I generated ten premises using ChatGPT (of the form "X wants Y. But Z is in the way"), then ran them through a series of three prompts: outline, draft, revise. The outline gets the two-sentence premise and builds the outline using Holly Lisle's flash fiction method. The draft prompt gets a voice and style (derived from Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op stories by every.to's Spiral app, which includes word choice suggestions, hence all the "blooey" and "nothing stirring"). The revision prompt gets the draft and the word count, and is mostly about making sure the key to the ending is properly seeded.

Honestly, I could have done a lot better with the prompts, but optimizing the prompts felt like a bad idea, since I'd be optimizing for results on one model. So these are the prompts that Claude came up with based on my spec. Hopefully some of the stories will give you a good laugh.

The stable of models is pulled from the top twenty-ish models on OpenRouter, plus the top ten used in role-play & fiction category. Blind votes update the leaderboard using the Bradley-Terry model and Elo-style scoring (centered at 1500).

I've found the following resources helpful:

- 15 Rules For Crafting Effective GPT Chat Prompts (https://expandi.io/blog/chat-gpt-rules/)

- Awesome ChatGPT Prompts (https://github.com/f/awesome-chatgpt-prompts)

For more resources of like nature, you can search for "mega prompt".

Ha, yeah, you'll have to find your skeumorphism over there. :) That's a pretty neat achievement, I have to say.

But I don't actually want to use a typewriter, I just want to force myself to write without editing.

This looks great. I wouldn't have guessed typewriter-mode from "advanced key controls". For my use case, I needed to disallow any going back and editing. If Cold Turkey can do that, you may have yourself a new customer. :)

It's nice to know someone got the joke. :) Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

I've used every technology you mentioned there. :) Different strokes for different folks, for sure. Use what works. Don't use what doesn't.

I didn't realize it was such a long tradition! :D

Yes, I'm realizing there are four distinct mental processes to writing:

1. Planning 2. Production 3. Editing 4. Revision

Each one engages your brain in a different way. You can collapse them, but you get degraded performance when you do.

Yes. Markdown formatting was a godsend to me. Just give me the text.

Parallel invention! Do you want to be Newton or Leibniz?

I'll be honest. Your typewriter has a better enamel finish. :)

I'll take Leibniz. That said, I think the actual typewriter inventors have both of us beat by a fair amount. :)

How has the "typewriter" changed the way that you draft?

Right now I mainly use it in my morning warm-ups: I'll set a timer for five minutes and get as many words down as I can. It's taken some getting used to, but it's definitely helping me learn to Just Write. I plan to start using it for drafting my WIP soon.