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Literary Genre Detector: a Simple AI model in Python

July 17, 2023

Literature, Programming

genre, literature, programming

My knowledge in Python is scant compared to JavaScript, though some years ago I did play with it a bit. Still, lately I’ve been interested in AI models, so I decided to give Python another go. As it turns out, it’s trivial to train some simple AI models with it. In today’s post, I’ll show you how I made a very simple literary genre detector.

AI models of this kind work in a very simple manner, conceptually speaking. They simply take as input a list of data the programmer has supplied in the form of [("love","positive"), ("care","positive"), ("hate","negative"), ("rage", "negative")] and then return guesses for a supplied string. For example, a sentence like “love, care, and blah blah” (in this extremely simple example) would be classified as positive.

As you can appreciate, it all boils down to the quality of the data – garbage in, garbage out, and all that. So, with this important caveat in mind, let’s see what a literary genre detector looks like!

Literary Genre Detector
A literary genre detector doesn’t have much to do with cookies and cat-shaped mugs, but reading does 😉
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How to Start Writing a Novel: Tips and Examples

January 30, 2023

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

book, creativity, fiction, genre, writing

Beginner as well as more advanced fiction writers often struggle with a seemingly simple question: How do you start writing a novel?

Just to be clear, I’m not referring to the textual part – that is, narrative strategies beginning a novel; its first few paragraphs. If you’re looking for that, here are 17 ways to begin a novel.

Instead, in this post I will show you tips and examples on how to start writing a novel in the sense of how to set up the foundations. In other words, in this post I will share with you the bare minimum you need to know before you even think of typing the first word.

As I often say, many people – and that includes authors – believe that a writer just “comes up with stuff” out of nothing. That’s simply not true. Writing a novel involves a subconsciously long, complex process beginning with experiences, memories, and imagination. These come before you decide to write a book.

But suppose you already have these set; you have had experiences that have fueled your imagination.

What next?

Let’s find out!

how to start writing a novel
“Writing a novel is not as hard as you think,” said Mr Whiskers
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How to Write Fantasy Fiction: Examples of Characters, Tropes, and Plots

February 28, 2022

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

book, creativity, fantasy, fiction, genre, literature, writing

As you might know, I don’t write genre fiction; I write literary fiction. My books – as you can see on the relevant page of the main site – are about “ordinary” people in “ordinary” circumstances (I let you interpret the quotation marks the way you want). However, my academic expertise is on nonrealist fictions: Gothic/horror, science fiction, fantasy. So let’s put this expertise to good use (it doesn’t seem to have its own space in the academic world) and see how to write fantasy fiction, with examples on characters, tropes and plots.

I’ll try to make this post as detailed and useful, but at the same time as accessible as possible. Personally, I’m a great fan of simplicity. I believe that if you can’t explain a concept – no matter how complex – in a way a 10-year-old could understand it, it means you haven’t fully understood it yourself.

With this in mind, here’s a quick outline of what I’ll show you in this post:

  • How to write fantasy fiction characters. In particular, what is the role of characters in fantasy fiction
  • Examples of tropes. That’s a somewhat fancy way of saying how to write fantasy fiction in a way your intended audience can relate to it. In a sense, it’s a marketing consideration, but also with artistic dimensions.
  • What kind of fantasy fiction plots are worth pursuing and what are best left alone. And why.

I don’t have all the answers. Heck, I don’t even have all the questions. But whatever I know and share with you, I genuinely hope it can help you!

how to write fantasy fiction
One misconception about how to write fantasy fiction is that fantasy allows you to write pretty much anything you want. Technically true, practically false
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