Write a Story in the Form of a List

Remember the Rules

Same prompt

Human 15min; AI 500 words; No edits

No human creative text in the AI. Ever.

The Human

The AI

Things I Packed the Night I Left the House on Elm Street

1. One suitcase, the good one, the one without the broken wheel.
2. Six shirts, folded the way my mother taught me — in thirds, sleeves tucked, like letters meant to be mailed somewhere and never sent.
3. A photograph of the dog we had before the divorce. Not before the marriage — before the divorce. There’s a difference, and I only learned it that night.
4. The recipe for the lentil soup, handwritten, stained at the corner where the pot must have boiled over sometime in 1997.
5. Half a bottle of the good whiskey, because leaving didn’t mean I had to leave everything I liked.
6. A flashlight with dead batteries, because I kept meaning to replace them and somehow that felt important to bring, unreplaced, unfinished, mine.
7. The letter from my brother that I never answered. I told myself I’d write back once I had somewhere permanent to write from.
8. Three books I hadn’t read and one I’d read four times, which tells you something about who I actually was that year, if not who I wanted to be.
9. A jar of buttons with no matching shirts. Ellen used to say I should throw them out. I never did. I still haven’t.
10. The itemized list of things I was not packing — the piano, the ficus, the wedding china — a list I kept in my head and revised with every step down the stairs.
11. My grandfather’s level, the wooden one, though I didn’t own a single wall that needed straightening anymore.
12. A key to a door I no longer had the right to open, kept anyway, the way you keep a tooth after it falls out.
13. Forty dollars in cash, folded into a sock, because some fears are older than logic.
14. The last voicemail from my father, saved and never played, because some sounds you’re not ready to let go of and also not ready to hear.
15. A single glove. Just the left one. I don’t know where the right one went. I don’t know where a lot of things went, that year.
16. My name, which felt heavier leaving that house than it had going in, the way a coat feels heavier in the rain.
17. Nothing else. I told myself that. I stood in the doorway and told myself: nothing else, this is everything, this is enough.
18. The doorway itself, in a way — the specific slant of light through it at 6 p.m. in October — because some places don’t stay behind no matter how far you carry yourself from them.
19. A little hope, badly folded, shoved in last, the way you cram in the one thing you’re afraid won’t fit.
20. The suitcase, zipped. Heavier than it looked. Lighter than the house.

The Analysis

The first draft of my first essay my first year of college, earned the following feedback from my professor: “It sounds like it’s saying a lot…but it doesn’t actually say that much.” I learned. Quickly. Better for your essay to say something simply than sound fancy saying nothing.

I see a similar problem in this AI output. There are moments that are meant to sound profound, but simply…aren’t. Take, for example, “There’s a difference, and I only learned it that night” in reference to the difference between a dog one had before getting married and before getting divorced. Sounds deep except…who doesn’t know there’s a difference between “before getting married” and “before getting divorced”? You don’t have to be divorced to know that, you just have to know how time works and what words mean. Similarly the suitcase was “lighter than the house”…as it should be? “Leaving didn’t mean I had to leave everything I liked” is fairly obvious given that the narrator is, in fact, bringing things with them. This is a common problem in AI writing (it is also a common problem in new, young writers who are still learning how to write, as well, though, so please be mindful of someone’s career stage and dig deeper before jumping into AI accusations–we aren’t going to encourage persevering through the early stages of bad writing without AI assistance if we immediately accuse everyone of using AI when we see them make these kinds of mistakes).

Relatedly, but not quite the same, I assume we’ve all heard the comedy advice: if you have to explain the joke, it isn’t funny? Notice what the human does here that the AI largely fails to do: trust. As humans, we can rely on a shared experience between ourselves and our audience to drive meaning. The AI is relying on universals (dogs, recipes, home improvement tools, money, gloves, family member communications)–all of which are fairly accessible but generic. When we’re confined to the generic, the impulse to justify increases, because, really, what is this telling us aside from some programmed tropes about divorce stories? Humans aren’t generic tropes. Some of us were queer feminists who had a (contrary to popular assumption) wonderful time in Catholic school. This allows us to write something that resonates with a particular audience, no explanations needed. It might not mean something to everyone, but it isn’t supposed to.

And so I ask you: what is a list that only you can write?