This website was birthed by a series written to help explore the use of large language models (LLMs). If you want to build your own library of unwritten books, tweaking how the books are made, you should check out this blog post.
You are a reader-AUTHOR!
Like most things in life, what you get out of your unwritten book depends on what you put in. If you respond passively, providing short replies or taking only the road presented, your journey will stay safe and predictable. I for one find this unsatisfying. It may also lead you to believe the Library's stories aren't that good. To which I would respond, "You are a reader-author, act like it!" Only by embracing your role as an author will the stories be anything more than average. That's because the machine-generated text is a string of the next most-plausible words. How does it decide what's "most plausible?" Well, it actually kind of averages all the texts in its training data. By default, these stories are average. They also tend to lack strong plotting. Mostly, it's one thing after another, each scene shaped by what came before and genre conventions. Consequently, some stories are better suited for this venue than others. Expect third act problems unless you step up to the challenge. Given the Library's constraints, I've found the following two mindsets to work best when read-writing, those of goal seekers and zeitgeist explorers. Both recognize the need to actively push at the boundaries of the world in which they find themselves.
- Goal seekers ground themselves in-world and inhabit their characters. They exemplify the notion that one is the author of their own fate. The Library, however, doesn't always give you what you want. So, the goal seeker has to figure out how to maximize the chance of things going their way. To do this you have to understand how the Library works. The LLM generating the text evaluates how likely you are to succeed in the world of your story (e.g., is this realistic fiction or fantasy). Based on this assessment it assigns a "difficulty" to the task and rolls a virtual dice behind the scenes. If the roll is high enough you succeed, too low you fail. The LLM shares the result in prose, moves the story forward a beat, and asks for you to take the wheel. So you have to make sure what you want to do makes sense in-world. Attacking a dragon without planning or establishing your bona fides is likely to go poorly.
- Zeitgeist explorers recognize that they are writing a story in collaboration with all of the authors who came before. Knowing a genre's conventions, they work to subvert or test them. They might ask, "What's expected here, and can I do something different?"
Whatever your approach, you should consider the omniscient narrator's point of view. You are an author after all. You can introduce characters, settings, and goals. When asked, "What do you want to do?" you can name people and places that have yet to come up. For example, you could say that you want to, "return to your headquarters and pull together your team, including Alex, Chris, and Jess," or "set out for Mount Doom on a quest to save the kidnapped prince." You can also query your surroundings or memories (e.g., "look around for anything I could use to escape," or "recall what I know about X"). Players of tabletop role-playing games will find this back and forth familiar. It also bares a resemblance to another collaborative storytelling tradition—improv comedy.
You may also find that you want to rewite something or "turn back time." No problem. Simply refresh/reload your page (your progress will be saved), and click "Edit current story." Edit the text of your story and click, "Back to library." Then click, "Pick up where you left off." Alternatively, if you want to work with multiple stories, you could "Download current story." This will save a text file to your device. You can edit this file, upload it, and continue where you left off. To do this, simply "Upload story in progress," then "Pick up where you left off."
Be warned, you are exploring the ideas contained in the work of past writers. You might not like what you find. Then again, you may discover something beautiful. After all, we and our artifacts contain multitudes. To get a sense for the difference our mindset makes, let's explore two variations on the world of Alice in Wonderland, one where we are passive, and one where we take a more active authorship role.
Now for a more active approach.
Questions or comments? I'm on Mastodon @Colarusso@mastodon.social