21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Mia Strand
Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash
As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?
The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?
From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.
The third manifesto in the series is a bit of a humanistic epistolary take on the questions we should be asking as artists from Mia Strand.
Dear Writer
Our art is a uniquely human experience, reflecting the inner workings of the soul as closely as we can humanly comprehend it. As a vehicle for self-discovery, for emotional awareness, towards an Intelligent Designer, towards purpose, art has been tethered to our search for understanding beyond what is merely seen. It is a byproduct of what is noticed amidst the humdrum. And it never ends if we pay close attention.
Artists reflect an instinctual desire to unravel what sits within, what churns behind the eyes when life’s day-to-day chatter subsides. But seeking what lies within shouldn’t be forced out. To prematurely advance a creative work of any kind is a disservice to the artist, their audience, and the art itself. And this is happening increasingly so.
A.I. programs and technology as a whole are allowing new and faster ways of making life’s endeavors convenient, but at what cost? Growth is essential to the artistic process, but when we avoid the turmoil ingrained within it, we suppress any personal transformation. Writing in particular, especially creatively, follows inefficient processes that differ from artist-to-artist. Some still write with a pen and paper, some spend years or even decades of their life writing a book, some will scrap a portion of their rough draft that they’ve spent years on. And so, writing should demonstrate the writer’s sacrifice of time and convenience for the sake of uncovering what stirs their being. They share their human experience to provoke a reaction that derives from their own emotion. Therefore, good art cannot be efficient. Good art cannot be convenient; “Good” as in “wholeheartedly expressing the human experience” type of good. And yet, technology seeks to make it so. Because A.I. programs scan large databases to gather information and then regurgitate the work of other artists, art that is A.I. assisted is only partially human, distancing the gap between what is perceived by the human conscience and the art piece. And yet, technology can still be used to create good art.
Word processing softwares make writing and fixing mistakes faster and easier, maintaining the substance of art while using technology. But programmers are creating softwares that use A.I. to generate content. For example, the A.I. writing program Sudowrite gives writer's options to fork their narrative, to add conflict points, dialogue options, etc. Programs meant to aid creatives are beginning to strip the process of creating art. Artists skip workshopping, the frustration, and produce a collage of people’s art as their own and this is what A.I. is enabling. Said artists are robbing themselves of the joy of working to accomplish something difficult and of having true ownership over their art. Good art should always be fulfilling for the artist.
So to all artists, we have a job to maintain the joy of creating. Although the arguments trying to answer “What is art?” or “Can A.I. make art?” may not ever be definitely answered, “What makes good art?” can. Encoded within us is this innate desire to find purpose and meaning in what we experience, but we must devote ourselves to our craft knowing that it will not be easy. Reminisce on your first experience with art that moved you and hold it close. As you sit down to create something, let your coffee get cold as you wrestle out the kinks. You will get tired, but the most admirable works of art are those that people have to sacrifice for. We sacrifice for what we love, so love your art, love the process even when you hate it. That is what makes good art. You cannot cheat the writing process in the same way you cannot fake the act of loving another—and if you do, someone is bound to find out eventually.
A.I. is tempting to many creators in the 21st century, but the rewards of our work are much greater otherwise. For accountability, find a community that values art in the same ways you do and stick to the process. Avoid A.I. for creating creative content and learn about how A.I. functions on a fundamental level. But above all, love what you do and let human thoughts fuel the content of your creative work.