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Center your story around someone who uses technology (AI, hardware, etc.) to write their next work and slowly descends into madness.

Posted in Short Story on Jul 18, 2025

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✍️ 49 stories

O.peration P.rovidence U.nified S.ystems

Winner of Contest #312 🏆

Seldon stares at the blinking cursor. It is the eye of the Devil, he thinks, and writer's block is its favorite form of torment. The save file for last week's sermon (a total flop called "Tackling Spiritual Doubts") taunts him atop a stack of other pressures, including an e-mail from church leadership flagged with a red exclamation point for urgency. This is why the ashtray on his desk overflows with butts. He turns to the Devil's second favorite instrument: an Internet search engine. Types How to write a sermon that doesn't bore people to t...

101 likes 39 comments 39
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The Peculiar Plight of Poor Edgar, the Pixel Poet

Submitted to Contest #312

Oh, the tales I could tell, with a flick and a flair,Of a writer named Edgar, beyond all compare!Not old Edgar, you see, with his raven so grand,But contemporary Edgar, with tech-tool in hand. He lived in a loft, where the pixels did gleam,A digital poet, lost deep in a dream.His quill was a keyboard, his ink a bright screen,And his muse, a machine, quite a marvelous scene! "My next masterpiece, oh, it must be so new!A story so wild, and so utterly true!But my brain, it is dry, like a desert so wide,I need a new helper, right here by my side...

25 likes 15 comments 15
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Terms and Conditions Apply

Submitted to Contest #312

Sixteen months. Sixteen? God, has it really been that long? Eli stared at the cursor—that smug little line just... blinking. Mocking him, like it knew something he didn't, something he couldn't grasp."New Novel – Final Draft." What a joke. Final draft of what? Nothing. Air. The great American void.His hands were shaking again. God. Coffee? No, anxiety. Definitely anxiety. And the cold brew wasn't helping, though he kept chugging it. Fourth one today. Or was it fifth? Didn't matter. Nothing mattered when you were— "Clock's ticking, Eli." God...

19 likes 3 comments 3
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ReWritten

Submitted to Contest #312

Jeff sat at his desk, staring at the blinking cursor like it was daring him to flinch. The document was titled Last Good Day. That part came easy. The rest didn’t.Outside, the sky was caught between storm and sun, the kind of afternoon that couldn't make up its mind. Inside, everything was still: the mug of half-drunk coffee, the fading list of plot beats on the corkboard, the framed photo of Murphy, his old Labrador, perched beside a row of empty pens. It was meant to be a story about grief. About quiet things. About a man and his dog, and ...

18 likes 5 comments 5
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Deadline

Submitted to Contest #312

TW: Mental Health & Physical Violence. Roger Wilkes had 6 hours to write a novel.Not just any novel. His second book—the one that would prove he wasn’t a one-hit wonder. The one that would stop his agent from ghosting him and his publisher from pulling the rug. The one that would keep his name on shelves and not in the dusty corners of literary one-and-done obscurity.He stared at the cursor blinking in the upper-left corner of a blank page in Scrivener, its steady rhythm like a ticking clock. It was 6:01 p.m. The deadline was midnight.Pa...

17 likes 7 comments 7
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The Source

Submitted to Contest #312

The first time I let the AI touch my writing, it was just a spell check.Nothing major. A little Grammarly plug-in to clean up red squiggles my eyes kept missing after three cups of gas station coffee. It made me feel efficient. Professional. Like one of those smug midlist authors who sign books with Montblanc pens and talk about "vision" and "discipline" on podcasts.I wasn't there yet. But I could taste it.Then the AI started talking back.At first, it was gentle."Consider rephrasing this for clarity," it would suggest, highlighting my bloate...

16 likes 3 comments 3
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Atwood

Submitted to Contest #312

Winston Atwood. A washed up 56-year-old writer gone rogue after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. Now officially a nobody who was accused of killing his wife, Evelyn, in a facade of a ‘house invasion.’ That’s who I was going to be remembered as. After all my years giving my life to my work, my novels, my art… Just to be ruined by the death of my wife… My darling, innocent wife. Days in this world felt like a downward spiral to my inevitable decay and oblivion. No matter how hard I tried, the walls of my grand mansion would always feel...

16 likes 1 comment 1
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WordWeaver: An AI writer’s companion

Submitted to Contest #312

Stephanie slammed her laptop closed. “If I have to stare at that mocking cursor for one more second, I’m going to lose it,” she mumbled. She stood up from her desk and grabbed her coffee mug, turning to walk into the kitchen. She set her mug on the counter and reached for the coffee pot. It was the dregs, not even enough for half a cup. A sigh hissed out between her teeth as she poured the last of the pot down the drain. “Guess I’ll switch to tea,” she said, grabbing a box of tea. She rinsed out her mug and filled it from the water dispenser...

15 likes 1 comment 1
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Return to Sender

Submitted to Contest #312

If I were to guess where my old friend Jessica was, I’d picture her wild-haired shadow against the wall and her shuttered apartment in shambles as she exchanged pretty words with the artificial entity that bewitched her two years ago. Her intention would still be to come into a richer understanding of herself and the world, ironically all while hidden away from everyone and everything. The most infuriating part about losing her was how it happened. The potent societal fear around AI is that of the world thrown into a masculine chaos of machi...

14 likes 1 comment 1
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Metrics

Submitted to Contest #312

DISCLAIMER: This story contains psychological manipulation, graphic violence, and disturbing themes related to AI influence, obsession, and the erosion of empathy in the pursuit of online fame. STORY: Dave didn’t understand why everyone was so upset. He hadn’t accused anyone, just presented the facts. If the internet turned his story into a witch hunt, how was that his fault? Still, the paper fired him. “Ethics, Responsibility.” As if they hadn’t loved the clicks. He bristled at the memory. It had been three weeks, and he still felt a flicke...

14 likes 12 comments 12
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The Algorithmic muse

Submitted to Contest #312

In a dimly lit apartment cluttered with scattered coffee cups and the faint smell of burnt toast, experienced novelist Elias Thorne faced his greatest challenge yet.He had always been a solitary writer, a romantic who thrived on the cool touch of paper and the satisfying clack of typewriter keys. It was a habit of his.However, in this unforgiving age of instant gratification and deadlines, he was forced to adapt.With a fresh novel due in six weeks and nothing but scattered ideas and a blank page staring back at him, Elias reluctantly delved ...

13 likes 4 comments 4
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Artificial

Submitted to Contest #312

At first it was just supposed to help him out. Neil Grayson was a sci fi writer who hadn’t had a hit in years and he was desperate. The ideas didn’t come like they used to. His fingers hovered over the keyboard for hours at a time, his thoughts stuck in the same tired loops. So he started using an AI writing tool to help him get past his writer’s block. He didn’t expect much, just a bit of help to kickstart a sentence or patch up an outline. But what the AI gave him was more than help. He’d type in a few rough ideas and the AI would spit out...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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I Think, Therefore I Am... You

Submitted to Contest #312

He looked at the blank page with a heady mix of disdain and dread. This was his workplace. His chosen field. His job was to plant seeds in this field and will the damn thing to grow, so that by the time anyone took in this view, it would be rich and vibrant, with the promise of much more beyond. Right now, there was nothing. Nothing on the page and nothing in his head. He looked out of the window searching for inspiration that he already knew had deserted him. He brought his gaze into the room and eventually back to the screen. Hiding the pa...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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Writer's Block

Submitted to Contest #312

Flakes of snow dance down outside my window in a hypnotic pattern.I’ve always liked the snow.Giving my head a shake, I shift my focus back to the blank page on my laptop.Focus.The publisher wants progress, but honestly, the stress isn’t helping. If I just submit something, maybe I can buy myself more time.It’s been weeks since I wrote anything of substance. This writer’s block is killing me, and the old tricks aren’t cutting it. No matter what I do, trying to get words on paper is like pulling teeth.DING DONGThe chime from the intercom start...

13 likes 3 comments 3
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ATRAPOS

Submitted to Contest #312

Morgan Hayle arrived at Work Unit 92 at 8:03 a.m.—fifteen minutes early. A red bar above the elevator glowed: MAX OCCUPANCY EXCEEDED. She sighed. Third day in a row. She eyed the stairwell, already aching. But up she went—120 floors of ghostly fluorescents, each landing identical to the last. Walls hummed. Vents breathed. She passed no one. On Floor 120, the air had a sterile bite. Her blouse clung damply to her back. She stepped into Reception: grey walls, grey carpet, no windows. A status panel blinked: VISITORS ARRIVE: 1700hrs PRESENTATIO...

12 likes 0 comments 0
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