5 ms·

Hijacking this to ask for help on my own side-project. I want to write a story to help young adults (i.e. 10-16 years old) understand how programs work, and th

Hijacking this to ask for help on my own side-project. I want to write a story to help young adults (i.e. 10-16 years old) understand how programs work, and the difference between traditional programs and machine learning. My idea is to tell it from the perspective of AIs in a computer game of Monopoly. An ML player is introduced, initially clueless, but improves between iterations until it dominates and destroys the game. The game is upgraded with an ML rulebook that returns everything to order. But I've never written a story before, and I don't know much about how ML. I'd love to get suggestions, advice, feedback, etc.

cableshaft 3y ago
It's an interesting concept, although I would argue that Monopoly is not the best choice of a game for this. Outside of 'do I buy this property', auction bidding, should I mortgage this property, or 'when/where do I buy a house', there's no decisions to be made in the game. And about half the turns (especially mid-late game) are just 'roll the dice, move, land on someone else's property, give them the money I owe'. I understand that Monopoly is super popular, but there's probably a game that would fit your story better. And this is already a computer game version you're talking about. Is there a reason why you want it to be a board game adaptation instead of a video game? Also there's a chance if you focus too much on one popular and existing and in-print game it might not fall under fair use and you could possibly get a cease and desist from Hasbro. One of the reasons why you see more shows around chess and not Monopoly, chess is in the public domain and no one is going to get sued over using it. As for learning about ML, I'd suggest taking an online course or watching some Youtube videos so you understand some details about it. The videos could inspire some ideas for plot points in the story as well. There's tons of videos/books/articles on writing also, but really for that I'd just dive in and get started, post some of it somewhere, get some feedback, and do some editing/rewriting. Maybe even get some recommendations from ChatGPT or NovelAI or something. If you're willing to critique other people's work, there's a really good website to get feedback called Critique Circle that has a quid pro quo model (you critique other people's works, get some credits, then spend them to solicit critiques for your own work). Worth checking out. Reading your story out loud is also a good trick for making sure the story sounds smooth and flows well. Good luck!
- blowski 3y ago
  Thank you, that's brilliant feedback. Good point about the licensing, I hadn't thought of that. I guess I wanted to choose a game where I don't need to spend half the book explaining the game mechanics just to get the meat of the story. I thought of Monopoly because there are some interesting loopholes an ML might try, like offering the same trade 10000 times. I suppose I could think about how this might work as a character in Age of Empires or Minecraft. I'm doing a fair bit of research on ML at the moment, though I'm mindful of not using that to procrastinate on actually writing the story. I do want the ML concepts to be necessary to moving the story forward, not just a gimmicky buzzword dropped in to make it sound technical. I'm really not sure how I'm going to do that, though - if I make it too complex, it will probably a poorly written confusing deep dive on calculus. Thanks for the recommendation of Critique Circle, I'll check that out.
Mezzie 3y ago
> I've never written a story before You need to read and write more fiction if you want to tell an effective story. Just a description of the differences isn't a story. A story usually has a plot, character development, and worldbuilding in addition to themes. You can get away with not much character development or plot, but doing so in middle-grade/YA is not really viable. A hard sci-fi book with cardboard characters can work if it's pitched at nerdy, tech-literate adults. Likewise, a book without a cohesive plot but with good characters, themes, and emotional resonance is usually pitched at adults and is enjoyed by a fraction of the audience of popular literature. A good middle-grade/YA book needs to be accessible to a population which is not well-read and that needs the scaffolding a more conventional story structure provides. Also if you've never written before, you should know that the younger your audience, the harder it is to write for the unexperienced author. Writing for an audience you're a part of (e.g sci-fi fans, romance fans, etc.) is much easier than writing for one you're not a part of. For children in particular, you need to have at least some idea of child development, appropriate vocabulary and topics, and what a child wants out of a story. 10-16 is a really wide range; I'd recommend either shooting for middle-grade (~9-12 YO) OR proper YA (14/15+ YO). There is a lot of difference between a 10 year old and a 16 year old. Most 16 year olds are not going to want to read things that are 'for babies' or that is too simple for them. Things to consider while writing: - Why should the readers care about these AIs? I think using them as POV characters is an interesting idea, but you need to develop the AIs and give them goals and things they care about. These things can be alien, but there needs to be something there that makes readers identify with/sympathize with them. Do they want to play Monopoly, for example? Or those age groups are often wrestling with realizing that the adults in their lives aren't infallible - maybe one of the AIs realizes it's poorly programmed for its objective or even (in the case of the ML AI) comes to mutually incompatible conclusions and has to come to terms with that before it self-destructs. - What are the stakes? Why do we as readers care about this Monopoly type game? - How do the characters develop over time/what lessons do they learn? Fiction isn't non-fiction - just lecturing and stating your point is boring and sloppy. (I'm looking at you, recent Orson Scott Card). You develop your themes and make your points through the lens of character development. This is less straight-forward but fiction is powerful because doing it in this way allows the lesson to embed in both the thinking brain and the emotional brain.

cableshaft 3y ago

It's an interesting concept, although I would argue that Monopoly is not the best choice of a game for this. Outside of 'do I buy this property', auction bidding, should I mortgage this property, or 'when/where do I buy a house', there's no decisions to be made in the game. And about half the turns (especially mid-late game) are just 'roll the dice, move, land on someone else's property, give them the money I owe'. I understand that Monopoly is super popular, but there's probably a game that would fit your story better. And this is already a computer game version you're talking about. Is there a reason why you want it to be a board game adaptation instead of a video game? Also there's a chance if you focus too much on one popular and existing and in-print game it might not fall under fair use and you could possibly get a cease and desist from Hasbro. One of the reasons why you see more shows around chess and not Monopoly, chess is in the public domain and no one is going to get sued over using it. As for learning about ML, I'd suggest taking an online course or watching some Youtube videos so you understand some details about it. The videos could inspire some ideas for plot points in the story as well. There's tons of videos/books/articles on writing also, but really for that I'd just dive in and get started, post some of it somewhere, get some feedback, and do some editing/rewriting. Maybe even get some recommendations from ChatGPT or NovelAI or something. If you're willing to critique other people's work, there's a really good website to get feedback called Critique Circle that has a quid pro quo model (you critique other people's works, get some credits, then spend them to solicit critiques for your own work). Worth checking out. Reading your story out loud is also a good trick for making sure the story sounds smooth and flows well. Good luck!

blowski 3y ago
Thank you, that's brilliant feedback. Good point about the licensing, I hadn't thought of that. I guess I wanted to choose a game where I don't need to spend half the book explaining the game mechanics just to get the meat of the story. I thought of Monopoly because there are some interesting loopholes an ML might try, like offering the same trade 10000 times. I suppose I could think about how this might work as a character in Age of Empires or Minecraft. I'm doing a fair bit of research on ML at the moment, though I'm mindful of not using that to procrastinate on actually writing the story. I do want the ML concepts to be necessary to moving the story forward, not just a gimmicky buzzword dropped in to make it sound technical. I'm really not sure how I'm going to do that, though - if I make it too complex, it will probably a poorly written confusing deep dive on calculus. Thanks for the recommendation of Critique Circle, I'll check that out.

Mezzie 3y ago

> I've never written a story before You need to read and write more fiction if you want to tell an effective story. Just a description of the differences isn't a story. A story usually has a plot, character development, and worldbuilding in addition to themes. You can get away with not much character development or plot, but doing so in middle-grade/YA is not really viable. A hard sci-fi book with cardboard characters can work if it's pitched at nerdy, tech-literate adults. Likewise, a book without a cohesive plot but with good characters, themes, and emotional resonance is usually pitched at adults and is enjoyed by a fraction of the audience of popular literature. A good middle-grade/YA book needs to be accessible to a population which is not well-read and that needs the scaffolding a more conventional story structure provides. Also if you've never written before, you should know that the younger your audience, the harder it is to write for the unexperienced author. Writing for an audience you're a part of (e.g sci-fi fans, romance fans, etc.) is much easier than writing for one you're not a part of. For children in particular, you need to have at least some idea of child development, appropriate vocabulary and topics, and what a child wants out of a story. 10-16 is a really wide range; I'd recommend either shooting for middle-grade (~9-12 YO) OR proper YA (14/15+ YO). There is a lot of difference between a 10 year old and a 16 year old. Most 16 year olds are not going to want to read things that are 'for babies' or that is too simple for them. Things to consider while writing: - Why should the readers care about these AIs? I think using them as POV characters is an interesting idea, but you need to develop the AIs and give them goals and things they care about. These things can be alien, but there needs to be something there that makes readers identify with/sympathize with them. Do they want to play Monopoly, for example? Or those age groups are often wrestling with realizing that the adults in their lives aren't infallible - maybe one of the AIs realizes it's poorly programmed for its objective or even (in the case of the ML AI) comes to mutually incompatible conclusions and has to come to terms with that before it self-destructs. - What are the stakes? Why do we as readers care about this Monopoly type game? - How do the characters develop over time/what lessons do they learn? Fiction isn't non-fiction - just lecturing and stating your point is boring and sloppy. (I'm looking at you, recent Orson Scott Card). You develop your themes and make your points through the lens of character development. This is less straight-forward but fiction is powerful because doing it in this way allows the lesson to embed in both the thinking brain and the emotional brain.