I think you do a disservice to craftsmen. People who craft, whether it be building a chair, hand sewing a quilt or fashioning exquisite jewelry, might still have a transcendent experience as they work. Craftsmanship is not just about following a formula or creating something utilitarian; it can be just as magical as what you describe as “writing as magic.”
You wrote " The craftsmen writers view the special dead as idols to study, emulate, and worship, but it is blasphemy to attempt to try out our own hand as peers."
Who says it is blasphemy? Scholars and critics? Or everyday readers? For whom do you write? Yourself, readers, critics, awards.
The school of craft in writing has come about by studying myth, religious texts, preliterate story, and what human beings hunger for in stories. I have studied craft because above all else, I want to be read. I want to write stories that will transport people into the world I create. Craft helps me reach them, but the magic comes in the emotional connection.
As I see it, every book is a shared experience between writer and reader. I write the book, but the reader will bring to it all his or her lifetime of experience, and so each reader has a different experience with the book. That is magic. Thus not every book is for every reader. The passage you shared from Hunger, for example, didn’t resonate with me in the same way it did with you. I see that as part of the reader’s unique interaction with the text, where their own experiences come into play.
When photography was first invented, the fine art painters feared it and claimed that photography could never be considered art because all the human had to do was push the button. After a few years, it became clear that choosing what was in the frame, choosing the settings, and working in the darkroom were all human endeavors that were a part of photography and were the creativity that determined the end work. A camera was simply a tool, and the human magic determined the quality of the craft/art work.
AI writing is not some good fire that is going to cleanse the work of the stodgy craftsmen writers and bring back the artful magic. AI is simply another tool in the writer/craftsman’s toolbox. In the end, it’s not about rejecting craft for magic or vice versa. It’s about embracing both, knowing that craft can elevate magic, and magic can give craft its soul.
I appreciate the thoughts and yours are essentially the rebuttal I anticipated! Obviously everyone is going to have their own take on this topic and I'm just offering the good fire theory as something to think about.
The main point is that writing based on strict structures and systems, the craft, will be simple for AI to learn and replicate. The idea that I propose is that there are probably infinite ways to write and approach the art-form that AI will be unable to comprehend.
Of course there are positive aspects to the modern craftsman way, but if that's all we do, I think AI will learn what we're about pretty easily. We're also poorer for it if this outlook is too dominant, which is my experience. I think of wild, one-of-a-kind authors like Tom Robbins who sounds so cool and irreplaceable because I bet his entire outlook is different.
The first time a book made me cry was Bambi when I was 10. There is a scene where the last two leaves of fall speak to one another, dying slowing and professing their love for one another before death, drifting to the forest floor. It's only a few pages and makes no logical sense in the narrative flow. There is no craftsmanship here! It's inspired, spontaneous. Writing as celebration and lament.
So yes, I'm lightly challenging the "writing as a craft" line, which is uttered at every literary event I've been to like a religious mantra. We should be open to approach writing NOT as a craft and see what happens every once in a while. Go places AI cannot.
To your point, I do think modern writing I've picked up is in a rut. Everyone has learned to fight in the same dojo, as it were. I also think, to your point, photography is also in a rut. Many of the arts are in a similar rut. I'm absolutely starved for some brave souls to bring newness to the human experience. "We" have been extremely hubristic over the last 50-100 years, presuming to have all our nice little models and systems dialed in just so. It's time for artists, as they always do, to ascend these presumptions and expand our collective minds.
Again, just some thoughts for the internet. Much respect and be well.
Why do you separate art and craft?
I think you do a disservice to craftsmen. People who craft, whether it be building a chair, hand sewing a quilt or fashioning exquisite jewelry, might still have a transcendent experience as they work. Craftsmanship is not just about following a formula or creating something utilitarian; it can be just as magical as what you describe as “writing as magic.”
You wrote " The craftsmen writers view the special dead as idols to study, emulate, and worship, but it is blasphemy to attempt to try out our own hand as peers."
Who says it is blasphemy? Scholars and critics? Or everyday readers? For whom do you write? Yourself, readers, critics, awards.
The school of craft in writing has come about by studying myth, religious texts, preliterate story, and what human beings hunger for in stories. I have studied craft because above all else, I want to be read. I want to write stories that will transport people into the world I create. Craft helps me reach them, but the magic comes in the emotional connection.
As I see it, every book is a shared experience between writer and reader. I write the book, but the reader will bring to it all his or her lifetime of experience, and so each reader has a different experience with the book. That is magic. Thus not every book is for every reader. The passage you shared from Hunger, for example, didn’t resonate with me in the same way it did with you. I see that as part of the reader’s unique interaction with the text, where their own experiences come into play.
When photography was first invented, the fine art painters feared it and claimed that photography could never be considered art because all the human had to do was push the button. After a few years, it became clear that choosing what was in the frame, choosing the settings, and working in the darkroom were all human endeavors that were a part of photography and were the creativity that determined the end work. A camera was simply a tool, and the human magic determined the quality of the craft/art work.
AI writing is not some good fire that is going to cleanse the work of the stodgy craftsmen writers and bring back the artful magic. AI is simply another tool in the writer/craftsman’s toolbox. In the end, it’s not about rejecting craft for magic or vice versa. It’s about embracing both, knowing that craft can elevate magic, and magic can give craft its soul.
I appreciate the thoughts and yours are essentially the rebuttal I anticipated! Obviously everyone is going to have their own take on this topic and I'm just offering the good fire theory as something to think about.
The main point is that writing based on strict structures and systems, the craft, will be simple for AI to learn and replicate. The idea that I propose is that there are probably infinite ways to write and approach the art-form that AI will be unable to comprehend.
Of course there are positive aspects to the modern craftsman way, but if that's all we do, I think AI will learn what we're about pretty easily. We're also poorer for it if this outlook is too dominant, which is my experience. I think of wild, one-of-a-kind authors like Tom Robbins who sounds so cool and irreplaceable because I bet his entire outlook is different.
The first time a book made me cry was Bambi when I was 10. There is a scene where the last two leaves of fall speak to one another, dying slowing and professing their love for one another before death, drifting to the forest floor. It's only a few pages and makes no logical sense in the narrative flow. There is no craftsmanship here! It's inspired, spontaneous. Writing as celebration and lament.
So yes, I'm lightly challenging the "writing as a craft" line, which is uttered at every literary event I've been to like a religious mantra. We should be open to approach writing NOT as a craft and see what happens every once in a while. Go places AI cannot.
To your point, I do think modern writing I've picked up is in a rut. Everyone has learned to fight in the same dojo, as it were. I also think, to your point, photography is also in a rut. Many of the arts are in a similar rut. I'm absolutely starved for some brave souls to bring newness to the human experience. "We" have been extremely hubristic over the last 50-100 years, presuming to have all our nice little models and systems dialed in just so. It's time for artists, as they always do, to ascend these presumptions and expand our collective minds.
Again, just some thoughts for the internet. Much respect and be well.