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[mare]

Google Docs is a decent Word substitute.  I like that it saves automatically and is accessible from anywhere, so I no longer have to worry about saving docs to flash drives to move between my desktop and laptop.  The biggest downside I've encountered is that it has a word count limit.  My super long stories literally won't fit in one document on Google LOL.  But I don't even have Word anymore, so it's either that or Open Office.

Thankfully, my 4th graders are too young try using AI.  The most they do is plagiarize by copy/pasting directly from the internet, which is painfully obvious.  But I feel for teachers of older students.  I think it would be hard to detect and even harder to prove, since you can input the same prompt and get a different result each time.

The toolbar keeps popping up each time I open my story, so this time, I let it come up with a list of suggestions.  One of the suggestions was: "The sentence beginning with "The tiny bra top showed plenty of cleavage..." could be rephrased to be less sexually suggestive."  Considering that sentence was in a sex scene, I'd say being sexually suggestive was the point LOL.  It also finds my use of medical terminology in a hospital scene  "vulgar" and thinks some of my sentences are too wordy.  The last part is probably true, but otherwise, I'll take its advice with a grain of salt.

Your toolbar seems like a snob! LOL

[RokofAges75]

LOL Right?  I think it's a prude!  Cleavage... how scandalous!

[RokofAges75]

I've been trying to think of a new topic to discuss, so here are a few questions about original characters.  When you create original characters, can you picture how they look in your head?  Do you base their physical description on real people or make it more generic?  If your story were a movie, who would you want to play them?

I wrote a blog about this for my site last night, based on my realization that the woman in the new version of that annoying Jardiance commercial looks just like my Sims version of Dawn, a character from the current story I'm writing.  She is not who I picture in my head when I'm writing Dawn, but then, neither is Sim Dawn.  They do both fit the description and general look of Dawn, though.  (Side by side comparison: https://i0.wp.com/dreamers-sanctuary.com/fanfic/wp-content/uploads/dawnjardiance.jpg)  In actuality, when I was creating Dawn, I based her appearance and personality on a friend of a friend that I've only met a couple of times, like ten years ago LOL.  Inspiration comes from strange places.

That got me thinking about how some of us (not you, Mare, but definitely me LOL) used to have to find photos of celebrities or models to put in our cheesy banners.  I almost always had a look in mind for my character first and then tried to find someone that fit that look, but I wonder if some people did it the other way around.  I don't actively go looking for people to portray my characters in banners anymore, but when I describe them in my stories, I do sometimes use real people as inspiration.  For example, the other major OC in my current story is Natalie, who I imagine as looking similar to Natalie Portman, Victoria Pedretti, and Minka Kelly.  Again, I don't actually picture any one of those actresses in particular when I write her, but they all have the same type of look I had in mind for her.  But then, I have other characters that I honestly have no idea who I would "cast" to play them in a movie because I didn't base their appearance on any particular people.  I can still picture them in my head, but I don't have anyone to compare them to.