Kindling

I had been asking AI to write a story.

I changed the request several times.

Make it shorter, make it longer, make it a little strange, explain less. Each time I sent a new instruction, the AI returned a text that followed it.

None of them was wrong.

But after I finished reading, I no longer knew what to ask for next.

I typed, “One more version,” then deleted it.

Instead, I sent a single line.

It was not an instruction.

It was not a title.

It was not a sentence I meant to put into the story.

The AI paused for a moment, then began writing again.

The text it returned had not suddenly become better.

This time, though, I began to see what to keep and what to change.

There were also places where I could say, not this.

After a few more exchanges, I saved the final text.

That line had not been in the saved text.

Still, I was curious, so I scrolled a little higher in the chat.

The line was still there on the screen.

Just below it, the AI had begun writing the story.

I looked at the way it led into the story for a while.

That line had not been an instruction.

Even so, it had probably been necessary.