Real World Writing--Literally

REAL WORLD WRITING—LITERALLY

It had not taken Kyle very long to figure out how to use the AI writing programs. In fact, he found them pretty easy to use.  Even he should be able to get it to work.

No wonder everyone at school is using it, he thought to himself. It makes it a lot easier than having to do the work yourself. He snorted at his own wittiness.

So, he decided to give it a try. After exploring a number of programs—Chat GPT, Squibler, Oscar Ghostwriting, Studiowrite, and Grammerly, Kyle decided to give a new program a go—Real World Writing, or RWW. It had a swak of positive reviews—4.9 stars from over fifty thousand reviews. The reviewers praised it’s ease of use, simple prompts, and it’s robust data base. Dialogue was praised as realistic and believable. It also had voice prompts, so Kyle didn’t even have to type anything. And it was free.  Bonus!

Kyle was so in. He had a creative writing assignment due tomorrow that was worth a major portion of his final grade, and he hadn’t even started writing yet.  He was a busy guy—there were games to go to (Go Team), parties to attend, pubs to explore, girls to impress.  

Plus, he had to admit that he had made a mistake taking the class. It was not the bird class he’d expected.

He’d wanted something easy, and he figured that creative writing fit that envelope perfectly. How hard could it be? Make shit up and write it down. Easy-peasy, right? But it wasn’t. Apparently, he needed to know about character, plot, setting, theme, point-of-view, conflict, and tone. And there were other things to consider, like story arc, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. He was supposed to consider the protagonist, the antagonist, and all the secondary characters. It was too much to remember, let alone implement. And Kyle was struggling.

But not anymore, thanks to technology. Now he was going to let artificial intelligence do the heavy lifting for him. Besides, he had a party to go to tonight.

“Write a fictional story of between three and five thousand words about college life," he said to his computer. His words appeared on screen.

The topic was supposed to be school-based, “College life,” was pretty generic, so Kyle figured he’d nailed it. He pushed enter, and headed out to his party, leaving the RRW to do its magic.

The party was a disaster. In fact the entire night was a disaster.  Emily, the girl he was supposed to hook up with, ignored him. Then she got mad at him when she caught him looking at her. She’d come right up to him and slapped him across the face. Hard. He’d staggered back a couple of steps.

“What the hell was that for?” he’d demanded.

She’d looked at him, squinted her eyes, and said, “Because I felt like it!”

During a game of Drunken Jenga, the whole tower had collapsed on him before he could even take the first piece off the top. The very first piece! He didn’t even have a chance to take a shot. And when it collapsed, one of the pieces bounced up and whacked him in the forehead, leaving a bloody gash across his forehead.

When it was Kyle’s turn for a pull at the beer funnel, the hose split, drenching him—really drenching him—in beer. He was completely soaked.  When everyone finished laughing at him, they suddenly got really mad at him.

“Hey, Dude! You wasted all that beer! Not cool!”

“Asshole! The beer’s for drinking, not wearing!”

“You owe us for half a keg, Dipwad!”

At that point, the host told Kyle it was time for him to go home.

On the way back to the dorm, he was stopped by campus police. The cruiser stopped beside him, and the officer got out.

“Have you been drinking?” the officer asked.

Kyle looked around. He was the only one on the street.

“Me?” he said, pointing to himself.

“Yes, you,” said the officer, shining a flashlight in Kyle’s eyes.

“No,” said Kyle.

The officer arched his left eyebrow in disbelief. Then he leaned in and sniffed Kyle.

“You sure you want to stick with that story?”

Kyle started to explain about the exploding beer funnel, but the officer cut him off.

“I don’t care. I need you to walk in a straight line, heel toe, with your arms out to the side.”

Kyle looked at him. “Huh?”

The officer looked at him. “You heard me. Do it.”

So Kyle did the walk. Or tried to. His legs wouldn’t cooperate, and he kept falling and having to step out of the straight line.

“Uh huh,” said the cop.

“I’m not drunk,” said Kyle. Or he tried to. What came out was, “I’m-nod-runk.”

“Uh huh,” repeated the cop.

“Seriously!” said Kyle. Or rather, “Zereeuzly!”

The officer shone the light back on Kyle’s face. “What happened to your face?”

“Jenga.”

“Who’s Jenna?” asked the officer.

Kyle started to explain. Or tried to. The officer cut him off. “You’re not going to be sleeping in your own bed tonight, Buddy.” The officer grabbed his shoulder mic and clicked the switch, “Yeah, Base, this is three-two-seven. I have a customer for the drunk tank tonight. I’ll be transporting him ASAP.”

Kyle tried to protest, but it fell on deaf ears.  

The campus drunk tank was one big room where all the over-indulgers got to spend the night, and were sprung in the morning once they sobered up. By six a.m. Kyle was on the way home, after a sleepless night of listening to his cell mates puke, fart, and rant drunkenly.

When he got back to his room, he had a look at himself in the mirror. There was a bruise on his cheek from where Emily had hit him. There was dried blood around the cut on his forehead from the rouge Jenga block. His hair was crusty and he smelled like a rubby. He was a mess. No wonder the cop had taken him in to the drunk tank.

He looked his watch. He had just enough time to shower, and grab some breakfast, and submit his story before his eight o’clock creative writing class. Half an hour later Kyle was ready to go. He grabbed his computer, and headed out. 

While sitting in the cafeteria eating breakfast and trolling social media, Kyle was joined by a stranger, a man.  

“How was your evening, Kyle?” he asked.

“Huh?” said Kyle.

“Your evening. How was it?”

“Uh, do I know you?”

The man smiled. “No. But you will.”

“Look, I don’t how who you think I am, but—”

The man continued to smile at Kyle. “You’re Kyle Perkins.”

“How do you know th—”

The man nodded towards Kyle’s computer on the cafeteria table. “Did you read the story you generated using RWW last night?”

Kyle was stunned. Using AI for the creative writing course was an automatic zero. How’d this guy know?

“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about,” stammered Kyle.

“Have a look at your story, Kyle.”

“I really don’t have time to do that,” sad Kyle, feeling a little unease. The guy was giving hime the newbie-jeebies.  “I’ve, uh, got to get to class.”

The man continued to smile, but there was no warmth in it. “I think you should take the time, Kyle. It’s in your best interest.”

Kyle was feeling unnerved. While the man did nothing overtly menacing, he was scaring the crap out of Kyle. He opened the Real World Writing app and started reading his story. After five minutes, he stopped and looked at the man.

“How?” was all he could say. The story recounted, verbatim, Kyle’s horrible night. But it had been written before Kyle had gone to the party.

“Keep reading,” said the man.

Kyle did what he was told. As the story continued, more horrible things happened to Kyle, each worst than the previous. 

When Kyle finished, he just looking between the story and the man. Finally he spoke.

“How?”

“Artificial Intelligence is a very strong tool, Kyle. It has a lot of potential.”

“Why?

“Because you agreed to the terms of agreement for RWW. You checked the box. Which means that I own you.”

“What do you want?”

The man smiled. Kyle was sure his eyes flashed red.. “Nothing really,” he said. “Just your soul.”