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Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models

1667.ai

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Re: Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models

#21
post #14

Makes me curious. What context is sent? Whole story, including later chapters? Just up to that paragraph? Planning and character description documents? Any way to control all of that?

Whole story up to the context limit. Then it starts dropping stuff. But I didn't want auto dropping or auto summaries like what other tools do.

I like to be strategic summarize the correct places when the context gets full.

There is a request inspector that shows everything that is sent.

I'm experimenting with prompt ordering strategies as well. this is surprisingly complext when you take into account the different model providers.

For example local models usually do a different form of prompt caching than for example openai and anthropic

Re: Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models

#23
post #5

Why would you want to write fiction with language models? Serious question. What you would become, in effect, is the fictional Soviet 'writer' from Sam Kriss' 2011 short story 'The Machine'. https://samkriss.com/2011/10/01/the-machine/ I do not think there is anything to aspire to in that.

My friend was absolutely obsessed with writing character backgrounds and world setting stories using ChatGPT for a while. It took almost a year for him to come up for air and realize all the stories were effectively the same, and the hooks/tricks/twists were all very generic.

it can be addictive to tell stories with friends or world-build, so why not a 'friend'?

Re: Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models

#24
post #5

Why would you want to write fiction with language models? Serious question. What you would become, in effect, is the fictional Soviet 'writer' from Sam Kriss' 2011 short story 'The Machine'. https://samkriss.com/2011/10/01/the-machine/ I do not think there is anything to aspire to in that.

World building, story boarding/ story arc building, etc are great uses for an LLM in fiction.

Re: Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models

#26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw your edit. Yeah I had that too. But I wanted something more ai driven because I'm not a trash writer. I want that lowtech holodeck feel where I tell the model to take the story and it writes a chapter for me. Plus wanted to keep branching trees of different versions

sorry i'm a writer who edits... this project is genuinely interesting and i'm curious to see where it goes. i would try to market it as ML instead of AI, given the current temperature of AI in publishing and writing circles. if somebody can improve upon track changes in a git-like, narrative-tree way, then that might be super useful tool!

Yeah I noticed that my god. I regret even posting it. I'm suddenly getting a lot of weird mail I'm not used to hate like that.

Re: Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models

#27
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw your edit. Yeah I had that too. But I wanted something more ai driven because I'm not a trash writer. I want that lowtech holodeck feel where I tell the model to take the story and it writes a chapter for me. Plus wanted to keep branching trees of different versions

sorry i'm a writer who edits... this project is genuinely interesting and i'm curious to see where it goes. i would try to market it as ML instead of AI, given the current temperature of AI in publishing and writing circles. if somebody can improve upon track changes in a git-like, narrative-tree way, then that might be super useful tool!

I think we're both looking for the same improvements and I haven't found them in a writing tool yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49331036

Re: Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models

#29
post #8

This is so depressing for me. The drip will be everywhere.

This is not a slop book producer. I mean it is but mostly for a niche of off grid weirdos like me. We are not writing for the public. It's like fanfic. On off grid forums and discords. I think if someone wanted to produce a slop book for amazon with 1667 there are easier tools for that.

Here's a question. Tangential I know. "Digression!"

If you had a kid, let's say 6 years old, and they had a "super hero" they wrote stories about.

What would it mean, if you took away their creative process and replaced it with this.

Does that child have a lesser "life-experience?" Or not?

What about you?

Re: Show HN: 1667, a terminal UI for writing fiction with language models

#30
post #19
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a form of low tech holodeck. You write the stories you want to read. I love these vintage pulp detective novels but no one writes them anymore so I write them myself for myself, and a few of my fellow weirdos on weird discords.

I suppose I am sympathetic to the feeling of having weird tastes uncatered to by the market. But in that instance, why not actually try and write such stories yourself? And as a reader, what is the appeal of reading stories regurgitated by a stochastic algorithm when the possibility is there instead of connecting to another human soul?

Oh I do. They are just utter garbage but that's beside the point.

This caters to a different lets say need.

Like I said in another post it's more like low tech holodeck or maybe create your own adventure. Where the story evolves based on simple directives

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