AI Information

Tantalizing Tales Wants the Human Touch

Going forward, we will be saying NO to possible AI submissions

Tantalizing Tales is a place for intriguing well written fiction, no matter what genre. Come dance with us!

Right from the start, Posy and I decided that a bar would be set. We wanted people to send their best stories. This did not always mean the author needed to be an experienced writer, as we value storytelling highly and have always made a point of helping new people if we feel they have a story which needs to be told. However, not everyone does, so we occasionally turn stories away if they do not meet our brand or make the grade.

Now we find we have another challenge to face in our desire to publish the best fiction…

Artificial intelligence.

Previously in the guidelines I had explained we may consider accepting stories if they were only partially written by AI, and if the writer declared they had used AI help. However, over the last few months I have randomly checked submissions and am not convinced that all are totally human written, although no declarations have been made.

This has led the Tantalizing team to make a decision — we do not want to publish AI assisted stories if we can possibly avoid it.

AI Checkers

Both Marsha and I have tested ChatGPT story telling abilities and also sites which test for possible AI input. We came up with two AI story checkers which seem pretty accurate. These programs give a percentage of how much of a tale in their opinion is probably written by AI.

You can check out Marsha’s interesting experiments here:

When I was testing the checkers, I did these things:

• First, I asked ChatGPT to write me a few stories.
• Then I put them through several online checkers and noted the percentage. (Achieving between 82 and 90% probability they were AI, although of course I knew the stories were 100% AI).
• Next, I tested a bunch of stories written a year or more ago, by the editors and a few other writers, which definitely had zero AI input. (These came out between 0 and 21% AI probability.)

This led me to choose two AI text checkers to work with, and they happened to be the same two Marsha had pinpointed.

With the statistics leading the way, we decided on a very generous leeway for our writers. Every story will be checked and…

We will only contact you if the probability your tale was written by AI is 40% or over.

This may seem a high amount but please realise the number is only telling us a possible percentage of story generated by AI/GPT. We felt it was necessary to go up to this amount, as we have seen a few stories we know are not generated by AI, coming out as possibly 20% AI written.

Why would an AI Checker give incorrect results?

Looking closely at the non-AI stories which came out with a higher percentage on the checker, we realised in the main they weren't particularly well written/edited. Or simply lacked a unique writer voice.

It’s important to bear in mind there are several things that AI often does when writing fiction, which people may view as bad writing. And other things that AI can’t do well — but humans can and should do…

Let’s take a look at them.

AI repeats

I’m not zealously opposed to repeating words or phrases through a story. That can be useful to establish mood or theme or other concepts I vaguely understand. But I am opposed to recycling similes. Marsha Adams

AI-generated writing can sometimes be repetitive. This probably is a result of the algorithms they use. There is no excuse for it in human writing, unless it is intentional.

Similar sentence structure and length

Humans intentionally use differing sentence length and structure to create rhythm, build tension or urgency, and generally reflect the tone and mood of their narrative. AI lacks this ability, and most of their stories are almost uniform to look at.

Emotion

AI mostly lacks the depth of emotion and basic human understanding that people can provide with their unique perspectives and experiences.

The AI ‘knows’ a lot of what is written by humans, but very little about what humans do, how they think, and what they are. Marsha Adams

History

AI-generated stories lack the cultural and historical context real people often bring to their work.

“There’s nothing in the story (apart from names) that sets it in a particular place or time,” Marsha Adams

Dialogue

Humans beat AI hands down with the depth of emotion and cultural differences they can add to a story via dialogue. Not to mention the non-verbal cues and gestures. AI dialogue tends to be one dimensional in comparison.

Show DON’T Tell

“Show, don’t tell” is a literary technique where authors use actions, and sensory information to convey emotions, events, and traits — rather than simply stating them directly. (Of course, there will be times when you simply want the tale to move forward, on those occasions of course just tell.)

Here are some — Show Don’t Tell — examples:

• “People keep telling me it was an accident, one of these statistically improbable quantum effects. There was nothing I could do.” In this quote from Grandma Smillew’s story — Try Again — the narrative shows by indirectly conveying the character’s emotional turmoil, feelings of guilt, and a sense of wondering if they could have changed what happened. So much better than, “I felt guilty and confused.”
• “I leaped off the bed and sprinted to the window. The dogs only barked like excited puppies for one person.” From Dilana Rose in her microfiction story Handcuffs. The actions lead the reader to infer the character is reacting to someone’s arrival at the house, rather than being told directly this is the case.
• “Reaching out, I touch his arm. But he responds by buttoning his jacket up to the neck, before kneeling to insert a new bouquet into the vase.” In my story Lilies for Lilly the narrator is a ghost — this is not revealed until the end, but you get a sense of this twist by the man buttoning his jacket when the ghost touches him. It is a common thought that spirits create cold spots. Once more, the point is shown, not explained.
• “Roberto rubbed at his close-cropped hair and sank back against the smithy wall, not trusting his legs to hold him.” Jacinta Palmer shows us Roberto is shocked and upset when finding out the fate of his friends in her story, The Princess’ Favour Puts the Blacksmith on the Back Foot.

AI can use this technique, but not well or fluently. Remember, a story has so much more depth when the writer uses such tools to draw in and involve the reader. If you also want your writing to stand out from AI, then pepper with a few — Show DON’T Tell moments, along the way.

Remember, don’t tell the reader how it felt — show them!

If you are still unsure then check out this article by Marie A. Rebelle one of the magazine editors.

Concluding

It is the depth of creativity and nuance found in human stories that we want to encourage at Tantalizing Tales. We want shades, not black and white. We like you to give the reader credit for being able to see between the lines and to become invested in the characters you have created. All of this, AI can not YET do as well as humans.

Let’s get running before we are over taken.

Note: If you use the above writing tips in your stories, then your work will not only improve, but should not get caught up in the AI checkers we use. If we do find a tale is seen as over 40% AI, we will send it back to you for a rework.

Say no to AI and help make Tantalizing Tales a place for excellent fiction. This will be better for you, the reader, and the publication as a whole.

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