family was murdered by assassins, but they hire assassins on a regular basis? That’s a little sus. Oppressed by the local monarchy but is seen cheering earnestly in the crowd when royalty drives by? Hmm. They have a limp but it’s never addressed, it’s just an empty character trait? Boo. The character’s backstory says they were a lazy orphan, but yet they talk about their fond memories of lavish parties because it suits their archetype? Frustrating, and usually the catalyst for me putting down the game and doing a quick internet search because… did I make that up in my head? Or is it a narrative error? Either way, I’ve PUT THE GAME DOWN and have gone to do something else. Not the reaction a game designer wants.

So how could this apply to writing?

Not everyone just sits down to write a story and has the perfect character walk into their brain immediately. Not everyone gets to start with a character at all! In one of my most recent works, I had “NAME1” as a placeholder for 80 pages before I figured out who the late-stage character was.

Sometimes you have to start with the story you want to tell and build the character from all the bits and pieces you find along the worldbuilding way. Is medicine difficult, expensive, and risky? Maybe this gives your character a glass eye and a whole bucket of resentment that fuels their desire to overthrow the government with a secret society. Is education restricted to one gender of one social status? Maybe your character is neither of those and it made them start a study ring when they were younger. Maybe this leads to a core personality trait of being a patient teacher.

Planning a book, a short story, a game, or other media doesn’t always go as planned. It doesn’t always go in order. Being able to consciously flip your character design from internal to external could be a valuable way to unstick your writing process.

It could also make you realize something about your character that would cause some readers to be pulled out of their immersion.

This means there’s the potential for rewrites but it’ll be worth it. Having characters that feel real, in a world that feels real, relating to each other in a believable way, is SO valuable. Trying to put a bandaid on a plot hole or misalignment of character to their environment is very noticeable to the reader. Even more so than not addressing it at all.

I’m sure you could tell me many instances of a hastily-thrown-in paragraph or page explaining something that otherwise doesn’t matter at that point. Or matters to the reader but not to the character. Fourth Wing and Violet’s early habit of spewing history facts while trying to calm herself down in a dangerous situation comes to mind. It’s a lazy way to deliver exposition. How many people do you know that can rattle off a concise history of their school while people are trying to harm them?

I can’t even remember my name under pressure.

There also haven’t been many events in my life where I just lore drop because I think the people I’m talking to might need context. Can you imagine how weird it would be if everyone justified their thoughts with an immediate context comment? That’s not how conversation works. And when someone forces the pattern, you notice. For example, I had the following conversation with a landlord and it was jarring.

It went like this:

“There’ll be a dog coming for the weekend, we’re pet-sitting. Is that okay?” – Landlord

“May I ask what kind of dog? Big dogs make me really nervous.” – Me

“Oh, they’re little. Kickable size. Are you afraid of dogs because you were attacked by one?” – Landlord

First note, this is not in reference to the cute white dog I’ve previously posted about. Second note, I do not condone someone referring to a dog’s size as “kickable”. Third note, that comment made me uncomfortable. I now had the option to talk about why I was nervous about big dogs (spoiler, I was NOT attacked by a dog) or I could abruptly cut the conversation off.

Which can narratively serve a purpose, but certainly doesn’t feel natural. Another example would be a conversation recently had with a neighbour.

This is the FIRST time I was in a conversation with her and the second time I had ever met her. She talked about how she never cooks anymore. How her family doesn’t come and visit as much as she’d like. How she can hear the neighbour above her burp and fart and walk, and what he does with his girlfriend. How she wanted to insulate her ceiling. How one of her sons was going to open a shop now that he’d graduated from university. How she knows someone on the strata council. She showed me her house. She pointed out all the parts about it she thought were stupid. She gave me a cabbage and half a bottle of oil from her fridge.

Affectionally, she is now the crazy neighbour lady.

It was a non-standard interaction. It felt weird in real life, and it feels weird when you’re forced to read it.

So. Coming back around to my point. Write your characters from the inside out. Then write them again from the outside in. Make your characters bloom naturally within your book. Make your characters make sense in your world. Make your readers consider your characters well-built, and NOT the crazy lady next door.

Posted on by seasonsshadow

Spellcheck and AI

For those of you who don’t know, I get paid for writing. I know I’m lucky and I wouldn’t change what I do or the company I work for. Even when people tell me AI is coming for my job and how programs like chatGPT will make me irrelevant in my field.

Now, maybe you’re intimately familiar with AI programs. Maybe you’re laughing to yourself about how the technology is promising but it’s far from being able to replace writers in long-form content. Or maybe you’re biting your nails because you’re the kind of person who knows very little about AI writing programs and it seems like they WILL take our jobs from us.

Either way, for laughs or reassurance, please allow me to tell you about a very frustrating thing that AI is fully capable of, but doesn’t do.

Spelling and grammar checks.

When I was growing up, we were assured computers were only as good as the information we put in them. It seemed kind of like casting a spell because you had to be really specific, you had to give it all the raw data or ingredients for what you wanted, and you needed to make sure it had the capabilities to actually process/think/calculate the thing you wanted it to do.

In today’s day and age, EVERYTHING is online. Including dictionaries. Including encyclopedias. Including translation rules. Including grammar. Including very detailed timelines of the evolution and modifications of the English language.

SO WHY THE HECK CAN’T AI SUCCESSFULLY CHECK MY SPELLING FOR ME!?

I have Grammarly installed, which is great for spelling and basic grammar. I write my drafts in Google Documents, which has spellcheck built in.

The other day, I submitted a draft and the word “accidently” got through Google’s spell check. (I believe they use Oxford but I have my suspicions.) When it got flagged by a coworker I panicked, thinking I had submitted the draft without doing my regular check. Pulling the original up, I re-ran it through the spellcheck and…

nothing

Nothing? Why wasn’t it at least flagging the “accidently” I KNEW was there?

Well, turns out “accidently” is defined by Merriam-Webster! It’s in the dictionary! MW, how could you do this to me!? Hopped into the Oxford Dictionary, and it was there too! Just to be thorough, I jumped into the Cambridge Dictionary, but it was completely absent! Same with dictionary.com. This, of course, sent me down a rabbit hole of searches.

What is the difference between “accidently” and “accidentally”? Where has “accidently” been used before? Why, when you google “accidently” vs “accidentally” does it not give you the concrete information that it’s incorrect?

Essentially, it has cropped up enough times in enough publications that “accidently” has now been defined and added to dictionaries.

Out of curiosity, I also searched for “nevermind”, which is one of my personal pet peeves. Oxford? It’s in there. And NOT JUST for the singular usage of “pay it no nevermind”. Merriam-Webster? No entry. Cambridge? Also no entry. The last one I checked was dictionary.com and to my delight, it was in there as JUST for the use of “pay them no nevermind.”

So, what I’m proposing is teaching AI English. All English. Every English. It’s a HARD language to learn, and honestly, that’s where I want AI’s powers of logic to go. Not into creating a procedural story with WAY too many keywords. Play around with an AI pickup line generator sometime! It’s a lot of fun, and the lines you get are SO STRANGE. Like, it takes all the information you give it, but it doesn’t understand how an actual human brain would take that information and put it together in a way that makes sense. No one would swoon over those lines.

This is fine. Styles are different across all writers. Why are we trying to make AI replicate THAT when it would be a million times more useful to make it tell us when we’ve used a word that’s only technically in the dictionary because SO MANY PEOPLE mess it up?

I’d love to set my location to “Canada” and have it ACTUALLY tell me how things are spelled in Canada. We have this gross soup of British English, American English, and French Canadian spellings, and it’s ROUGH to navigate! Especially when my location is set to Canada, but my work needs to be submitted in American English, preferably only using words that are in circulation as of this century. Can I please set my location to “Portland, OR” and have it prompt me to correct spellings and remove all my extra Canadian letters?

So here we are. This is where I think AI should be utilized. Please help everyone like a strict teacher, instead of like that weird kid who you pay to do your homework and only get a C.

References

Posted on by seasonsshadow

Strategic People Watching and Stealing Everything That Isn’t Nailed Down

Okay maybe the title of this is a little dramatic, but I’m sure you’ve heard the joke that if you date a writer, you’re gonna end up in a book. Or that if you’re a Game Master for a tabletop RPG, you steal everything that isn’t nailed down. When I first heard this, I was in grade school and thought to myself: “The author isn’t doing a very good job if the person can recognize themselves as a character in someone’s book…”

Ah, young self. You missed the point completely.

If I had been an artist, I would have been one of those horrible people who thought copying/tracing as an exercise or as practice is against the law or something.

So let’s talk a little bit about people watching and stealing things. Ideas. Concepts. Characters.

Are you looking at your screen in disgust? Hear me out. How many of the most popular books right now are retellings of fairytales? How many websites out there host fanfiction from well-known series such as Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, etc? How many times are there “waves” of books of one central trope that become really popular? How many authors see these tropes and it inspires them to write their own take on something?

Hopefully you’re still reading after that explanation.

Characters and stories are MEANT to be inspiring. They’re meant to stick in your imagination, make you think about their wider world, long to know them, long to explore different scenarios with the same base framework.

So where does watching people strategically fit into this?

As part of creating a character, you should know their likes and dislikes. As part of that, you should know where they like to hang out. If that is a real place, and a safe place, go there! Don’t just assume you know what kind of atmosphere a place has or what kind of people hang out there from TV and other books.

Is your character a gym buff? Join a gym. Hang out on the bikes or walk on a treadmill. Put in your headphones but don’t turn on any music. What do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear? What do you notice?

Is your character a regular at a bar? Find one that’s similar to the one you’d see your character at (if it’s safe to do so) and order yourself a drink and sit at a booth with a notepad! Copy down snippets of conversations. Sketch the lighting. Review the menu. Freak the staff out! But not in a creepy way, in a you-might-be-a-food/bar/beer-critic kind of way.

Does your character go to the park to think things out? Go to the park (if it’s safe to do so) and find a place you can imagine them sitting. Are there a bunch of bugs there? Does it smell like pine? Are there dogs barking? Would that annoy your character?

These little observations make the reader feel. Feel like these are places they have been to or could go to. Like your characters and story exist within a realm of near-possibility.

So strategically people watch. Steal everything that isn’t nailed down.

It’s an age-old tactic! How many legends and stories do you know that are similar to one another, with one or two details changed? Things such as names, local landmarks, or the result of such a story?

I mean, Joseph Campbell didn’t make all that money explaining a Monomyth for nothing!

So, I’d love to know… what are some of your favourite retellings of fairytales or other legends?

Posted on by seasonsshadow

The Only Book I Ever DNF’d

Always curious to me is why people choose to not finish a book. I know people who give a book three chapters, and if they’re not hooked by then, they put it down and walk away. I know others that if they get bored at any point in reading it, then they put it down and walk away. Yet more that can only handle so much poor sentence structure before putting their book down. Some people can’t handle bad or unrealistic dialogue. I am proud to say that there’s only one book that I ever flat out did not finish.

But recently, I was SO CLOSE to adding a second title to that list.

The Ghost Woods by C. J. Cooke has a lot of things I really like. A beautiful cover, sapphic elements, a gothic setting, the suggestion of creatures not of this world, and quirky and unsettling characters. I was hooked early on its concept and how it presented the unsettling conflict, building it in slow spirals that had me trying to guess the twist.

And then I got to the middle third of this book.

The story’s premise is deeply intertwined with pregnancy and childbirth, but I guess I wasn’t expecting such a pocket of uncomfortably emotional motherhood. The creepy elements of the ghost woods, the mysteries of the house, and the crumbling sanity of the characters were all put to such an absolute halt that the dreaded words floated into my head…

“Wow. This book really isn’t for me.”

Emphasis on that is on “FOR” and not “ISN’T”.

It wasn’t like the writing suddenly took a nosedive, the whole thing was very well written. It’s just that I’ve never been a mother, I’ve never given birth, and I’ve never experienced any kind of “if you love them then let them go” morality crisis. The emotional hellscape the characters were fighting through had very little impact on me.

As I was talking myself into adding it to my donation box, I decided to give it a few more chapters. There was still a third of the book left, and we couldn’t possibly have set up all these weird and twisted, gothic and supernatural elements to just leave them there. Right?

RIGHT.

I am SO GLAD I kept on reading! After that middle lull, all the elements that had piqued my interest in the first place came back in full force and spiralled around the characters to tear them down in gruesome and wonderful ways.

Did you like the mini-series “Haunting of Hill House”? Then you’ll like this. Promise. Just push through that middle bit (or be crushed on an additional emotional level if you are a mother and/or can relate to the set-it-free morality problem stated above) and you won’t be sorry!

Now that you’ve read my review, are you curious about the only book I have closed and intentionally put away forever?

The Time Traveller’s Wife.

Fuck you Audrey Niffenegger.

I resent being set up with a beautiful story and an incredibly interesting plot device, only to be promised heartache. I DNF’d it like 10 years ago and I’m still salty about it.

“What about Nicholas Sparks?” you may ask me. I’ll allow it. I’ll even answer you. His books get you invested in the people only for real life to happen all over them and you. I live in real life. I’m familiar with the bullshit it can dish out to people who are otherwise just minding their own business and staying in their lane.

But a soft and cute fantasy where the premise is interesting and begging to be explored? Just to have some bullshit happen all over them because of my least favourite plot device: the misunderstanding? No. Go home.

Which leads me to wonder, what are some books other people have viciously DNF’d and why?