Are Writers Stepping Away From Reality?
Our writing is realistic - What about the illustrations?
Story writers create fiction, which by definition is made up, a creative work the content of which is imaginary and not based on fact or, to extend that definition, a lie that you pretend is true.
In Make It Believable I suggested that fictional characters need some motivation to act the way that they do. The reader needs believe that a character is rooted in reality - that they would have some reason for the actions we as writers make them do.
Our writing is realistic - What about the illustrations?
The internet is primarily a visual medium. All of our stories need a ‘cover photo’, and preferably one that catches potential readers’ attention. It can be difficult to find a copyright released usable image that reflects our characters and encapsulates the theme of a story, especially in the genres of science fiction and fantasy.
For many years publishers have used talented artists, some of whom use computer generated images, to produce illustrations and covers but creativity skill costs money. Now we have AI. We can just type in what we want and the perfect image appears.
That attempt at perfection is the problem, especially where our story features attractive, sexy women or handsome men. AI scans millions of images and selects the perfect nose, the most attractive eyes; want bigger boobs or more muscles, simply change the prompt and the program creates the perfect human being.
Are Writers Creating A Perfect World?
The immediate answer is not yet. The problems I have with AI generated images (and text) are quality and reality. The quality of many AI images is still awful. Many photographers may not use great lighting, compose their pictures perfectly or even get the exposure correct but at least their figures only have two arms, two legs and a human like face.
But AI is learning. I have seen some images that I am not sure whether they are of real people or not. One of AI’s strengths is in modifying existing photographs - want a character to have a different hair colour, even a different sex then AI can produce a realistic version.
The second problem is reality. I like the characters in my stories to be grounded in reality. I hope that the reader relates to them as if they were real people, even if the situations I get them into might never happen in most people’s lives.
The problem with AI generated images is that, when it does manage to produce an image of a human with the requisite number of arms and legs, they are too attractive or at least too what the AI program considers to be attractive. Photographers and website publishers are probably to blame for this as big breasted, flat stomached, long legged women with cute butts are touted on many websites as society’s ideal woman along with handsome, muscular men with a six pack. AI is learning stereotypes.
The settings I place my characters in may also be realistic but can also be a complete fantasy world. As long as the characters I create continue to react to this alien setting with human emotions the reader will happily become complicit in the deception. They will believe the character is there. This is where AI becomes useful. It can be used to create an imaginary background for the image of a real person.
As AI learns the images it produces will become more realistic. Will writers become complicit in us reaching a point where every story is illustrated by the perfect man, woman or couple?
Postscript
There is a lot of talk on platforms such as Medium about not using AI to create articles or stories (AI generated stories are no longer eligible to be paywalled) yet many writers happily use AI generated images to illustrate their stories (this now needs to be declared in the caption on Medium).
As someone who has spent many years working in the photography industry, I see no reason why photographers should not use AI to generate articles about their photographs if writers apply the same standards to the images they use. Some of these articles may be as naff as the equivalent AI generated images, but writers have no cause for complaint.
Neither of those statements means that I want to ban AI from the literary or visual creation process completely. It can be a useful tool in both.
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None of my sexy posts are fiction. None of the images are AI. They're nude me and true stories.