The Storyteller's Dilemma

 

Storytelling has been vital to human evolution ever since we crawled out of the mud. We are at the Dawn of Artificial Intelligence being integrated into all of our lives, and storytellers are being confronted with a choice. Adapt your process to this new world or not.

Some will not adapt & will continue on as if they are still living in the glow of the 20th century. And that's 100% okay. Creating stories is a personal journey that can be completed entirely with a pen and paper, coffee, and some free time to write.

The choice is a personal one. Storytellers don't need AI to help them create their tales. I never needed AI to help me write books or screenplays. But then I've always wanted to create more than just the written word.

Like many a storyteller, I have worlds within me that I long to share with people. While writing a book isn't easy, once it's published you're done. That's satisfying, but not if you've always wanted a story to contain images or play on a big screen. For that, I needed a lot of help.

Until last Spring, I was accepting that getting one of my mind-bending, epic stories made into a graphic novel or a movie on the big screen or any screen would be a major challenge with lots of obstacles. Then AI exploded and my view of storytelling changed forever.

Not only can you now speed up the writing process with AI acting as an assistant, but you can tell your stories in many more ways. And you have control of the final product. That appeals to me at my very core as a storyteller.

I no longer feel boxed in, trapped by only being able to write books and screenplays. That has allowed me to tap into the filmmaking spirit I once fostered. Graphic novels are possible and soon we'll be able to create movies worth watching once AI video improves.

What has stood in my way for two decades is being removed because I can bypass many of the roadblocks with the help of AI. While I enjoy collaborating with others, I am more than happy to work on my own as well.

Not only will it save time to create new material, but I might never have been able to afford to hire an artist to create the images for a graphic novel. With Generative AI tools, the cost and the time to create the images become manageable if time is taken to learn how to use these tools. And I have been more than happy to do that. It is much easier to learn how to use AI to create images than to learn to create the images by hand or having to shell out thousands of dollars to get someone else to help me complete my vision. Now I have total control, which may provide some dodgy results to start with, but eventually, I will become good enough to create that graphic novel. 

Tip for those wanting to create a Graphic Novel with AI: The scripts for a Graphic Novel are very similar to a screenplay, so if you have a screenplay that you want to see as a Graphic Novel AI can reformat that for you. 

The key is to have a story to tell. AI is great at images but the story should come from you. A graphics artist may say the exact opposite, which makes sense. AI can help compensate for your weakness. Mine is that my hand is not steady enough to draw or paint. 

Creating a story takes a lot longer than creating a digital painting anyway. One of my best friends is a brilliant artist. He can knock out a hundred paintings or more in the time it takes me to come up with a story, write it, edit it, and say it is done. That has always annoyed me. Not anymore. Now I can do what he does in a fraction of the time and I have both the story and the visuals to accompany it. He is not a storyteller, so I'm not sure which one of our AI-assisted works would be better.

AI can create stories, but just like with creating images you have to work with the AI to create what you need. You can't just expect it to come back with an image or a story right out of the gate that will be perfect. It may never be perfect. That is why it needs the human touch. 

As far as AI Video, it seems like we're nearly there, but then I don't know. I am not training these AI models. In the early summer of last year, I thought that we were about a year away from being able to create high-quality videos using only AI tools. I figured animated AI videos would be the first to achieve a level of quality that would be acceptable to all viewers. While I still think that is true, animated AI scenes look just as sketchy as lifelike scenes. There is a built-in threshold of forgiveness for animation because of all the differences in animation styles we have all seen in our lifetimes. Whereas lifelike images have to look 100% real across every frame or you risk losing the audience. 

People have become finicky about AI video, and that includes the best creators of AI video. I too am dismissive of most AI videos. It's all so obviously AI-generated that I can't even be bothered to watch more than a couple seconds of most of them. There are exceptions of course, but they are few and far between. 

Some Twitter accounts say that Hollywood is rattled. They are not rattled by what is being produced with just AI tools at this moment. This does make me wonder if the tools will be slow-rolled out to the public because of how much it will change things. Not to be a conspiracy monger. Lord knows we don't need more hair-brained conspiracy theories circulating out there this year. 

However, let's think about it for a moment. Once AI video is good enough storytellers like myself will be clamoring to create movies with AI. If people actually enjoy some of these movies, then Hollywood will be rattled. However, I don't think it will be the end of Hollywood.

On the contrary, Hollywood would still have most of the best creators. It's not like they won't change with the times to keep up. Things will likely just be a bit different. Maybe all the best AI TV shows and movies will be animated. Maybe lifelike AI video will take far longer to achieve. Think of how far ahead AI Images are right now. You can create anything with AI image generators. 

The public will dictate what it is willing to accept and consume. I can't see us rejecting animation entirely, but quasi-lifelike TV shows and Movies generated with AI may be a bridge too far anytime soon. AI advances have been rapid. However, they are also gradual now that we are all caught up in it waiting for the next big update. And video is a lot trickier than static images. 

Maybe with a big election coming up and Hollywood growing anxious things have been slowed towards the public. Maybe not. Who knows? Either way, we are nowhere near a lifelike movie or TV show yet. 

Having watched this space for a year, and having seen what people have attempted to create with AI, I am not sure they will all be able to tell a compelling story once we can use AI to create movies. And without a story, you might as well be pissing into the wind.

My artist friend and I have shared story ideas before. Do I think he could create a graphic novel with only AI to assist him? Yes. He would have to lean on the AI for the story part, but he'd be able to easily create the images needed. 

It does make me wonder, who benefits more from AI tools a Writer or an Artist? Surely those who had both skills before AI will benefit most. I think I have benefited a great deal as a writer who can now add images to my stories. If an artist took the time to learn how to use AI to tell a story, I could see how the artist might save more time. Because writing a story, for the most part, is more time-consuming than creating a picture. Therefore, a writer might still want to spend more time getting the story right than the artist, who may think that a story is good enough when it might still need some work. While an artist might be more inclined to ensure the images are perfect, a writer may think that an image is good enough when it still needs some work. The lack of experience may expose flaws in the finished work for both. 

I think if my artist friend and I both set out to create our own graphic novel or digital comic, the scales would just about balance out. His visuals would be better and my story would be better. However, when it comes to AI Video, I think I'd edge him on that because of my experience with both writing and directing. That is where it is clear that people who have experience in both storytelling and image creation or moviemaking will have an edge over everyone else.

Once the AI movie excitement fades people will come home from a hard day's work and the last thing they will want is to watch something just because it was created entirely by AI. The standards of storytelling will not be lowered just because anyone can create a movie. In fact, they may even be higher because of all the scrutiny. 

This is why it would be smart of those who have neither an art background nor a storytelling background, but who have learned how to create AI images and are eager to create movies using AI, to learn how to tell a story first. I have been in awe of plenty of AI images over the past year, and while an image may say a thousand words, it does not tell an entire story. 

People have gained minor fame for their static AI images over the past year. But anyone can create those images if they learn how to prompt or rewrite the prompts of others, which is a lot easier than learning to draw or write a story. It is a new type of skill. One that creates magnificent results without a need for artistic talent. I have had to learn to prompt to create the images I need. Some are just better prompters than I am. Is AI Art Real Art? That's a tough one. I have made some amazing images over the past year. However, I would not feel comfortable showing it at an Art Gallery. Though I have no problem using those images in a Graphic Novel or a Movie, once AI Video is good enough. But to each their own. I tell stories and would prefer the focus be on the stories I create, AI images and video are just another means for me to tell a story. 

We are hard-wired to need stories. So much of our lives revolve around the stories we tell one another on a daily basis. The stories we choose to consume during our downtime need to be even better than the ones we deal with all day. Commercials, news, your boss, the waiter, the mail, your friends and family. We are the stories we tell each other. An image or series of images can be seared into your mind and stir your soul, while a gripping story can captivate your heart and your mind. Combine the two effectively and you can break through all the mundane stuff in people's daily lives, capture their imagination, and help them escape their mortal confines just for a moment. It's no replacement for time spent in nature or with loved ones, but reading a good book or watching a good movie can inspire people or just entertain them.

That's what it's all about, for me at least. I write for myself so that I can get lost in a story that I would want to read or watch, but the story does not yet exist. While everyone may not want to read or watch the stories that I create, a few might. And if they take away something positive from the experience then that is a bonus. 

We do not all walk the same storytelling path. That would be boring. We all have our own paths based on our experience or lack thereof. Choose a path that works for you. Stay on that path if you like or change paths if that seems the right thing to do, just keep moving and learning along the way. Thanks for reading.