Your footer #7 teaser around attributing authorship reminded me of the recent Mel Robbins “Let Them” scandal - not the most important part, where she blatantly stole the whole premise - but the part of that story where she ended up adding her daughter to the cover as a co-author only because of social pressure. It illustrates exactly what you’re pointing to, and folks are much less conflicted assigning collaborator status to another human than to AI. What you’re fleshing out here is the language that’s missing around our assumptions and gut feelings, and could make more tangible what we’re really talking about. Good start to the topic.
Ooh good call! That may be a good example to revisit as we flesh out the concepts here. If the new concepts provide us with some additional clarity in how we feel about such a case, then they're doing their job!
Fantastic piece! This “levels of abstraction” idea is a really thoughtful and helpful way to think about why a piece is working, from the high-concept to the language-level. You’re right that a really generic-sounding plot can be an incredibly un-generic work if it’s firing away on that “low level of abstraction” voice.
And of course, thanks for summarizing my and Naomi’s approaches so well…and for harmonizing them, too. I think you’re right to ask, of my laminated examples, what then should voice be in service of? And to find the answer at that higher level of abstraction.
I’ll be following this series. Great way of thinking about stories.
Thanks Courtney, I'm glad you find the framing as illuminating as I do! Big fan of you and Naomi's work here on Substack (perhaps that's obvious) and looking forward to being part of the broader literary conversation here :)
Your footer #7 teaser around attributing authorship reminded me of the recent Mel Robbins “Let Them” scandal - not the most important part, where she blatantly stole the whole premise - but the part of that story where she ended up adding her daughter to the cover as a co-author only because of social pressure. It illustrates exactly what you’re pointing to, and folks are much less conflicted assigning collaborator status to another human than to AI. What you’re fleshing out here is the language that’s missing around our assumptions and gut feelings, and could make more tangible what we’re really talking about. Good start to the topic.
Ooh good call! That may be a good example to revisit as we flesh out the concepts here. If the new concepts provide us with some additional clarity in how we feel about such a case, then they're doing their job!
Fantastic piece! This “levels of abstraction” idea is a really thoughtful and helpful way to think about why a piece is working, from the high-concept to the language-level. You’re right that a really generic-sounding plot can be an incredibly un-generic work if it’s firing away on that “low level of abstraction” voice.
And of course, thanks for summarizing my and Naomi’s approaches so well…and for harmonizing them, too. I think you’re right to ask, of my laminated examples, what then should voice be in service of? And to find the answer at that higher level of abstraction.
I’ll be following this series. Great way of thinking about stories.
Thanks Courtney, I'm glad you find the framing as illuminating as I do! Big fan of you and Naomi's work here on Substack (perhaps that's obvious) and looking forward to being part of the broader literary conversation here :)